[maemo-developers] Issues with Python and maemo-optify (was: Re: Maemo Summit /opt BOF notes...)

[From: Andrew Flegg]

Anderson wrote:
>
> Python in various places relies on paths returned by calls to
> readlink(). As some of you might know, the readlink() syscall
> "dereferences" symbolic links.
>
> Here are the
> options I see (in no specific order):
>
> 1) hack Python to not rely on paths returned by readlink()
> 2) Install Python properly under /opt by modifying debian rules (e.g.
> using --prefix etc.) and do not run maemo-optify for any python
> applications.
> 3) Work hard to reduce Python footprint

I plan to write up the conclusions and actions from the BOF as a follow-up to Tim's notes, however on the Python issue would one of these two options work well (from a point of view of expediency and  pragmatism):

  1) Build Python with a prefix of /opt/maemo/usr.
     Hardcode, either in an init script, or Python, PYTHONPATH to
     /opt/maemo/usr/lib/python2.5:/usr/lib/python2.5:/...

  2) Add an init.d script which bind mounts /opt/maemo/usr/lib/python2.5
     over /usr/lib/python2.5 at boot.

Both of these would handle the issues with some Python modules not being optified, and get Python out of the rootfs.

Comments, as ever, welcome.

Cheers,

Andrew

PS. I said we'd have problems with Python. Probably Perl and Ruby too, if they were more prevalent on the platform.

-- 
Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew at bleb.org  |  http://www.bleb.org/