[Python-Dev] OS X Installer for 3.0.1 and supported versions

[Russell E. Owen]

In article <nad-34F90E.03222214022009 at news.gmane.org>,
 Ned Deily <nad at acm.org> wrote:

> Speaking of an OS X installer for 3.0.1, over the last few weeks I have 
> been working on tidying up the OS X installer build process.  While the 
> basic OS X build/installer process is good, some cruft has accumulated 
> over the past years and a number of mostly minor issues arose due to the 
> 3.x split.  IMO, the most important issues were with IDLE and, thanks to 
> Ronald, we did get the most important fixes for OS X IDLE checked-in in 
> time for 3.0.1; they are also in py3k and will be going into trunk and 
> 26.  I have a few other fixes that apply just to the OSX build/installer 
> parts which did not get submitted in time for the 3.0.1 cutoff but which 
> are ready to go for 3.x and 2.x.  Basically they fix some version number 
> updating and ensure that the installer image will be built reproducibly 
> in a clean environment so there is no contamination of the installer 
> images.  Currently, that's easy to do as happened with the first round 
> of the OS X 2.6 installer (e.g. with a locally installed Tcl/Tk). 

I want to follow up on this a bit. In the past if the Mac Python 
installer was built on a machine that did NOT have a locally installed 
Tcl/Tk then it would fail to work with a locally installed Tcl/Tk: 
Python would segfault when trying to use Tkinter.

The solution was to build the Mac python installer on a machine with a 
locally installed Tcl/Tk. The resulting installer package would work on 
all systems -- with or without locally installed Tcl/Tk.

So...has this problem been worked around, or is the Mac installer still 
built on a machine that has a locally installed Tcl/Tk?

I haven't run Python 2.6 yet because there is no release of numpy that 
is compatible. I did try upgrading from 2.5.2 to 2.5.4 and got a 
segfault when trying to display images using PIL and Tkinter; I have not 
had time to try to track that down, so I've just reverted for now.

Most people who makes serious use of Tkinter presumably have a locally 
installed Tcl/Tk because the version that Apple provides is ancient and 
is missing many important bug fixes and performance enhancements.


Also, a somewhat related issue: Tcl/Tk 8.4 is no longer maintained. All 
development work is going on in Tcl/Tk 8.5. Presumably Apple will 
transition one of these days, and at that point we may need a separate 
Mac Python installer for the older operating systems vs. the newer.

-- Rusell