Distributing Python Apps on Linux\BSD

[Diez B. Roggisch]

PurpleServerMonkey schrieb:
> On Mar 22, 2:26 am, Miki <miki.teb... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on the subject.
>>
>>> Setuptools and friends seem to be focused on distributing modules, I'm
>>> at the other end of the scale where I want to distribute an entire
>>> application so that an Administrator can run a single install and have
>>> a fully operational product. A key requirement is that I want the
>>> application to fit in with what and admin would expect an application
>>> to look like at the system level i.e site-packages like structures
>>> aren't suitable.
>> You do that with distutils as well.
>>
>>> So far I've thought of using a configure script and make which would
>>> call some custom python installer script to do the actual install. It
>>> fits in nicely with what I want to achieve but are there any better
>>> options out there, how are others doing the same thing?
>> Every distro flavor has it's own installer: apt/deb, rpm, port, ...
>> On Windows you can use one of the free installer (InnoSetup and
>> friends).
>>
>> HTH,
>> --
>> Miki <miki.teb... at gmail.com>http://pythonwise.blogspot.com
> 
> Well I'm not really interested in rpms or deb packages right now, I
> want to get it to the point where it will run on BSD and Linux without
> using distribution specific tools. Using a tarball or the standard
> python tools would be best.
> 
> The problem is all the documentation surrounding distutils and
> setuptools refers to modules, now I'm not sure why but it seems most
> Python developers think an application is the same thing as a module.
> Unless you are writing very small applications that's definitely not
> the case.
> 
> So I guess the question is, using distutils or setuptools is it
> possible for a user to select where to install the application i.e /
> usr/local?
> If not then I think it's going to be tarball deployment with a custom
> setup script, was hoping there was a better way.

You should start reading the setuptools-documentation, especially the 
section about entry-points. And yes, you can set the install-prefix.

If you have a sysadmin who knows how to read a README, it can't get 
simpler than

python setup.py install

(with proper rights of course)

If he has no setuptools installe, put the ez_setup.py script together 
into your distribution, then it becomes

python ez_setup.py
python setup.py install


Unfortunately there is one caveat: the distros rip out distutils and 
Python-header into a separate -dev-package. Make sure to instruct the 
admin to install these.

Diez