Installation of multiple versions of Python on Unix

[Lee Harr]

In article <pAYb9.226358$v53.12275516 at news3.calgary.shaw.ca>, John E. Barham:
> Situation:  I want to run Zope 2.5.1 on my FreeBSD server.  I also want to
> run the latest version of Python (i.e., 2.2.1), but Zope only officially
> supports Python 2.1.x.
> 
> Question:  Is it okay to install both versions of Python and have Zope run
> by Python 2.1.x but have the latest version of Python as the default from
> the shell?  Are there any stability implications to doing this?
> 
> Apologies if has already been dealt with, but a quick check of the newsgroup
> archive didn't make it clear if this is feasible.
> 
>     John
> 


I have a very similar setup on a FreeBSD server (Zope still at 2.4.X tho
as I have not had a chance to upgrade yet)

I just leave /usr/local/bin/python as a hard link to
/usr/local/bin/python2.1 and run the other as /usr/local/bin/python2.2

One issue is building ports.

Whenever I want to build a port to go with 2.2 (like I just added
twisted python, for instance) I will change the plain python to link
to python2.2 before I make and make install, then switch it back
when I am done. That has no impact on the running Zope at all.