Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) and Python

Last week I've started with testing Ubuntu 9.04. The update process ran smoothly as usual but I had to switch from fglrx to radeonhd because the proprietary ATI driver seems to lack support for the graphics card of my Lenovo T60p. Well down ATI ...

Good news

Ubuntu 9.04 is shipped with four versions of Python:

• 2.4.6 (Zope2 still requires Python 2.4)
• 2.5.4
• 2.6.2 (default)
  
• 3.0.1

You can't ask for more Python versions!

Bad news

Ubuntu's Python team hasn't included my multiprocessing backport for Python 2.4 and 2.5 in Jaunty although Sandro Tosi has created a Debian package. You still have to install it manually from PyPI.

Warning

Did you install Python 2.6 yourself before? Make sure you remove it ASAP!

At first I couldn't figure out why lots of Python based applications were broken. It was a major issue for me because Ubuntu uses Python in lots of places. Then it occured to me that it may be related to my previous installation of Python 2.6. Ubuntu 8.04 didn't use Python 2.6 but 9.04 uses 2.6 as default Python for its apps. And /usr/local has precedence over /usr. Once it was gone everything worked again.

In order to wipe your own installation of Python from your hard disk you have to remove

• /usr/local/bin/py*2.6
• /usr/local/lib/libpython2.6.so*
• /usr/local/lib/python2.6 (except for an empty site-packages directory)

Have fun!