Question

I am trying to compile and install python2.6.4 on Debian 5.0.3 (64bit). I installed using ‘make altinstall’ as I want to keep python 2.5.2 that comes with Deb5.0 as my default python.

Following this, I installed setuptools 0.6c11 using the command ‘sudo sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.6.egg –prefix=/usr/local’. However, after installing when I try to ‘import pkg_resources’ from python2.6, it doesnt work saying ‘ImportError: No module named pkg_resources’. Without pkg_resources, I can hardly do much.

Can someone share here what may be going wrong or what’s missing?

Answer 1

Packaging and package integration is tricky. Debian has Python 2.6, but for some internal reason it is only in the experimental branch:

$ rmadison python2.6
 python2.6 |    2.6.2-2 |  experimental | source, ia64
 python2.6 |    2.6.4-1 |  experimental | source, alpha, amd64, armel, hppa, \
                                          i386, powerpc, s390, sparc

$

I would use that package as it is likely to be more fully integrated with the rest of python packaging. Plus, as it is a .deb, you can easily uninstall it.

And the debian-python list may be able to assist you further.