How To Kill a Python

[Erik Max Francis]

Ben Ocean wrote:

> I continually run into problems adding new software to my server that
> is
> dependent on Python because I have 2 versions, one of which is
> completely
> unnecessary; namely, 1.5.2. I want to kill it, or at least make it so
> that
> when Python is called it automatically calls 2.1 instead of 1.5.2, but
> I
> don't want to screw anything else up on the server. How should I go
> about this?

You don't say what operating system you're using.  If it's UNIX-like,
just remove execute privileges on the old executable.  Under UNIX-like
systems, Python is pretty clean about where it installs stuff.  It
should install /usr/local/bin/pythonX.Y, /usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y, and
additionally /usr/local/bin/python, which is just a copy of the first. 
It's easy to keep multiple ones around by keeping, say, python1.5 and
python2.1 and maintaining /usr/local/bin/python as a symbolic link to
whichever one you want to run by default.  That way you can run `python'
to get the latest, or `python1.5' to deliberately get an old version.

These all assume your configure prefix was /usr/local; adjust
accordingly if you chose something else.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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