customary way of keeping your own Python and module directory in $HOME

[James Stroud]

jmg3000 at gmail.com wrote:
> What's the customary way to keep your own local Python and package
> directory? For example, when you're on a server where you don't have
> root access, and everything must go in your home directory.
> 
> * What directories do you create?
> * What environment variables do you set?
> * What config files do you keep?
> * Does that setup work with distutils and setuptools? What special
> options do you need to pass to these tools when installing modules for
> everything to work right?
> 
> Please, share your tips.
> 

You can do more than you can imagine as non-root even if you have 
hyper-paranoid sysadmins who don't know how to protect infrastructure 
without shackling the users.

I don't know about windoze (pro-windoze complainers: yep, I'm spelling 
it wrong on purpose, please complain elsewhere about my anti-windoze 
spelling :P -- If you want to be a pro-windoze speller, take the time to 
give your own answers instead of complaining all the time), but on *nix, 
you can compile python with the "--prefix=" option set to a directory in 
your home dir and install there. Because python is compiled with the 
prefix, you will not need to adjust the path if you add modules to the 
site-packages directory. If you have your own modules, but they aren't 
ready for site-packages, you can alter PYTHONPATH to point at your 
staging directory.

I recommend having your own python install if you want a comprehensive 
approach. Sometimes you need to build your own Tcl/Tk and blt-wish if 
you have a linux version that predates the python dependency 
requirements, though. If you know the dependencies, its all very 
"configure --prefix= ; make ; make install", with proper settings of 
LD_LIBRARY path.

Doesn't seem like hyper-paranoid sysadmining is all that efficient, does it?

James