On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 11:00 PM, harrismh777 <harrismh...@charter.net> wrote: > Andrew Berg wrote: >> >> AFAICT, there are three reasons to learn Python 2: > > ... there is a fourth reason. > > The linux distro you are using currently was customized with python 2.x > > I ran into this problem this week in fact... on my HP g6 ubuntu notebook > running 10.04 lucid. It ships with the 2.6.5 interpreter. I installed 2.7.1 > and 3.2 (from sources) and was working along happy as a clam until I needed > to configure a printer... and the config tools would not function... some of > them would not even open. Want to guess? Yup, the config tools are (some > of them) written in python 2.6-- and they don't run in 2.7.1 nor 3.2 . :( > > So, be careful. I have had to separate *all* of my python installs on > *every* one of my systems for this similar reason. The bottom line is if the > distro ships with 2.6 (minus the idle) chances are that the interpreter is > there *not* to advocate for python explicitly, but because the interpreter > is being used by the system somewhere. If you install 2.7 or 3.2 you need to > be careful to *not* interfere with the default setup. > > So, you will need to be able to use both. There is no getting around it... > but, I would start with 3.2 (seriously). Get 3.2 under your belt and then > when you need to, go back and deal with the 2.6 regression. > > 3.2 is better built, is more logically consistent (it really is, no > kidding), and has some new features that make it very attractive. The > down-side is that some (most) of the library support is still not there for > many projects. It will take some time, but it will happen. > >
There's an altinstall make target that you're supposed to use in cases like this. It won't make the /usr/local/bin/python symlink (or whatever prefix you're using), just pythonx.y. This way, the programs that depend on "python" referring to a specific version will still continue to work and you can have your newer version. The Ubuntu packages that depend on the system Python+ system installed packages *should* be specifying /usr/bin/python specifically but as you can see, they don't always do that. > > kind regards, > m harris > > > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
