[Visualpython-users] Linux installation

[Bruce S. <bas...@nc...>]

I wonder whether someone on the list can help me with a puzzle having
to do with installing on Linux.

In acinclude.m4 is the following fragment which attempts to identify
where to install modules such as Visual:

[am_cv_python_pythondir=`$PYTHON -c "from distutils import sysconfig;
print(sysconfig.get_python_lib(0,0,prefix='$PYTHON_PREFIX').replace('\\\\\','/'))"
2>/dev/null ||
echo "$PYTHON_PREFIX/lib/python$PYTHON_VERSION/dist-packages"`]

When autogen.sh and configure are run before doing a make to build
Visual, this fragment generates a reference to site-packages, which is
unfortunate, because on Ubuntu with Python 2.x site-packages is not
normally on the module search path.

If on the other hand I execute the following I get a reference to
dist-packages, as expected and desired:

from distutils import sysconfig
print(sysconfig.get_python_lib(0,0,prefix='$PYTHON_PREFIX')

I can't understand why I'm getting a reference to site-packages in the
autoconfigure machinery. I'm reluctant to hand-code "dist-packages"
because for all I know other Linux distributions use site-packages and
have site-packages on the module search path. (As an aside, I'm
annoyed that Ubuntu has left site-packages off the search path, though
I notice that it seems to be back on the search path for Python 3.)

Bruce Sherwood