Creating an application for Linux

[lkcl]

On Jan 1, 4:44 pm, Mike Driscoll <kyoso... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 1, 7:47 am,lkcl<luke.leigh... at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 31 2008, 9:54 pm, Mike Driscoll <kyoso... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Dec 31, 3:36 pm,lkcl<luke.leigh... at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > hiya mike: where do i know you from?  i've heard your name somewhere
> > > > and for the life of me can't remember where!  anyway... onwards.
>
> > > I don't know...while your username looks vaguely familiar, I don't
> > > think I've communicated with you recently. I spend most of my time on
> > > the wxPython list now...
>
> >  i think it might be from my old school - i could be confusing you
> > with
> >  someone, though - "gary driscoll", perhaps? anyway, never mind :)
>
> > > > testing: you should really use a debootstrap absolute "basic"
> > > > environment (set up a chroot, or a virtual KVM or other virtual PC,
> > > > qemu, whatever, or even a real machine) do NOT do a "full" install of
> > > > ubuntu, do an absolute minimalist install (netbook, businesscard,
> > > > whatever).
>
> > > I thought the general practice was to test on the closest software/
> > > hardware combo that your application was most likely to run on.
>
> >  that you should do as well :)  you should be able to either upgrade
> >  the bare-bones version using "tasksel install desktop" or just...
> >  what-the-heck, install on a vanilla combo.
>
> >  http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid/main/installer-i386/c...
>
> >  archive.ubuntu.com appears offline at the moment - maybe it'll be
> > back later.  i recommend you go for the mini.iso
>
> Ok...thanks for the info!
>
> > > I have
> > > heard of doing testing on the lowest common denominator before though.
> > > Unfortunately, I don't have time to set up a bare-bones VM since we're
> > > closing soon, but I may give this a go on Friday and report back.
>
> >  ok - the issue that you will face if you _don't_ do a LCD test is
> > that
> >  should ubuntu get upgraded, and one of the packages that _used_ to
> > pull
> >  in a dependency [that you missed] no longer does so...
>
> I see. I had hoped that there was a way to create a frozen application
> like I do with py2exe on Windows so I wouldn't have to worry about a
> Linux upgrade breaking my application. I've been told that

 ok - to do _that_, you will have to download copies of every single
library that your app uses, compile them specially into a customised
location (/opt/local or /usr/local); you will have to then make sure
that PYTHONPATH environment variable is set to point to the
locations.  from a random manual somewhere:

The PYTHONPATH variable can be set to a list of paths that will be
added to the beginning of sys.path. For example, if PYTHONPATH is set
to "/www/python:/opt/py", the search path will begin with ['/www/
python', '/opt/py']. (Note that directories must exist in order to be
added to sys.path; the site  module removes paths that don't exist.)

having multiple copies of python libraries on your system was exactly
the thing that i recommended that you _not_ do :)

because you _still_ have to install them, and the process to do _that_
easily, on ubuntu, is "apt-get install" - so why bother duplicating
that effort?

path of least resistance says "go with the debian flow".  well... it
does in my book, anyway :)

l.