python2.6 needed as an aptitude package as dependency

[Jan Hapala]

Hello,

I need to install a program (MACS: http://liulab.dfci.harvard.edu/MACS/) for which I need to have Python2.6 installed.

I do have two other Pythons installed but not this version.

1) So I tried apt-get install... python2.6 is not there as a package (I am running Linux Mint 15).

2) Okay, I added some repos to the /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free

I ran apt-get update... python2.6 not there

3) I downloaded python2.6 as a source tar and compiled it and installed with make altinstall...
Python2.6 is installed. When I enter "python" in the command line and hit Tab, I can see there now all three versions of python.

Still I get the same error:
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of macs:
macs depends on python2.6; however:
Package python2.6 is not installed.

I will be grateful for your suggestions,

Jan

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 1:24 AM, Jan Hapala <j...@hapala.cz> wrote:
> I need to install a program (MACS: http://liulab.dfci.harvard.edu/MACS/) for which I need to have Python2.6 installed.
>
> I do have two other Pythons installed but not this version.

Is one of those Pythons a 2.7? If so, MACS will probably run with
that. The only problem is that the dpkg installer doesn't know that
you have the right dependencies. This isn't a Python question, it's a
Debian packaging one, but I happen to know one of the ways to deal
with this: the 'equivs' system. Since you've now installed Python 2.6
from source, you do have it, so all you need to do is make a dummy
package called (or providing) python2.6.

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-helpers.en.html

I used this system at work for several packages where I wanted to run
a newer version of something than the repos provided. Saved us a lot
of hassle.

ChrisA

[Asaf Las]

On Friday, January 17, 2014 4:24:16 PM UTC+2, Jan Hapala wrote:
> Hello,
> I need to install a program (MACS: http://liulab.dfci.harvard.edu/MACS/) for which I need to have Python2.6 installed.
> I do have two other Pythons installed but not this version.

> I will be grateful for your suggestions,
> Jan

you can try install from source option explicitly specifying python version
from command line. guess for altinstall it should be python2.6
python2.6 setup.py install --prefix /home/taoliu/

https://github.com/taoliu/MACS/blob/master/INSTALL.rst

/Asaf