[Distutils] ez_setup 0.6a7 crashes on Python2.3, AMD64, Debian linux

[Andrew Straw]

Hi, on a just-installed Debian sarge AMD64 installation, I have the
following behavior, which looks similar to the issue discussed here:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2005-September/056955.html

(Like the author of that message, I have also downloaded setuptools from
CVS, and also get an OverflowError.)

Any idea why setuptools doesn't seem to be running on my platform?

$ uname -a
Linux hdmg 2.6.14 #1 SMP Tue Nov 1 23:42:27 PST 2005 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ python
Python 2.3.5 (#2, Sep  9 2005, 21:37:55)
[GCC 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import ez_setup
>>> ez_setup.use_setuptools()

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This script requires setuptools version 0.6a7 to run (even to display
help).  I will attempt to download it for you (from
http://cheeseshop.python.org/packages/2.3/s/setuptools/), but
you may need to enable firewall access for this script first.
I will start the download in 15 seconds.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Downloading
http://cheeseshop.python.org/packages/2.3/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6a7-py2.3.egg
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "ez_setup.py", line 80, in use_setuptools
    import setuptools; setuptools.bootstrap_install_from = egg
OverflowError: signed integer is greater than maximum