Python-list Digest, Vol 14, Issue 377

[Jamie Saker]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:05:14 -0500, "Eric S. Johansson" <esj at harvee.org> 
wrote:
> If I could simply do: py-get twisted

And I forgot to mention, the Gentoo 'emerge' tool is actually written in 
Python, so in a sense, your py-get is already there in Gentoo.

From the header of /usr/bin/python:

#!/usr/bin/python -O
# Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-src/portage/bin/emerge,v 1.347 2004/10/21 
20:54:38 carpaski Exp $

Gentoo is a rather enjoyable distro for Python work. Most Python packages are 
an emerge away: twisted, zope (including zope3), bsddb, mysql & postgresql 
interfaces, python-ldap, pyparsing and many others. 

A few to make Gentoo more enjoyable:

1. standardize on a kernel (e.g. I use hardened-dev-sources for servers and 
gentoo-dev-sources for workstations - all 2.6 kernels,) This simplifies 
maintenance and opens up distcc for you (which will be handy if you have a 
few systems that will be running Gentoo and want to speed up source builds). 
You'll need a common kernel and gcc version in order to not have distcc 
issues.

2. read up on USE= flags. It simplifies dependencies significantly, but you 
want to make sure you're using it to its fullest, not leaving out important 
options or including everything and the kitchen sink. For instance, if you're 
not using ipv6, don't bother - including this in your USE= statement will 
slow down source builds significantly for no benefit (not to mention some 
bloat and potentially some security issues for unmonitored capabilities e.g. 
enabling samba USE without discretion).

3. set your ACCEPT_KEYWORDS = 'x86' (assuming intel/x86) to back off minor 
version builds. of course, if you need bleeding edge packages, you may have 
to use ~x86. x86 is the "stable" setting. 

4. for help, forums.gentoo.org is useful (though the search engine is rather 
lacking imho)

Having started with two 5.25's in 1993, I've been a die-hard user of SLS, 
Slackware, Redhat, Debian and now Gentoo. You'll hear plenty of distro war 
stuff and certainly every tool has its pros/cons. For python, if you haven't 
given Gentoo a look, check it out...

Jamie