installing python on a server?

[Rene Pijlman]

John Salerno:
>Can anyone tell me how complicated it might be to install Python on my 
>server so I can use it for web apps?

2 on a scale from 1 to 10.

>Is it a one-time process, or something to maintain?

Both :-)

I installed Python 2.2 - 2.4 from source on Linux with no problem
whatsoever. I now plan about 5 minutes installation time per new release,
that's 2 minutes to make coffee, 2 minutes to skim the release notes and
README and 1 minute to watch ./configure; make; make install do it's
magic.

There are some details to watch out for, such as having the required
libraries and include files around before installation, to enable specific
functionality (e.g. SSL support in socket). But that's no big deal.

-- 
René Pijlman