Python libs on Debian/Raspbian

[Matthew Selsky]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 09:00:48PM -0600, Richard Laager via devel wrote:
> On 12/19/2017 07:50 PM, Gary E. Miller via devel wrote:
> 
> I think we're on the same page.
> 
> > I) waf could install a file in /usr/local/etc to tell ntpsec Python
> > programs where to look.
> 
> How does the utility know to look in /usr/local/etc? If we have to put
> the PREFIX into the utility, this is a more complicated version of "H".
> 
> To shorten:
> E) PYTHONPATH in the environment
> F) .pth file in /usr/.../pythonX.Y/....-packages
> G) utilities look at argv[0] path and modify sys.path
> H) waf puts PREFIX (or PYTHONDIR) into utilities
> 
> I (and some others from what I see) feel F > E, because environment
> variables are hard to get inherited everywhere (cron, systemd, sudo,
> etc.). However, this either requires user-action or violating PREFIX.
> 
> What's wrong with G or H? Either would make this work without user
> action, which is superior to both E & F. For that reason, they seem like
> attractive ways to get the right value into sys.path. Of the two, H
> seems a little more "normal" than G.

(H) would also let us change the python path in the she-bang line to the version that ntpsec was built against.  If you build ntpsec against python3, but env python finds python2, then things will break until the user changes their PATH.


Cheers,
-Matt