Re: multiple pythons and the default
On Sat, 06 May 2006, Bruce Sass wrote:
> I am wondering what defines the "default python", is it the one any
/usr/bin/python provided by the "python" package. Right now it's 2.3.5.
Supporting other versions apart from this one is only a convenience issue
for our users. Right now we have many python2.4-* because python 2.4
really is what people uses to develop new stuff.
If we managed to move to python 2.4 sooner, we probably wouldn't have so
many python2.X-* packages.
> or Matthias Klose in
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-python/2006/01/msg00028.html
> """
> - Many developers like to have all (well, maybe the recent ones)
> python versions available to be able to test their application with
> more than one python version. That's ok, but maybe doesn't directly
> belong in a Debian release.
> """
I would love to have a single python version in Debian, just like we
managed it with Perl.
> Is it unreasonable to want to install a module package which should work
> with any Python and have *.pyc's automatically compiled for an
> interpreter which lives in /usr/local/bin, or install a local
> interpreter and have Debian attempt to compile all the installed
> modules for it, have a local module compiled for packaged interpreters?
This is a possible improvement for python-support, I don't see a major
problem with it.
> ...and of course commenting. I have this picture in my head of a
> Debian-Python infrastructure that has no pythonX.Y-module packages
> because everything is automatically compiled for all available
> interpreters.
This is a nice goal yes. But as doko noticed it, it's difficult to achieve
for binary modules.
> The "default python" would just happen to be the one
> python-minimal is a subset of (which may well be an arbitrary choice)
> and if an admin wants to use an alternate (maybe even local) Python as
> the default they should be able to do so simply by providing the
> equivalent of python-minimal for the new default interpreter
> (necessarily tweaking any infrastructure code using non-portable
> python, which would be a good thing).
I don't think that the admin should be allowed to change the default
python version... it has too many implications that could break the
packaging.
> My motivation for thinking along these lines is the realization that
> large chunks of the current Python Policy could be removed if 2.5 was
> implemented in such a way as to make pythonX.Y-anything unnecessary.
Please review doko's python-central package which is a start in that
direction. But until this infrastructure is ready, we need to move to
python 2.4 by default... we still have the time to fix the packaging for
python 2.5 after that.
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianPythonTODO
> [1] At first glance... I don't like having the package providing
> Debian-Python infrastructure actually depending on Python (can't help
> thinking about potential bootstrap problems, -support getting held up
Wrong problem IMO. python-support is a simple python script which should
work with any python version. And if python doesn't build on a given arch,
what's the point of having python-support work? If python doesn't work,
there's no need for python modules... :-)
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog
Premier livre français sur Debian GNU/Linux :
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