[Distutils] question about setuptools

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 04:44 PM 9/13/2005 -0700, Robert Kern wrote:
>Phillip J. Eby wrote:
>
> > See:
> >
> > 
> http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/python/python/nondist/sandbox/setuptools/EasyInstall.txt?rev=HEAD&view=auto
> >
> > under "Non-Root Installation" for details of the best way to do this; it
> > may require a slight adjustment to your layout, but it will then allow you
> > to use .pth files in your home-based setup.  You will have to clear out
> > your --home setup from .pydistutils.cfg, though.
>
>Do you think it might be possible for ez_setup.py and easy_install.py to
>interpret the --home and --prefix options sensibly?

They already respect these options.  The problem is that Python's 'site' 
module will *only* recognize .pth files in a very limited number of places, 
which means that installing setuptools itself won't work with those options.


>  Two people I've
>tried to convert to setuptools work exclusively on Linux with non-root
>installations. --prefix was the first thing they tried because it's the
>standard way for distutils to do this kind of thing. I suspect many
>other people will do the same.

--prefix only makes sense if you've set things up the way shown on the page 
above, and if you set it up that way, you won't need --prefix.  I realize 
the situation sucks, but unfortunately I'm not the one who made it suck, 
and am not in a position to fix it.  Guido previously vetoed Bob Ippolito's 
proposal for more sane .pth processing on platforms other than Mac.