Installing a second version of an existing package

[Paul Clinch]

Derek Fountain <nomail at hursley.ibm.com> wrote in message news:<3f9de456$0$23612$5a62ac22 at freenews.iinet.net.au>...
> Is it possible to install a second version of an existing package? My SUSE
> Linux box has PIL-1.1.3 installed, and this is used by the OS for various
> tasks. It's bundled as part of a "python-imaging" package, which includes
> tkinter and other stuff. Removing it causes widespread damage!

My suse is version 8.2, I used yast to check dependencies prior to removing 
it, which reported only sketch requires python-imaging. You may have other 
packages installed, but they're hardly the OS.

> 
> I want to install PIL-1.1.4, since I need the EXIF stuff. Is it possible to
> install PIL-1.1.4 alongside PIL-1.1.3? If so, how do I go about it, and how
> do I ensure my script runs the version of the library I want?

I'm not familiar with PIL, but usually packages numbered using this form are 
upwardly compatible when the last digit, ie. minor version number changes.
So you may be able to able to ignore a warnings from the installer. Its easy to 
back up the site-packages/PIL directory prior to doing this, just in case.

If it turns out that the different versions aren't compatible, you'll have to:-
a) rename the new directory site-packages/PIL4 and change your import 
statement or,
b) install a different version of python, eg. 2.3 then install the .4 PIL into 
that site-packages directory.

Hope this makes sense, Paul Clinch