How to prevent setuptools install package as an .egg

Question

For example, installing IPython on Linux (where setuptools is not installed) I've got IPython installed in site-packages\IPython.

Installing IPython on Windows (where IPython requires setuptools), after executing the same command

python setup.py install

I get IPython installed in site-packages\ipython-0.13.2-py2.7.egg\IPython

Is there a way to install the module "old way" i.e. into site-packages\IPython?

Answer 1

I've discovered that

python setup.py install --old-and-unmanageable

does the job, but I am not sure it is a good way as --old-and-unmanageable is marked "Try not to use this!".

Answer 2

I don't know if it's applicable in your case, but the --root option also does this. For example, the Fedora packaging guidelines make use of this, since the versioning is managed externally by RPM. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Python_Eggs