Broken Python 2.6 installation on Ubuntu Linux 8.04

[Christian Heimes]

Benjamin Kaplan wrote:
> Extensions written in C must be recompiled for every version of
> Python. Since you're using a version of Python not available through
> the package manager, your packages are also not available through
> that. You'll have to download the sources for those and compile them
> by hand to. This is why most people stick with the precompiled
> binaries.

As far as I remember you can use the Debian build system to create
binaries for your Python version. You have to add Python 2.6 to
/usr/share/python/debian_defaults and recompile the desired packages
with "apt-get -b python-yourmodule". This should generate one to several
deb files. Install them with "dpkg -i filename.deb". It's all documented
in /usr/share/doc/python/python-policy.txt.gz, read the file with zless.

By the way you mustn't install your own Python with "make install", use
"make altinstall"! Your /usr/local/bin/python binary masks the original
python command in /usr/bin. You should remove all /usr/local/bin/py*
binaries that do not end with 2.6. Otherwise you may and will break
existing programs on your system.

Christian