Re: handling /usr/local/lib/python2.x/site-packages in sys.path
Barry Warsaw wrote:
It also makes Debian the odd man out. Instructions we publish for
every other *nix have to have a caveat or FAQ for Debian's (and
derivatives) difference. These can go unnoticed until things break,
and then we can get difficult to debug problem reports. An
experienced helper will be conditioned to first ask "Are you on Debian
or Ubuntu? Well, you have to do things differently there."
This is a point of perspective. From my point of view python is the odd
one out: every other tool and compiler seems to look in both /usr/local
and /usr *except* for (non-Debian) python. That would be highly
confusing for me, and I fail to understand why python made that choice.
Debian has always setup /usr/local so that anyone in the staff group can
write to it. This is very convenient: it gives you a clear point of
demarkation between OS-managed applications, which install in /usr, and
manually managed applications which install in /usr/local and can be
installed by trusted non-root users. I don't know why your Ubuntu system
only makes /usr/local writable for root, to me that sounds like a bug in
Ubuntu.
I find virtualenv to be a better tool to setup local python
environments: it does not require people to recompile all of python
while still providing a clean environment to work in. And as far as I
can see it is a good solution for almost all use cases where you
currently tell people to compile a local python version.
Wichert.
--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert@wiggy.net> It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/ It is hard to make things simple.
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