Install Stackless Python on Ubuntu

I'm just about to write a couple of posts on Stackless Python and the Nagare Micro Framework which runs on it. So I've been installing Stackless on my Ubuntu 12.04. Here are some nice copy and paste instructions if you want to play along.

First install the required libraries and get stackless itself:

	sudo run apt-get update
	sudo apt-get install libreadline-dev
	sudo apt-get build-dep python2.7
	cd /tmp
	wget http://www.stackless.com/binaries/stackless-272-export.tar.bz2
	bunzip2 stackless-272-export.tar.bz2
	tar xf stackless-272-export.tar

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Now install stackless :

	cd /tmp/stackless-272-export/
	./configure --prefix=/opt/stackless --enable-unicode=ucs4
	make
	sudo make install

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After the "make" you'll see some failures as below. Just ignore them.

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

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Now it's time to link your standard (CPython) packages so that they can be used with stackless:

	sudo ln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ /opt/stackless/lib/python2.7/site-packages
	sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/ /opt/stackless/lib/python2.7/dist-packages
	sudo ln -s /opt/stackless/bin/python /usr/bin/stackless
	sudo vi /opt/stackless/lib/python2.7/site.py

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...and edit the paths in the site.py file. At about line 300, edit the file to look like this. It's the second sitepackages.append bit we're adding here:

	elif os.sep == '/':
	sitepackages.append(os.path.join(prefix, "lib",
	"python" + sys.version[:3],
	"site-packages"))
	sitepackages.append(os.path.join(prefix, "lib",
	"python" + sys.version[:3],
	"dist-packages"))
	sitepackages.append(os.path.join(prefix, "lib", "site-python"))

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That should be it! Let's test it:

	$stackless
	Python 2.7.2 Stackless 3.1b3 060516 (default, Jan 2 2013, 22:39:14)
	[GCC 4.6.3] on linux3
	Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
	>>> exit()

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