[Python-bugs-list] Python 1.6a1 - installation report (PR#263)

[guido@python.org]

> > There is reason to this (plus I don't like being told to follow the GNU
> > guidelines -- Python is not GNU software :-).
> 
> I do not perceive Python as GNU software.  I even confess this is part of
> my interest.  After more than 12 years of intense work for the FSF by pure
> dedication, I'm now trying to widen my horizons, get out of my own mini-ivory
> tower, back in the big land, and participate to non-FSF free software.

Note the smiley in my message :-)

> However, when an idea is good, it should not be dismissed on the sole
> premise that the FSF likes it.  They are not _always_ wrong! :-).

And I didn't say that.

> > In your case, it seems that /usr/local/stow did not exist; is this correct?
> 
> `/usr/local/stow' existed, but `/usr/local/stow/python-1.6a1' did not.
> This is why the installation failed.

And you specified /usr/local/stow/python-1.6a1 as the (exec_)prefix,
right?  I don't know enough about stow to know if this is reasonable;
basically, it seems you'll be using a different prefix for each
version of each app then.  This is not the assumption that the install
script makes, and I think this is why it failed.

> I do all local installations here,
> through a big script automating them (which I wrote in Python :-).  I easily
> modified that script for repairing the above problem on the fly: so it
> is not a problem anymore for me.  However, it might be for anybody else
> using Stow, or Stow-like installations, so I think it was worth reporting,
> and probably worth correcting.

Excuse my innocence, but perhaps you can explain in a few sentences
how Stow works then?  This certainly hasn't come up with Linux
installs before, so I wonder what is special about Stow, and what kind
of problems it is trying to solve that makes it important for me to
deal with it.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)