Confused updating 2.3 to 2.4 on Linux

[Glen]

> > Being a new'ish user to both Linux and Python, I've been 'happily'
> > learning Python (2.3) with Idle and Tkinter as installed with Mandrake
> > 10.
> > All seemed to work without any errors, but starting Python from Idle
> > or a console displays the same statup text,
> >
> > 	Python 2.3.3 (#2, Feb 17 2004, 11:45:40)
> > 	[GCC 3.3.2 (Mandrake Linux 10.0 3.3.2-6mdk)] on linux2
> >
> > 'which python' shows /usr/bin/python, and this file has not been updated
> >
> > Is there something else I should do?
> 
> The default install location for python is /usr/local, not /usr. You
> can change your PATH so that /usr/local/bin precedes /usr/bin, and
> then you'll get the new Python.
> 
> BTW, installing a new python doesn't "completely replace" the old
> python on Unix systems. Python installs everything but one file in
> directories that include the version number, so that people (mostly
> developers) can keep multiple versions around with no problem. The one
> exception is bin/python, which is a hard link to the last python you
> installed.
> 
> If you look, you'll find /usr/lib/python2.3, /usr/include/python2.3,
> /usr/local/lib/python2.4, /usr/local/include/python2.4,
> /usr/bin/python2.3, /usr/local/bin/python2.3, /usr/bin/python (the
> same as /usr/bin/python2.3) and /usr/local/bin/python (which is the
> same as /usr/local/bin/python2.4).
> 
> If you want, you can rebuild python with:
> 
>    ./configure --prefix=/usr
>    make install
> 
> and it will put the directories in parallel with the old ones, instead
> of putting them in /usr/local.
> 
>    <mike

Thanks Mike, that's great