[TriLUG] installing python modules

[Tom Bryan]

Joseph Mack NA3T wrote:

> ah, no I didn't. I couldn't find anything that would parse --prefix 
> anywhere in the code (I grep'ed all over the place for "prefix"). 

Yeah.  That's part of Python's standard "distutils" which helps users 
install new modules.  You may want to read
Installing Python Modules (information for installers & sys-admins)
http://www.python.org/doc/2.4.3/inst/inst.html

Python folks have long been trying to make it easier to find and install 
new Python applications and libraries.  distutils helps to ensure that 
the library is installed in a place where the Python installation used 
to run the install script can find it.  That's *really* critical on 
systems with multiple versions of Python installed.  Most third party 
libraries ship with a distutils-based setup.py.  If you're dealing with 
actual Python applications instead of libraries, you may start seeing 
more people using Python Eggs ( 
http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/PythonEggs ), which still uses 
distutils to accomplish some of its work.

Anyway, if you'd like to discuss any of this at length with other Python 
folks in the area, feel free to join/post to the TriZPUG's mailing list.

---Tom