[Pythonmac-SIG] MacPython Leopard help needed

[Ned Deily]

In article 
<55fce46f0908061521u5bdc62f2yfba97ce6e81cbdb7 at mail.gmail.com>,
 Tibor Fekete <tfekete at gmail.com> wrote:
> under http://wiki.python.org/moin/MacPython/Leopard there is a walkthrough
> how one should install a mac native idle for python.
> 
> The creation of the softlink (sudo ln -s
> /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/
> Python.framework) fails since the current directory already has a
> Python.framework dir with some juice in it instead of
> /System/Library/Frameworks so the above command returns an error:
> 
> $ cd /Library/Frameworks
> $ sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/ Python.framework
> ln: Python.framework/: File exists
> $ ls -al Python.framework/
> total 0
> drwxr-xr-x   3 root  admin  102 Júl 16  2006 .
> drwxrwxrwx  14 root  admin  476 Júl  7 16:49 ..
> drwxr-xr-x   3 root  admin  102 Júl 16  2006 Versions

Chances are you've previously installed one or more Pythons using a 
python.org installer; they get installed at 
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework.  If you are sure you don't need 
any of them, you could just delete that directory.  If you don't want to 
delete versions other than 2.5, you also may be able to get things to 
work by making the symlink further down, so [untested]:

$ cd /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions
$ sudo rm -r 2.5  # if necessary
$ sudo ln -s  /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5 
2.5

On the other hand, the 2.5 IDLE.app has a number of bugs that have been 
fixed in later releases and Python 2.5 is getting old (the 
Apple-supplied 2.5 is even older); if it's possible, I'd recommend 
installing and using the python.org 2.6.2 (or even 3.1 if you want to be 
on the cutting edge).  Which Python distribution to use on OSX is a 
frequent discussion topic and there are other options and other pros and 
cons; search the archives if interested.

Whatever you do, don't try to delete or alter the Apple-maintained 
Python 2.5 files in /System/Library.

-- 
 Ned Deily,
 nad at acm.org