[Distutils] Building Python (Re: An observation on how system packagers and developers can be friends)

[Jim Fulton]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 6:08 PM, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:
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> On 10/28/2010 05:54 PM, Benji York wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:
>>> Heh, "untar + CMMI into a non-system prefix" works for me. ;)
>>
>> +1 with the small addition of "after making sure the dev dependencies Python
>> sniffs out to build modules for (zlib, crypto bits, etc.) are available."
>
> Heh, agreed.  That bites me on about every third machine I set up for
> the first time.

An advantage of automating building of clean Python's with system
packaging tools
is that you can make sure the sane dependencies are present. My clean Python
RPM spec file lists the libraries I need before a build, so I can't
accidentally build a
crippled Python due to forgotten libraries. Of course, you also end up
with a binary package that is quicker to install on similar hosts than
building on
each host.

It would be nice if Python's standard build required more dependencies and
had options to turn them off is desired, rather than sniffing to tell
whether they
are there  and silently building badly.

Jim

-- 
Jim Fulton