Python on AIX: What are my options?

Question

I need to make some Python applications for a work project. The target platform is AIX 5.3.

My question is: What version of Python should I be using?

My requirements are:

• The Python version must be easy to install on the target machines. Others will do that according to instructions that I write, so no compiling from source or anything like that.

• The Python version must have ncurses or curses support (I'm making a form handler).

I've found two different precompiled versions of Python for AIX, but one (2.1.something) didn't include the curses module, and the other (2.3.4, RPM format) had prerequisites that I failed to fulfill).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Use the AS Package of Python 2.6.3.7 from Activestate. They have a binary package for AIX on their download site.

If you don't have an AIX machine to test it on, the install works the same way on Solaris or Linux, so you could write your documentation based on that. Basically, you ungzip the tarball file, use tar to unpack the archive, change directory to the unpacked folder, run a shell script to install it, tell the shell script what directory to place it in, and wait.

Normally this would be used to install into a user directory, without superuser permissions, but you could install it anywhere that you like. You might also need to edit the system profile in order to make sure that all users can find the Python binary.

I suggest the latest Python 2.6, because it has a lot of bugfixes, and there is now a critical mass of 3rd party libraries ported to it. Also, the standard library includes a lot of useful stuff that you used to have to collect separately. Curses is in the standard library of Python 2.6.

Make sure to avoid Python 3.1 since it has not yet matured enough and provides few benefits for most business applications development.

Answer 2

I'd compile it from source myself and tell them where to download it from in the instructions

Answer 3

We've used ActiveState's Python as well as Pware's compiled version. Both have worked well. For AS, we've used 2.5 and 2.6. For Pware, just 2.6. Both 2.5 and 2.6 from AS support curses on our machine.

I've compiled from source but usually wind up having trouble with with ctypes or SSL. Currently I have the Frankenstein option going of AS Python2.6 installed but I pulled out a couple of *.so files from Pware's. I'm using GCC since we've never ponied up for a compiler but depending on what you need from Python, it's definitely doable if I can do it.

I will mention that AS Python claims to be 100% compatible with standard Python and it has been for everything we've done so far (mostly web applications).