Install python, pygtk in user's space

Question

I am trying to install python with pygtk in my ubuntu system.

I don't have root access so I need to install all the packages locally say /home/user/local/lib

I am able to install python, but I am not able to link other packages(pygobject, pygtk, etc) to the locally installed python. And if I try to install pygtk locally using the command

./configure --prefix=/home/shrihari/local/lib/pygtk2.24/

It gives the following error

checking for GLIB - version >= 2.8.0... yes (version 2.28.6)
checking for PYGOBJECT... yes
checking for gio-types.defs... no
checking for ATK... yes
checking for PANGO... yes
checking for codegen... configure: error: unable to find PyGObject codegen

My default python version is python2.4. If I try to import pygtk in python2.4 it works fine but i need pygtk in python2.7. So how can I achieve this? If there is any good documentation available for installing python, pygtk, pygobject locally in user space please share.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

In general, to be able to link a build to something already installed, you need to have set up the LD_LIBRARY_PATH and (for Python modules) PYTHONPATH to the directories where you have installed that "something". So in this example, if you install Python 2.7 with prefix /home/shrinari/local/python27, you need afterwards set the system variables like this (for bash):

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/shrinari/local/python27/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export PYTHONPATH=/home/shrinari/local/python27/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/home/shrinari/local/python27/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

And after that you can try to compile something dependent on your new Python installation. But, according to the configuration error provided, I don't think this helps in your situation. It seems that you have something missing from PyGObject, maybe just header files, maybe some module (I don't know PyGObject specifics). Anyway, why the configure script can not find something is usually better visible from config.log file which can be found in the build directory after running the configure script.

Answer 2

This error is because of compatibility between pygobject and gobject-retrospection. To avoid this use Pygobject build earlier than 2.90.1 if your GTK is old. I Used following on CentOS 5.5 to make it work -

1. pygobject-2.28.6 When building pygobject disable introspection with --disable-introspection

2. gobject-retrospection 1.32.1