Installation from Source

This installation document will install a local copy of Python for this application only. If you have installed a current version of Python, you can skip the installation of python and use your local copy. Be aware that the Python Desktop Server needs a thread enabled version of Python, though! So if your Python isn't thread enabled (like some NetBSD versions), you have to compile your own.

If you run a Debian GNU/Linux installation, you don't need to use the sources and use the precompiled binary packages. A description is at Installation for Debian.

If you run Mandrake, the Python Desktop Server will be part of Mandrake 9.2 (at the time of writing some weeks in the future). With that release you will be able to just do urpmi pyds to install the package and all dependencies.

If you want to run it under Windows, give the installation instructions for windows a try. Additionally there is now a binary installer here. The binary installer might be the easiest way to install the Python Desktop Server.

If you run Mac OS X 10.3, you can use Bob Ippolitos Darwin packages. Bob wrote a short instruction on how to do this.

There are several predependencies that have to be met by your system that are not covered by this document. The most important is that you need to have everything that is needed to build the base python distribution. Please check the Python documentation to find out what you need to install to build it.

Another predependency is for the libjpeg 62 in either a or b version. This is used by the PictureTool, if you don't have the development libraries available, you won't be able to use JPEG (and since PictureTool makes heavy use of JPEG, you would be lost). Please consult your operating system documentation to find out how to install the development libraries for libjpeg62. If you run under Mac OS X, you can use the following quick hack to build a local installation of libjpeg:

wget http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
tar xvfz jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
cd jpeg-6b
./configure
make
sudo make install-lib
sudo ranlib /usr/local/lib/libjpeg.a

To install a develop version of zlib, do the following:

wget http://www.gzip.org/zlib.tar.gz
tar xvzf zlib.tar.gz
cd zlib-1.1.4/ 
./configure
make
sudo make install

This installed a development version of libjpeg (only the lib and headers, no utilities) and zlib in /usr/local/, so you can make use of it. Now on to the main installation. Create a Project directory somewhere:

cd ~/
mkdir PyDS
cd PyDS
mkdir Archives
mkdir Source

Fetch the following packages (newer Versions might be ok, but are not tested):

cd ~/PyDS/Archives
wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.2.2/Python-2.2.2.tgz
wget http://simon.bofh.ms/~gb/medusa-0.5.4.tar.gz
wget http://www.equi4.com/pub/mk/metakit-2.4.9.2.tar.gz
wget http://telia.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/cheetahtemplate/Cheetah-0.9.15a3.tar.gz
wget http://telia.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pyxml/PyXML-0.8.2.tar.gz
wget http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python/Pyrex/Pyrex-0.5.tar.gz
wget http://telia.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/docutils/docutils-0.3.tar.gz
wget http://www.pythonware.net/storage/Imaging-1.1.4.tar.gz
wget http://osdn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pywebsvcs/SOAPpy-0.10.1.tar.gz
wget http://simon.bofh.ms/~gb/pyds-latest.tar.gz

The download address of medusa is actually at http://www.amk.ca/files/python/medusa-0.5.4.tar.gz, but the webmaster restricted access with wget to that file (curl -O still works, but who knows how long?) and so I copied it to another machine.

A general notice: if download links don't work, you should browse the server where the files are hosted, most often there just is a newer version available and the authors dropped the older version I am linking. If you have problems getting your hands on one of the files, all of them are available under http://simon.bofh.ms/~gb/ so you can always fall back to my local copies!

(PyRex is currently not necessary, but I install it nonetheless to have some means of improving performance available. It's platform neutral, so it should work on other systems, too).

Unpack the source packages:

cd ~/PyDS/Source

tar xvfz ../Archives/Python-2.2.2.tgz
tar xvfz ../Archives/PyXML-0.8.2.tar.gz
tar xvfz ../Archives/Cheetah-0.9.15a3.tar.gz
tar xvfz ../Archives/medusa-0.5.4.tar.gz
tar xvfz ../Archives/metakit-2.4.9.2.tar.gz
tar xvfz ../Archives/Pyrex-0.5.tar.gz
tar xvfz ../Archives/docutils-0.3.tar.gz
tar xvfz ../Archives/Imaging-1.1.4.tar.gz
tar xvfz ../Archives/SOAPpy-0.10.1.tar.gz
tar xvfz ../Archives/pyds-latest.tar.gz

Now you have to patch metakit, as the Makefile.in is broken (this is a patch for Mac OS X, other systems won't need it, as they create the right format for python extensions already!):

cd ~/PyDS/Source/metakit-2.4.9.2/unix
cp ~/PyDS/Source/PyDS-0.7.1/metakit-Makefile.in .

Now build the whole bunch into a application-private directory (the sample is for MacOS X, you mide decide on a different path on other systems):

cd ~/PyDS/Source/Python-2.2.2
./configure --prefix=/opt/pyds
make
sudo make install

cd ~/PyDS/Source/Pyrex-0.5
sudo /opt/pyds/bin/python setup.py install

You have to patch /opt/pyds/bin/pyrexc to use the local python, the installed binary uses the (possibly installed) global version. Change the first line from

#!/usr/bin/env python2.2

to read:

#!/opt/pyds/bin/python2.2

Now install the rest:

cd ~/PyDS/Source/PyXML-0.8.2
sudo /opt/pyds/bin/python setup.py install

cd ~/PyDS/Source/Cheetah-0.9.15a3
sudo /opt/pyds/bin/python setup.py install

cd ~/PyDS/Source/medusa-0.5.4
sudo /opt/pyds/bin/python setup.py install

cd ~/PyDS/Source/docutils-0.3
sudo /opt/pyds/bin/python setup.py install

cd ~/PyDS/Source/SOAPpy-0.10.1
sudo /opt/pyds/bin/python setup.py install

cd ~/PyDS/Source/metakit-2.4.9.2/unix
./configure --prefix=/opt/pyds --with-python=/opt/pyds
make
sudo make install

cd ~/PyDS/Source/Imaging-1.1.4
cd libImaging
./configure
make
cd ..
sudo /opt/pyds/bin/python setup.py install

That's all, now you have your development environment up and running! Now you have to install the Python Desktop Server itself. This is as easy as it is to install the other stuff. Just follow the following simple steps from the nightly build (of course, you should substitute the current version number. I am to lazy to make this document current with every version I put out ):

cd ~/PyDS/Source/PyDS-0.7.1
sudo /opt/pyds/bin/python setup.py install

After this you can start the server with the following command:

/opt/pyds/bin/pyds-start

And you can stop the server with the following command:

/opt/pyds/bin/pyds-stop

You can acces the desktop server with netscape with the following URL:

/opt/pyds/bin/pyds-browse netscape | sh

pyds-browse takes at least parameter, the executable of the browser. You can make one of those parameters have %s in it, the URL will be inserted at that place. Or you can leave %s out, then the URL will be appended.

You will have to set up some mandatory preferences before you can use the desktop server. This includes personal data and registration at one of the available community servers. You can use muensterland.org or pycs.net, and it might run with radiio community servers, too.