trentm.com FAQ
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.. contents:: Table of Contents


Troubleshooting Python Package Installation
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My install on Linux fails with "error: invalid Python installation: unable to open /usr/lib/python2.4/config/Makefile"
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The install instructions for many of the Python packages on trentm.com have you run::

    python setup.py install

This has been known to fail on some Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu) when
using the system Python (/usr/bin/python)::

    $ /usr/bin/python setup.py install
    running install
    error: invalid Python installation: unable to open /usr/lib/python2.4/config/Makefile (No such file or directory)

``setup.py`` is a Python setup script using Python's standard `distutils
system`_. To install a Python module it needs to use the Makefile with which
Python was built. This is typically in a Linux distro's Python development
package -- which may not be installed by default.

On Ubuntu, if you get this failure, you need to install the "python-dev"
package::

    sudo apt-get install python-dev


.. _distutils system: http://docs.python.org/inst/inst.html