More about Python software distributions

At this point, we have Python 2.6 installed on both Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X, and Python 2.4 installed on Windows. Since Plone 3.3 requires Python 2.4, we can now say we have fulfilled the Python requirement on Windows.

We say No for Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux because we have the wrong Python version to run Plone 3.3. We say Almost for Windows because we have the right Python version, but no C compiler (which is required to compile Zope 2).

We have two ways to move ahead with Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux to meet the Python 2.4 requirement:

• Install a binary distribution
• Compile from source

Binary distributions are always a good option. They save time when they are available. Unfortunately, they are not always available.

In lieu of exploring binary distributions for Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux, we will start preparing to compile Python from source.