Installer for Python software (Linux)

[Wouter van Marle]

Hi All!

At the moment I am developing a piece of software that is targeted at the
office market, my ambition is in future to make it part of Gnome Office, or
at least easily compatible with that project.

Now the software is developing pretty well, and it is time to start thinking
of the installation.
What I am looking for is an installation procedure like this:
- user downloads program
- user runs program, program asks for root password for general installation
(if no root password: user installation)
- program copies *.py to correct dir, and compiles the *.py to *.pyc.
- user has to give some settings for the program to run properly

Now the major problems I see here are:
- how to go to root mode? (and when asking the password: how to change the
users keystrokes to *'s on the fly??)
- how do I compile the *.py to *.pyc without running the program? (I guess
this is trivial, and yes I am lazy so add this to the questions as well).

Any other things that I have to beware of?

Wouter.