[Python-3000] Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

Mike Meyer mwm at mired.org
Sat Feb 9 07:35:13 CET 2008


On Fri, 8 Feb 2008 18:45:35 -0800 "Dj Gilcrease" <digitalxero at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 5, 2008 10:24 PM, Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> wrote:
> > Sure, there are *lots* of ways the user can screw up the system as
> > root. Doing a default python install from source is *not* one of them,
> > no matter what it does with those symlinks. If you know of a system
> > where things are otherwise, please warn me about it now.
> Ubuntu will screw up if you login as root and build a newer python
> version then 2.2. You wont be able to use it's GUI package installer
> and other issues.

Are you sure? The default Python install prefix is /usr/local.  Ubuntu
(at least on the admittedly aged system I have here) puts the system
python in /usr/bin. So that default python install shouldn't break the
system tools, providing they run the right python. For that matter,
even on this relatively old Ubuntu, they've got a 2.4 version
installed.

Of course, once you've got more than one python installed on the
system, chances are good that some - and possibly all - of your
scripts will break if you run them on the wrong python. But even if
the scripts run the default python (and system scripts shouldn't), the
above can be fixed by tweaking the environment - and root's
environment on my box is right.

    Thanks,
    <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.


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