Sort of on this topic, handy hint...to maintain a couple of python versions i did this with a bash sript (/usr/local/bin/pypan.sh) called 'pypan' funnily given all the naming issues of late. This just keeps my python instance in sync with each other for when i need to migrate to 2.4 ---8<----pypan.sh-------8<-----8<----------8<-----8<----------8<-----8<----------8<-----8<----------8<----- echo "==================================================" echo "PyPAN - Python Site Packages Installer running...." echo "==================================================" echo "python23 - installing using: /usr/local/Python2.3.4/bin/easy_install.py" python23 /usr/local/Python2.3.4/bin/easy_install.py $1 echo "\n\n" echo "python24 - installing using: /usr/local/bin/easy_install.py" python24 /usr/local/bin/easy_install.py $1 ---8<----pypan.sh-------8<-----8<----------8<-----8<----------8<-----8<----------8<-----8<----------8<----- Ill probably extend this to also use wget and keep a repository of all source packages, but recall seing this functionality in easy_install itself - and since it has better dig options etc best use it i think, long term i would like to use the (-m) option by default to always maintain mutliple versions of a package, but in my first attempt this require() method described failed to import the package that i had installed multiple versions of. Ideally python itself could be extended with the functionality easy_install provides, particularly to resolve latest version when not specified, and to alllow version specification at run time.