Error setting sys.path & friends on RedHat Linux 5.2, Python 1.5.1?

[Charles G Waldman]

Skip Montanaro writes:
 > I recently upgraded to RedHat 5.2.  It comes with Python 1.5.1 in
 > /usr/bin.  Coincidentlly, I have Python 1.5.1 installed in
 > /usr/local/bin, with all the attendant directories in /usr/local/lib.  I
 > don't want to mix the two so as not to break anything the RH folks might
 > rely on.

IMHO you are making your life more difficult trying to maintain two
installations of python.  I recently installed RH6.0 and put Python
1.5.2 on top of that without problems.  Just do 

configure --prefix=/usr

make sure you build with Tkinter turned on

and go ahead and install it over the RedHat preinstalled Python 1.5.1

At least on RedHat 6.0 (can't speak for 5.2) all of RedHats Python
addons are in /usr/lib/python1.5/site-packages, so it's safe to
install 1.5.2 right over the 1.5.1 that's already installed.  If
you're the cautious type you might back up your /usr/lib/python1.5
directory first.