Re: Can't open preferences since 1a3cbe3c on an installed meld (local is fine)

[Kai Willadsen <kai willadsen gmail com>]

On 11 May 2014 14:19, Scott Kostyshak <skostysh princeton edu> wrote:

On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 1:07 AM, Scott Kostyshak <skostysh princeton edu> wrote:

> Is the correct --prefix then '/usr' or '/usr/local' ?

I just tried on a fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04. It seems that
installing to /usr doesn't work, installing to /usr/local doesn't
work, but installing to both does:

<snip>

Does this narrow down what the problem could be?

Yeah, somewhat. I've loaded an Ubuntu VM to check it out, but I'm pretty busy at the moment, so not sure when I'll get to a fix. The problem is a Ubuntu (and maybe Debian?) specific Python install, which by default only looks in /usr/lib/python2.7/SITE-

packages/, but installs to /usr/lib/python2.7/DIST-

packages/. Don't ask me. I have no words.

If you give it a prefix (e.g., /usr/local) then it will automatically swap out the site vs dist it seems, and the Python imports fine. However, we don't handle it well when our resources are installed under somewhere other than sys.prefix (a Meld problem, because we rely on distutils).

Therefore, if you install to /usr, we can have our resources, and if you install to /usr/local we can access our packages.

If anyone is familiar with ways of working around this wonderful Ubuntu python setup, then some help would be great. Otherwise it will go on my pile.

cheers,
Kai