[BangPypers] Updating Python 2.3.4 to 2.6.1 on RHEL 4

[Ashutosh Narayan]

Hi,

I wrote a script that involves "subprocess" module ; and when I ran it
on  a production server I found that due to older version of Python 2.3.4
my script failed to execute.

I have the following python version on one of the RedHat servers.
Python 2.3.4 (#1, Feb 18 2008, 17:17:04) 
[GCC 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-9)] on linux2

Now, the concern is of updating Python version to 2.6.1 w/o effecting
other things eg: system-config-* on RedHat machine which are dependent 
on current Python version 2.3.4

So far I have downloaded the source tar ball, untarred it and NOT yet executed -
./configure --prefix=/opt where I want it to land. Can I now run make, make install ?

Any inputs on whether this is the right way to do withoutoverriding current default Python ?

Thank you,


~ Ashutosh Narayan