How to configure and install Python

[John Hunter]

>>>>> "Ken" == Ken Jacobs <tekwrite at mindspring.com> writes:

    Ken> Hi all, I ended up re-installing Linux as somehting got
    Ken> trashed and it would not boot up anymore. I took John's
    Ken> advice and used the Workstation option even though this is on
    Ken> a laptop. The GOOD news is that thanks to all this great help
    Ken> I got the Python installed. The BAD news is that at the
    Ken> command line when I type Python, it still shows version 1.5.2
    Ken> even after a re-boot (I installed the latest version 2.2a3, I
    Ken> think). Any clues? The new version is in a directory below
    Ken> /user/src. Does it have something to do with the PATH?

You need to do 'make install' after the configure statement.  After
that, the old version of python will still be in /usr/bin and the new
version will be in /usr/local/bin.  You don't want to remove the old
version, because some of the linux apps (like netcfg) depend on it and
may not work with python 2.1.

You can do /usr/local/bin/python to start the new version.  Many
people add /usr/local/bin to their path before /usr/bin.  Something
like:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin/:/usr/X11R6/bin/

in your bash config files (~/.bashrc I think; I don't use bash).

Good luck,
John Hunter