Problem installing 3.2.1 on a Linux server

[John S James]

Thanks, your reply helped. The problem seems to be the autoconfig -- I was
using version 2.59 instead of 2.68. However, the host will not let users
install 2.68.

So I'm sending them feedback, suggesting a number of reasons for supporting
3.2 for their server accounts, including:

* Popularity of Python, TIOBE recognition;
* Wide consensus that new Python programmers should learn version 3, unless
they must maintain legacy software;
* 3.2 will be around for at least another year before 3.3 is released;
* Lack of 3.2 in low-cost hosts (3.1 is available) -- a competitive
advantage;
* 3.2 improves future library compatibility, vs. 3.1;
* Installing 3.2 should not affect any existing customers, unless they
choose to use it.

We should explore why hosting services are resistant to supporting the
current version of Python (plus an important older version, 2.7). Other
supported versions could be deprecated -- and eventually removed by the
ISPs, except for the few customers who choose to install it themselves.

John S James
www.replicounts.org



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ned Deily <nad at acm.org>
To: python-list at python.org
Date: Sat, 06 Aug 2011 15:09:39 -0700
Subject: Re: Problem installing 3.2.1 on a Linux server
In article
<CABmUWRnB=OUDPPGsKjJ-rnWVjOQz3iN4-wkFmxfRaYLZcv+8NQ at mail.gmail.com>,
 John S James <john2james at gmail.com> wrote:
> My ISP (Bluehost) does not yet support Python version 3, but gave me shell
> access (no sudo) so that I can install Python 3 myself on my server
account
> (running Apache). So I uploaded the standard Python.org installation
package
> (Python 3.2.1 for Linux) and followed instructions, starting with
> ./configure. These instructions had worked for me before, to install
Python3
> on a Linux netbook.
>
> But on the server, ./configure starts fine, but later stops with an error.
> Here is the section of the output where the error occurred:
> *checking for build directories... done*
> *configure: creating ./config.status*
> *config.status: creating Makefile.pre*
> *config.status: creating Modules/Setup.config*
> *config.status: error: cannot find input file: `Misc/python.pc.in'*
>
> Then the ./configure step stopped. Needless to say, the next step, Make,
did
> not work because there was no Makefile.

Works for me on a current Debian system.  Are you downloading the source
from python.org?  Did you verify that the file is created by tar?

$ curl -O http://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.2.1/Python-3.2.1.tgz
$ tar xzf Python-3.2.1.tgz
$ cd ./Python-3.2.1/
$ ls -l Misc/python.pc.in
-rw-r----- 1 nad nad 293 Jul  8 23:58 Misc/python.pc.in
$ ./configure
[...]
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile.pre
config.status: creating Modules/Setup.config
config.status: creating Misc/python.pc
config.status: creating Modules/ld_so_aix
config.status: creating pyconfig.h
creating Modules/Setup
creating Modules/Setup.local
creating Makefile

If you are still having problems, chances are you have an out-of-date or
incomplete version of GNU autotools which contains the macros and tools
that are used by the ./configure script.  On my system:

$ autoconf --version
autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.68

--
 Ned Deily,
 nad at acm.org


-- 
John S. James
www.aidsnews.org
www.RepliCounts.org
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