Q: Installing Python ... many problems !

[Ben Briggs]

Hi Holger,    If you could tell me a little more about your setup, I'm
almost positive I can help.    If you could please tell me what
Operating System you're using, what file you downloaded and from
where, what command you used to create the Makefile, stuff like that. 
  Here's what you should have done (Assuming Linux is you OS):   
Download the source from python.org  tar xzfv Python-2.1.tgz  cd
Python-2.1  ./configure --options-here  make  cd Modules  vim Setup 
cd ..  make  su -c make install  <type root password>  That's should
be it.