New Installation

[Joal Heagney]

Ben Ocean wrote:
> 
> Hi;
> For some reason I can't build the latest stable python on my RH62 server
> with the rpm (if complains of dependencies, but they're installed). So, I
> resorted to the tar file and did tar, ./configure, make, make install.
> Everything appeared to go perfectly until I typed python into the command
> line. Up popped 1.5.2 What did I do wrong?
> BenO

The other illustrious members of this group have explained where you can
find python. As Roman has stated, python tar builds into /usr/local
rather than /usr by default. Follow Roman's advice about --prefix=/usr,
but when you get to the step where it says to:

make install
make altinstall instead.

Then follow Ignacio's advice about using python2.1 instead of python.

The bit I want to add is about why you're having trouble with
dependencies. Yes you've got the dependencies installed, but you may not
have the right (read up-to-date enough) versions! Additionally, there
will be some packages that depend rather heavily on a particular version
of python - you'll have the most trouble with them. Examples are
extensions to python such as rpm-python, tkinter, pygtk etc.
It is possible to sort this out, but it's less hassle to use an
altinstall that leaves your system python unharmed.
-- 
      Joal Heagney is: _____           _____
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