Installation of multiple versions of Python on Unix

[Lee Harr]

In article <slrnan2qoe.5hi.gerhard.haering at lilith.my-fqdn.de>, Gerhard
Häring wrote:
> Lee Harr wrote in comp.lang.python:
>> I have a very similar setup on a FreeBSD server (Zope still at 2.4.X tho
>> as I have not had a chance to upgrade yet)
>> 
>> I just leave /usr/local/bin/python as a hard link to
>> /usr/local/bin/python2.1 and run the other as /usr/local/bin/python2.2
> 
> Any reason not to use a symbolic link? Any reason to use a hard link
> for anything, ever? I never needed one.
> 

Not sure... that is the way the port does it, so I just
did the same thing. If it were me I would probably have
just used a symlink, but I figured there must be some reason.


>> One issue is building ports.
> 
> Erh. Really? <0.8 wink>
> 
>> Whenever I want to build a port to go with 2.2 (like I just added
>> twisted python, for instance) I will change the plain python to link
>> to python2.2 before I make and make install, then switch it back
>> when I am done. That has no impact on the running Zope at all.
> 
> For the ports you want to build, use:
> 
> $ make PYTHON_VERSION=python2.1
> 
> to use the FreeBSD ports system instead of working around it ;-)
> 
> Look into /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.python.mk for why this works :-)
> 

Thanks. That should be much easier :o)