Linux Dependencies! Grrr...What now?

[Cedric Adjih]

H. P. Friedrichs <" HPeter.Friedrichs"@alliedsignal.com> wrote:
> While I have having successfully written some scripts for python 1.4 (on
> my rh5.0 linux box), and successfully installing mysql, I have been
> trying for a week to figure out how to get the mysqldb module to work
> (to allow python to talk to mysql).

> First, I found out that mysqldb will only work with python 1.5.2...which
> necessitated an upgrade. Dependencies! Dependencies! I ended up
> installing python, python-devel, blt, tix _tkinter and tkinter. (I've
> been warned that as the result of my upgrade, I have now "broken"
> netcfg, but I'll deal with that on another day.)

> Now I go to install mysqldb, and it complains, among other things, of
> missing files and directories. Looks like I need mysql-devel.
> Dependencies! Dependencies!

> I go to the web and find it. I try to install the rpm, and it won't. It
> seems I need glibc6 (2.0 and 2.1). But what about everything compiled
> with the existing library? What happens if I "upgrade" to glibc6? What
> do I risk breaking by doing that?

  I don't know. Installing newer libraries on a older system seems
prone to lead to upgrade escalation. The only solution I found
pratical is to have a /usr/local or /home/<login>/External, and to
recompile every development tool/library that doesn't work out of the box
with --prefix=/home/<login>/External (gtk, glib, swig, wxWindows, PIL,
wxgtk...), and some proper LD_LIBRARY_PATH/PATH settings.

  If it is possible, just take the source rpms, extract them, and
try to compile manually.
Sorry I can't help more.

-- Cedric