Mac Python

README Page 1 of 3 Saved: Sunday, September 26, 1999 3:06:36 PM How to install Python 1.5.2 on your Macintosh ----------------------------------------------- If this is your first encounter with Python: you definitely need the common user documentation (common to all platforms). You can find this (in various forms) on www.python.org and ftp.python.org. Through there, or via http://www.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython.html you can also find the most recent MacPython distribution. Mac-specific documentation is included in this distribution in folder Mac:Demo. The documentation is sparse, but it will have to serve for now. The documentation is in HTML format, start with index.html. Caveats ------- There are still problems with cfm68k Python. 68K Mac users should probably try to use the cfm68k distribution first, and revert to the classic 68k distribution in case the bugs make their Python unworkable. The main problem is that packages ("dotted import") and NumPy printing don't work. What to install --------------- There are three flavors of Python: PowerPC, cfm68k and Classic 68k (the FAT flavor is just a combination of the first two, which is handy if you want to install Python on a fileserver or so). 68K-mac owners should definitely use the cfm68k version if possible, since it enables the use of applets and dynamically loaded modules and usually has a smaller memory footprint. If you have an older system than MacOS 8 it does however need the CFM68K Runtime Enabler which is available from Apple (available for free from <http://support.info.apple.com/ftp/swhome.html>, included since MacOS 7.6.1 and builtin to the system since MacOS 8). If your machine is pre-68020 you cannot use cfm68k and you can install the classic 68k Python. After the installer finishes it automatically launches the ConfigurePython applet, to finish configuration of your Python installation (except for classic 68K installations, where no extra configuration is needed). If you have a pre-system 7 macintosh: sorry, this release will not work on your system. Too many sys7 features are used to make a sys6 python easy to create. If you don't have enough memory: the sizes choosen are somewhat arbitrary. Try lowering the application sizes in the finder "get info" window, and seeing whether the resulting python is still usable. Some modules (Tkinter comes to mind) need a lot of memory, so it may also be necessary to increase the application size. A final note to CFM68K (and possibly PPC) users: the Code Fragment Manager can (incorrectly) produce "library not found" and other strange error messages when it really means that there is not enough room in the system heap. Decreasing (yes, *de*creasing) the size of the interpreter and/or enabling virtual memory may solve these problems. After installing ---------------- The first step thing you could try is to run "compileall.py" to create all .pyc files, but this isn't very…