2.3 or 2.4 on linux

[Sells, Fred]

We are in the process of standardizing ~10 Linux servers on Lineox 4.x,
which is a variant of RedHat Enterprise server I'm told. Part of that
process is to standardize python.

The baseline install includes python 2.3 which is adequate, but I would like
to standardize on 2.4.1, because it is the latest and greatest and has a few
modules that would be nice to have. I installed python 2.4.1 ok, creating
a python24 directory alongside the pyhton23 directory. The problems started
when I tried to install MySQLdb.

My problem is that all the rpm installs seem to impact the 2.3 that's there.
When I check the 2.3 site-packages directory, I find alot of goodies like

Alchemist.py kudzu.py rpmdb
authconfigmodule.so rpmmodule.so CacheBlackBox.py libusermodule.so
_snackmodule.so
mod_python snack.py CompatMysqldb.py mx
CompatMysqldb.pyc MySQLdb FileBlackBox.py _mysql_exceptions.py
URLBlackBox.py
ForgeBlackBox.py _mysql.so xf86config.py ForgeBlackBox.pyo
pyalchemist_python.py
_xmlplus
ixf86configmodule.so

I assume some system tools must use them, even if I don't. I don't know if
I can just copy all this into the 2.4 site-packages (deleting .pyc and .pyo)
and get what I need.

I'm not a sysadmin hotshot, and our sysadmin is not a python hotshot, so
between us we can really screw up a system. We would really like to stick
with either apt-get or rpm installs to keep our sysadmin issues under
control. Has anyone hit this wall already and found a reasonable solution?.

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[Paul Watson]

Sells, Fred wrote:

We are in the process of standardizing ~10 Linux servers on Lineox 4.x,
which is a variant of RedHat Enterprise server I'm told. Part of that
process is to standardize python.

The baseline install includes python 2.3 which is adequate, but I would like
to standardize on 2.4.1, because it is the latest and greatest and has a few
modules that would be nice to have. I installed python 2.4.1 ok, creating
a python24 directory alongside the pyhton23 directory. The problems started
when I tried to install MySQLdb.

My problem is that all the rpm installs seem to impact the 2.3 that's there.
When I check the 2.3 site-packages directory, I find alot of goodies like

Alchemist.py kudzu.py rpmdb
authconfigmodule.so rpmmodule.so CacheBlackBox.py libusermodule.so
_snackmodule.so
mod_python snack.py CompatMysqldb.py mx
CompatMysqldb.pyc MySQLdb FileBlackBox.py _mysql_exceptions.py
URLBlackBox.py
ForgeBlackBox.py _mysql.so xf86config.py ForgeBlackBox.pyo
pyalchemist_python.py
_xmlplus
ixf86configmodule.so

I assume some system tools must use them, even if I don't. I don't know if
I can just copy all this into the 2.4 site-packages (deleting .pyc and .pyo)
and get what I need.

I'm not a sysadmin hotshot, and our sysadmin is not a python hotshot, so
between us we can really screw up a system. We would really like to stick
with either apt-get or rpm installs to keep our sysadmin issues under
control. Has anyone hit this wall already and found a reasonable solution?.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The information contained in this message may be privileged and / or
confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is
not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination,
distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you
have received this communication in error, please notify the sender
immediately by replying to this message and deleting the material from any
computer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since you have two versions of Python on the machine, which one is first
in the execution path? What is the output of the 'python -V' command?

You might also try 'which python' or 'whence python' commands.

[Lonnie Princehouse]

> I assume some system tools must use them, even if I don't. I don't know if

I can just copy all this into the 2.4 site-packages (deleting .pyc and .pyo)
and get what I need.

Copying pure python site-packages from python23 to python24 should be
safe, but the binaries (.so) will not work because they're linked to
libpython2.3.so. If you're determined to stick to RPMs, you will need
to find an RPM that is built specifically for Python 2.4 for any
package that involves a C extension (e.g. mysqldb).

RedHat does use some Python scripts internally, so you will want to
make sure that everything it needs is present in the new installation
before you switch /usr/bin/python to 2.4.