What a mess!

[Alex Martelli]

Thomas Weholt wrote:

> Perhaps not what you want to hear, but if you're not a fanatic RedHat-user
> you might want to try Mandrake Linux instead. The latest version, 9.0, has
> Python 2.2.1, Emacs/XEmacs and VIM with python-mode installed and much
> more. Very up to date. Never had any trouble with it and it's a breeze to
> install ( at least in my experience ).
> 
> I find it a very python-friendly linux-distro and a good development
> platform.

Mandrake is what I use too -- but not because of the excellence of
their Python RPM's.  Better than RedHat's used to be back when RH
was stuck in 1.5.2-land, of course, but friends who use Mandrake
and install Python from RPM's keep hitting silly little issues such
as the distutils not working properly unless you also install
libpython*-devel -- thus clearly showing that the RPMs have been
badly architected (distutils SHOULD work properly for everybody,
as they're the main way to install all sorts of extensions -- whatever
they mean by splitting off '-devel' it can't be "anybody who ever
needs to install extensions", or at least, IMHO, it shouldn't).

I install from sources and recommend any Linux user who asks to
also install from sources -- this goes for Python as well as for
any other program I always WANT to be up-to-date on (such as VIM).
RPM's and the like are fine for most stuff (where you're quite
happy to stick with some older stable release) but IMHO not
optimal for those parts.  Don't get me wrong, I'll stick with
Mandrake AND do their 9.0 upgrade too -- but their Python RPM's
are not perfect IMHO (or at least weren't up to Mdk 8.2 -- have
not gotten 9.0 yet).


Alex