[petsc-dev] python2 vs python3 wrt configure

[Satish Balay]

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013, Jed Brown wrote:

> Satish Balay <balay at mcs.anl.gov> writes:
> 
> > yeah  its a 'apt-get install python2'. Similar thing with future fedora releases.
> 
> So long as you are root and don't mind enabling the repository.
> 
> http://askubuntu.com/questions/148638/how-do-i-enable-the-universe-repository
> 
> > with such isses python creates - no wonder considerable number of
> > tools still use /bin/sh
> >
> > [one doesn't have to change scripts every 10 years so that the correct sh is found]
> 
> And trade language "stability" for inconsistent semantics between
> implementations, especially in the utilities that must be called to do
> anything.
> 
> I think Python is not bad for this stuff.  It's too large to bundle by
> default.  Note that we can readily support --download-python if at some
> point, we decide to upgrade, but want to support some fraction of users
> on antique machines.

last I checked - building python is not that easy - esp if the
system is missing packages like -lz or ssl or other stuff
that some of the modules depend on.

Satish