Installing Python 2.7 without root

Question

I tried installing Python 2.7 without root on a remote linux machine. I ran the commands

./configure prefix=/  
make install DESTDIR=/xxx/yyy/ 

where /xxx/yyy/ is a directory for which I have read-write access.

I ran into a problem at the end. It said:

building dbm using gdbm INFO: Can't locate Tcl/Tk libs and/or headers

Python build finished, but the necessary bits to build these modules were not found: _tkinter bsddb185 dl imageop sunaudiodev To find the necessary bits, look in setup.py in detect_modules() for the module's name.

running build_scripts running install_lib creating /lib/python2.7 error: could not create '/lib/python2.7': Permission denied

Did I take the correct steps in installing it without root access? (i.e., my configure and make commands?) Can anyone tell me why it would not install properly?

Thanks,
ktm

Answer 1

I wrote a script that installs Python 2 (which is missing the convenience faculties provided by Python 3 for user installations) and Pip 2 into a user directory so that a standard user can be administrator over its modules etc.

#!/bin/bash
VERSION="2.7.11"
BUILDDIR=~/"build/python"
INSTALLDIR=~/"python/Python-$VERSION"

mkdir -p ${BUILDDIR}
cd ${BUILDDIR}
if [ ! -f $BUILDDIR/Python-$VERSION.tgz ]
then
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/$VERSION/Python-$VERSION.tgz
tar zxfv Python-$VERSION.tgz
fi
find $BUILDDIR -type d | xargs chmod 0755
cd Python-$VERSION


mkdir -p ${INSTALLDIR}
./configure --prefix=${INSTALLDIR}
make && make install

# Append to user PATH or create symbolic link to .local/bin
# [[ ":$PATH:" != *":$HOME/python/Python-$VERSION/bin:"* ]] && printf "export PATH=$HOME/python/Python-$VERSION/bin:$PATH\n" >> ~/.bashrc
if [ ! -d ~/.local/bin ]; then mkdir -p ~/.local/bin; fi
ln -s ~/python/Python-"$VERSION"/bin/python ~/.local/bin/

source ~/.bashrc

# Install local pip
cd ..
wget --no-check-certificate https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -O - | python - --user
[[ ":$PATH:" != *":$HOME/.local/bin:"* ]] && printf "export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH\n" >> ~/.bashrc

# Install modules like this:
# pip install --target="$HOME/.local/lib/python$VERSION/site-packages"

# Add those modules to PYTHONPATH
[[ ":$PYTHONPATH:" != *":$HOME/.local/lib/python$VERSION/site-packages:"* ]] && printf "export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/.local/lib/python$VERSION/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH\n" >> ~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc

Caveat: This script is admittedly opinionated in that it will append a few lines to your ~/.bashrc for the PATH ENV variable. If this is not desired, simply comment the related lines in the script.

---

Case: The service file generator for Airprint service files for use in Avahi does not support Python 3. For the purpose of keeping the system clean, I just install a local version of Python 2 and run airprint-generate.py followed by deleting the whole install (saves space on a small Raspberry Pi Zero W).