Future of the Python Linux Distribution

[Andrew M. Kuchling]

m.faassen at vet.uu.nl (Martijn Faassen) writes:
> Konrad Hinsen <hinsen at cnrs-orleans.fr> wrote:
> > All I can say is that I have profited a lot from it. Sure, I got a
> > Python installation with RedHat 6.1, but not with all the nice add-on
> > packages which I use.
> 
> I think the distutils should be able to help a lot here. Once they
> are mature enough, you should be able to easily install most add-ons
> through those.

In fact, there are already patches floating around to add a bdist_rpm
Distutils command that builds an RPM file.  They're not yet included
in the CVS tree, but the capability is so attractive that they'll
probably be accepted eventually.  Gregor Hoffleit has speculated about
building Debian's .deb packages in the same manner, but there are some
technical issues that need to be fixed first -- supporting the full
power of Debian's dependency tracking is apparently hard.

Anyway, so I'd hope that, before too long, building RPMs of Python
extensions would be very easy, so that no one would have to maintain a
separate python4linux porting effort.  Maybe someday there could be a
service that automatically grabbed packages from Parnassus and built
RPMs from them.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/
  "I don't think you can fit under the bed."
  "Oh, there are some ladies who'd tell you otherwise."
  -- Stanley and Ambrose Bierce in STANLEY AND HIS MONSTER #3