Python vs. Fedora and CentOS
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From: John Nagle on 31 May 2010 12:40 Philip Semanchuk wrote: > Hi Jason, > CentOS is based on RHEL SRPMs. How could it ship a more advanced version > of Python than RHEL? > > I have CentOS 5.4 installed, and it only offers Python 2.4.3. > > And distrowatch.org backs this up -- the latest Python available for > Centos 5.x is 2.4: > http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=centos Shared hosting services mostly run CentOS or RHEL; there's a trend away from running Fedora Core. So if you want to do anything in Python that is intended to run on shared hosting, you have to target Python 2.4. I have a dedicated server for a big site; there I can build and install later Python versions. That's not the problem. It's the little sites, ones not big enough to need their own dedicated server or virtual machine, where it's difficult to run Python. The current RHEL beta has Python 2.6, and that should be out this year. Hosting providers should start cutting over to it in 2011. RHEL and CentOS have a 7-year life cycle. So we can expect mainstream availability of Python 2.6 from 2011 to 2018. John Nagle
From: Adam Tauno Williams on 1 Jun 2010 07:01 On Sat, 2010-05-29 at 11:43 -0700, John Nagle wrote: > The major Red Hat based Linux distros are still shipping with Python 2.4. > As a result, almost all hosting providers are running obsolete versions of > Python. > The big problem seems to be that "cPanel" and "yum" still use older versions > of Python, and those programs are more important to distro builders than Python > itself. > Is anybody trying to do something about this? Yes, we install Python 2.6 on CentOS and run a production app on it - no problems. rpm -Uvh http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/i386/ius-release-1-4.ius.el5.noarch.rpm yum -y install python26 python26-setuptools <http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/coils/wiki/ProvisioningCentOS5> -- Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam(a)whitemice.org> LPIC-1, Novell CLA <http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com> OpenGroupware, Cyrus IMAPd, Postfix, OpenLDAP, Samba
From: Michael Torrie on 1 Jun 2010 12:43 On 05/31/2010 05:13 AM, Jason D wrote: > There is however never been an issue to locate different version of python > in your system as you deem fit without problems. > So I dont understand why your concern. Actually, replacing python on RHEL is a major endeavor. Almost all Red Hat utilities are written in python and depend on the specific system version of python that they shipped. Thus if you want to upgrade python you're going to break 80% of the system. Sure you can install Python from source alongside the system python, but that's a maintenance nightmare for system administrators. I administer some 30 RHEL instances, and compiling from source just isn't a good option here. As for third-party RPMs, that's all fine and well as long as you don't need any support from Red Hat. RH can only support software they ship and certify. As for me, I don't need RH to support my custom RPMs, so I think that's probably a fair compromise. It would be nice to have a source (that's kept up to date security-wise) of python packages that can be installed alongside RH system ones. Maybe call it python26 or python28 or python31 and stick it in the EPEL repository. I am supposing that if anyone wanted to do this, the EPEL folks would be happy to let that person be the package maintainer.
From: Michael Torrie on 1 Jun 2010 12:55 On 06/01/2010 05:01 AM, Adam Tauno Williams wrote: > Yes, we install Python 2.6 on CentOS and run a production app on it - no > problems. > > rpm -Uvh > http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/i386/ius-release-1-4.ius.el5.noarch.rpm > > yum -y install python26 python26-setuptools Thanks for posting this link. Very useful and interesting. The only problem I have is how do I tell what third-party repositories are to be trusted in my production systems? And even more important, which repositories are actually going to keep up to date on security updates in the long run? It's hard to know.
From: Adam Tauno Williams on 1 Jun 2010 13:23
On Tue, 2010-06-01 at 10:43 -0600, Michael Torrie wrote: > On 05/31/2010 05:13 AM, Jason D wrote: > > There is however never been an issue to locate different version of python > > in your system as you deem fit without problems. > > So I dont understand why your concern. > > Actually, replacing python on RHEL is a major endeavor. Then don't do it. Just install Python 2.6. Who cares what version of Python the system utilities use? > Almost all Red > Hat utilities are written in python and depend on the specific system > version of python that they shipped. Thus if you want to upgrade python > you're going to break 80% of the system. > > Sure you can install Python from source alongside the system python, but > that's a maintenance nightmare for system administrators. No, it is not. It is trivial. The packages don't overlap at all. You run python2.6, easy_install-2.6, etc... and the app merrily runs. > I administer > some 30 RHEL instances, and compiling from source just isn't a good > option here. As for third-party RPMs, that's all fine and well as long > as you don't need any support from Red Hat. RH can only support > software they ship and certify. In my experience RedHat supports their system - *not* the software you run on it. So they don't care either way. > As for me, I don't need RH to support > my custom RPMs, so I think that's probably a fair compromise. It would > be nice to have a source (that's kept up to date security-wise) of > python packages that can be installed alongside RH system ones. Maybe > call it python26 or python28 or python31 and stick it in the EPEL > repository. I am supposing that if anyone wanted to do this, the EPEL > folks would be happy to let that person be the package maintainer. rpm -Uvh http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/i386/ius-release-1-4.ius.el5.noarch.rpm yum -y install python26 python26-setuptools -- Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam(a)whitemice.org> LPIC-1, Novell CLA <http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com> OpenGroupware, Cyrus IMAPd, Postfix, OpenLDAP, Samba |