Maintaining Multiple Copies of Python (Linux)

[Michael Hrivnak]

http://www.virtualenv.org/

You can install multiple versions of the python interpreter in ubuntu
without issue.  You can use virtualenv to maintain different site
packages for whatever purposes you need.

Michael

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 4:38 PM,  <nfitzkee at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> For various reasons, I would like to maintain multiple copies of python on my (Ubuntu 12.04) linux system.  This is primarily for scientific software development; several modules require different configuration options than are installed on the 'vanilla' python included in the Ubuntu distribution, and I don't want to disturb that version in case something would interfere with the OS.
>
> I can compile python 2.7 and put it in /usr/local, but when I do that it can lead to confusion about what version is being run, particularly if my group members don't have their paths set correctly.  Renaming the binaries alone is a partial solution, but that won't work for the library and include directories.
>
> Is there a way to configure the distribution at compile time to resolve the ambiguity?  For example, could I specify an option to "configure" that appends a prefix to all of the created python binaries, etc.?  In this case, it might create "my-python2.7" "my-python" and "my-idle" (etc.) in /usr/local/bin, along with storing libraries in /usr/local/lib/my-python2.7/.  Thus, the my-python programs would be 100% independent from the OS python, and they would be independent from other local builds as well.
>
> I apologize if this answer is covered elsewhere; so far my google searches have not turned up anything.
>
> Thanks,
> Nick
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