Yurttas/PL/SL/python/docs/core-python-programming/doc/20/inst/platform-variations.html
2.1 Platform variations
You should always run the setup command from the distribution root directory, i.e. the top-level subdirectory that the module source distribution unpacks into. For example, if you've just downloaded a module source distribution foo-1.0.tar.gz onto a Unix system, the normal thing to do is:
gunzip -c foo-1.0.tar.gz | tar xf - # unpacks into directory foo-1.0 cd foo-1.0 python setup.py install
On Windows, you'd probably download foo-1.0.zip. If you downloaded the archive file to C:\Temp, then it would unpack into C:\Temp\foo-1.0; you can use either a GUI archive manipulator (such as WinZip) or a command-line tool (such as unzip or pkunzip) to unpack the archive. Then, open a command prompt window (``DOS box''), and run:
cd c:\Temp\foo-1.0 python setup.py install
On Mac OS, you have to go through a bit more effort to supply command-line arguments to the setup script:
- hit option-double-click on the script's icon (or option-drop it onto the Python interpreter's icon)
- press the ``Set unix-style command line'' button
- set the ``Keep stdio window open on termination'' if you're interested in seeing the output of the setup script (which is usually voluminous and often useful)
- when the command-line dialog pops up, enter ``install'' (you can, of course, enter any Distutils command-line as described in this document or in the ``Distributing Python Modules'' document: just leave of the initial
python setup.pyand you'll be fine)
** this should change: every Distutils setup script will need command-line arguments for every run (and should probably keep stdout around), so all this should happen automatically for setup scripts **
See About this document... for information on suggesting changes.