[Zope] Question about python binary with zope install

Brian Lloyd brian@digicool.com
Tue, 13 Mar 2001 14:15:28 -0500


> I just installed zope 2.3.0 for Linux, from the tar file downloaded from
> the Zope site. Went great. I noticed in the docs that a pre-compiled
> binary of Python comes with the zope tarball in a bin subdir. Well, my
> question is -- since I am new to python, have done a lot with perl -- the
> binary that comes with zope is 1.5 megs, while I already have another
> binary that came with my mandrake 7.2 system, same version, 1.5.2, in
> /usr/bin. It is only 423k. Are there certain modules or whatever added to
> the binary that comes with Zope that I need to use? Therefore, should I
> replace the /usr/bin/python with the python binary that is in the Zope bin
> dir? What effect would that have on my python installation? Could someones
> shed some light on this for me? Any help much appreciated.

The binary releases come with a pre-compiled and self-contained
Python interpreter and library. The intent of that is so that
people don't have to worry about any existing Python install
on the machine. The packaged one contains everything needed to
run Zope, but doesn't interfere with or require anything of
any other Python on the machine.

You do not want to replace the existing python binary in /usr/bin
with the Zope one - if you want to upgrade the Python on the
box you should use a distribution from www.python.org, which
will ensure that all of the various dependencies (like the Python
libraries) are updated correctly.

Brian Lloyd        brian@digicool.com
Software Engineer  540.371.6909
Digital Creations  http://www.digicool.com