Larry Hastings <la...@hastings.org> writes: > the Debian package mantainer for Python decided to change > "site-packages" to "dist-packages" in 2.6, for reasons I still don't > quite understand.
For reference, Larry is referring to changes announced by Matthias Klose on 2009-02-16 in Message-ID: <18841.49052.405847.359...@gargle.gargle.howl> <URL:http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/02/msg00431.html>: > Local installation path > ----------------------- > > When installing Python modules using distutils, the resulting files > end up in the same location wether they are installed by a Debian > package, or by a local user or administrator, unless the installation > path is overwritten on the command line. Compare this with most > software based on autoconf, where an explicit prefix has to be > provided for the packaging, while the default install installs into > /usr/local. For new Python versions packaged in Debian this will > change so that an installation into /usr (not /usr/local) requires an > extra option to distutils install command (--install-layout=deb). To > avoid breaking the packaging of existing code the distutils install > command for 2.4 and 2.5 will just accept this option and ignore it. > For the majority of packages we won't see changes in the packaging, > provided that the python packaging helpers can find the files in the > right location and move it to the expected target path. > > A second issue raised by developers was the clash of modules and > extensions installed by a local python installation (with default > prefix /usr/local) with the modules provided by Debian packages > (/usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages shared by the patched "system" > python and the locally installed python. To avoid this clash the > directory `site-packages' should be renamed to `dist-packages' in > both locations: > > - /usr/lib/pythonX.Y/dist-packages (installation location for code > packaged for Debian) > - /usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y/dist-packages (installation location > for locally installed code using distutils install without > options). > > The path /usr/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages is not found on sys.path > anymore. > > About the name: Discussed this with Barry Warsaw and Martin v. Loewis, > and we came to the conclusion that using the same directory name for > both locations would be the most consistent way. -- \ “In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong | `\ with the majority than to be right alone.” —John Kenneth | _o__) Galbraith, 1989-07-28 | Ben Finney _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
