Where's Mine?

Several readers have asked how to run Python on particular hosts. The answer I want to give them is simply to invoke the default installed Python at the command line. Nearly all Unix flavors now ship with Python as part of their standard distribution.

Most of us, though, have responsibilities that extend to the exceptional cases -- old hosts, damaged ones, and experimental setups. How do we install Python so we can use it in the oddball places?

Your first instinct might be to take advantage of one of the large public depots, like the "Software Porting and Archive Centre for HP-UX". I'm all in favor of these and support them as I can. They're not specialists with Python, though, and they generally concentrate on current operating system releases, while they're often as much as a year behind on their Python version.

That means you might need to install Python from sources yourself. Rather than give detailed instructions on how to do this on all the different flavors of Unix, I want to emphasize that you should work with the latest stable Python distribution, and follow its README. The Python community is working continuously to improve portability, and your best prospect is to start with the most recent.

For our purposes, the trickiest aspect of building Python is that the Tkinter module, the focus of this month's article, depends on prior installation of Tcl/Tk in a standard location such as /usr or $HOME/local. My aim is that, by the time you read this, the distribution README will explain the process more clearly. If you still have questions, feel free to write me at: claird@phaseit.net.

An alternative to working from sources is to pay for a supported version of Python. ActiveState Tools provides free public builds for the popular platforms of Linux and Solaris and, as of the end of 2003, offers contracts on such others as HP-UX and AIX, according to Developer Trent Mick of ActiveState. Other, smaller consultancies specialize in just one or two platforms.