Re: Status report on python2 transition

[Gregor Hoffleit <gregor@mediasupervision.de>]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 07:13:54AM -0700, Neil Schemenauer wrote:
> Gregor Hoffleit wrote:
> > Until now I had the impression that in general it's not necessary to
> > have more than one Python version on your machine at the same time
> > (except perhaps you're a Python core developer). Feedback from
> > python-dev though was that it's definitely necessary to allow and
> > support multiple concurrent versions of Python even on production
> > machines.
> 
> This doesn't imply that Debian has to support multiple concurrent
> versions of Python _packages_.  To me, it means Debian should play
> nicely if you want to install other versions of Python in /usr/local or
> wherever.  Currently it does not.

Sorry ? What problems do you have installing Python 2.1 in /usr/local on
a Debian system ?


> > For one, I've changed my mind and accepted that there's a need to
> > support multiple concurrent Python versions in Debian.
> 
> Woody should have one core Python package (python-base_2.1.1-X).
> Extension modules should have a versioned dependency on the interpreter
> (ie.  "python (= X.Y)").  Pure Python packages should only have a
> dependency on "python" or perhaps "python (>= X.Y)".

That's our current setup (well-behaved packages should have a dependency
on "python-base >= 1.5, python-base << 1.6"). Look at the mess we're now
running into, now that we want to upgrade this to Python 2.1.1. All
packages have to be recompiled at once.

    Gregor