[Python-Dev] Python and the Linux Standard Base (LSB) (original) (raw)

Andrew Bennetts andrew-pythondev at puzzling.org
Fri Dec 1 05:27:09 CET 2006

On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 12:42:42AM +0100, Jan Claeys wrote:

Op donderdag 30-11-2006 om 21:48 uur [tijdzone +0000], schreef Steve Holden: > I think the point is that some distros (Debian is the one that springs > to mind most readily, but I'm not a distro archivist) require a separate > install for distutils even though it's been a part of the standard > Python distro since 2.3 (2.2?) > > So, it isn't that you can't get distutils, it's that you have to take an > extra step over and above installing Python.

No, it just means that several parts of the python.org source package are spread over several binary packages, just like happens with hundreds or thousands of other packages, and any Debian (or Ubuntu or other distro doing this) administrator worth his or her money should be aware of that, and be able to find those packages.

In both the current Debian and Ubuntu releases, the "python2.4" binary package includes distutils. See for yourself at http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_contents.pl?searchmode=filelist&word=python2.4&version=stable&arch=i386&page=1&number=all if you like.

So I'm not sure what the fuss is about.

Maybe python.org can include several logical "divisions" in the python.org distribution and make it easy for OS distro packagers to make separate packages if they want to, as most of them are quite happy to have less work to do, provided the upstream "divisions" do more or less what they want. ;-) (Oh, and such a division should IMHO also include a "minimal python" for embedded/low-resource hardware use, where things like distutils, GUI toolkits, a colelction of 20 XML libraries and documentation are most likely not needed.)

There's already a "python2.4-minimal" package in Debian/Ubuntu that would probably be a good starting point for an embedded distribution that cares about space more than providing a complete Python.

-Andrew.

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