Question about installing python and modules on Red Hat Linux 6

[Steven D'Aprano]

pythonista wrote:

> I am developing a python application as a contractor.
> 
> I would like to know if someone can provide me with some insight into the
> problems that then infrastructure team has been having.
> 
> The scope of the project was to install python 2.7.8 and 4 modules/site
> packages on a fresh linux build.

A "fresh linux build" of Red Hat Linux 6? RHL 6 was discontinued in 2000.
That's *at least* 14 years old. Why on earth are you using something so old
instead of a recent version of RHEL, Centos or Fedora?

The supported version of Python for RHL 6 was Python 1.5. (That's *one*
point five.) I'm not surprised that they had trouble installing Python 2.7
on something that old, especially if you needed support for optional but
important features like tkinter, ssh, readline, curses, etc.

I haven't tried it, so it is possible that installing 2.7 from source on
such an old Linux system will actually be trivially easy and need only half
an hour's work. But I wouldn't bet on it. I would expect all sorts of
difficulties, due to the age difference between RHL 6 and the Python 2.7. 

As for the four modules, that depends. If they are extension modules written
in C, who knows how hard it will be to get them working under RHL 6. And
even if they are pure Python modules, depending on how old they are, they
may be difficult to get working with something as new as Python 2.7.

Without more details of what the modules are and what errors the
infrastructure team experienced, there is no way to tell whether four weeks
to get this working was a heroic effort or a sign of utter incompetence.



-- 
Steven