Installing Python 2.4 on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

// under help guide installation linux lucid packages python ubuntu

Whoops. No one sent me the memo that Python 2.4 support was being removed entirely from the latest version of Ubuntu, 10.04 Lucid Lynx. To be fair, I was presented with the message that ‘these outdated packages will be removed’ and in that list was python2.4. I made the unfortunate assumption that this just mean the package was outdated (which it certainly is) and I’d have the ability to install it again in Lucid. There were a number of different packages on the list and in order to save time, I let the updater remove them all. End result? No more Python 2.4 on Lucid.Now, installing it back again isn’t too much of a hassle. You just need the old packages again from the Jaunty repositories.

wget http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/archive/pool/main/p/python2.4/python2.4-minimal_2.4.6-1ubuntu3.2.9.10.1_i386.deb -O python2.4-minimal.deb
wget http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/archive/pool/main/p/python2.4/python2.4_2.4.6-1ubuntu3.2.9.10.1_i386.deb -O python2.4.deb
wget http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/archive/pool/main/p/python2.4/python2.4-dev_2.4.6-1ubuntu3.2.9.10.1_i386.deb -O python2.4-dev.deb
sudo dpkg -i python2.4-minimal.deb python2.4.deb python2.4-dev.deb
rm python2.4-minimal.deb python2.4.deb python2.4-dev.deb

You can use your own mirror for the Ubuntu repository as required. I’ve selected the AARNet mirror since it’s about one of the quickest (typically) for me here in Australia on an AARNet-connected educational institution. Also, I’m using the i386 packages — presumably this should be fine with the amd64 counterparts as well.

Note on Python 2.4 packages: watch out for old Python 2.4 system-level packages you had installed (like python-virtualenv and similar) previously on Jaunty or earlier. These will now likely be their Python 2.6 counterparts and installed differently than the old ones. So, if you try and easy_install something like virtualenv again, expect that you’ll have two apps with the same identical name (vs virtualenv-2.4 previously) in your system path.

Note on Virtualenv: Exercise caution — especially with the example of virtualenv. Its latest incarnation has some deeper emotional issues when mixing and matching the python-virtualenv package from the official Lucid repos and Python2.4. I get the feeling this bug is related.

Python 2.4 Profiler Reinstallation

If you find that some of your code (hello, Plone unit testing and functional testing, I’m talking about you) won’t run because you can’t “import profile” (ImportError: No module named profile), then you’ll need to get a hold of the python2.4-profiler package and install that. Now, life is made more fun by the fact that python-profiler (Ubuntu’s new Python 2.6 version) explicitly conflicts with this package. Soooo… do this to install it:

sudo apt-get remove python-profiler
wget http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/archive/pool/multiverse/p/python-profiler/python2.4-profiler_2.4.3-1ubuntu3_all.deb -O python2.4-profiler.deb
sudo dpkg-deb -x python2.4-profiler.deb /
rm python2.4-profiler.deb
sudo apt-get install python-profiler

and hey presto, you’ve got your profile module installed for ye olde Python 2.4.

Go Top