I am a mid-level python developer interested primarily in creating WSGI-based web apps. I have a working knowledge of *nix but not of sysadmin. I will be working from command line. Which Linux OS distro is most python dev friendly out of:

  • CentOS
  • Debian
  • ubuntu
  • Fedora
  • gentoo
link|improve this question

To be honest, I'm not sure this question makes any sense. Looking forward to the answers. – Daniel Beck Nov 30 '11 at 14:37
I'm not sure there's any difference from my point of view, but in case there's more support/compatibility for one over the other I'd like to know before I make the jump. – rutherford Nov 30 '11 at 14:44
feedback

closed as not constructive by RedGrittyBrick, slhck, random Dec 1 '11 at 1:23

This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

You can probably do anything python-related from any of the distros you mention, but large parts of Gentoo's infrastructure (including Portage) is built in python, and it contains good tools to, for example, switch the system python interpreter between 2 and 3 series and automatically rebuild python extensions that break when you update python.

Gentoo also has good support for installing many versions of python at the sam time, currently 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 3.1 and 3.2 are available (and presumably maintained) in the official tree (3.2 marked as unstable).

Also, apart from Fedora and Gentoo, all of the mentioned distros ship pretty outdated python versions afaik. (In fact they ship outdated everything.) That might be what you want, or it might not.

Edit: If you want to keep a separate, user-built python install, the choice of distro makes no great difference. Pick the one you like. Gentoo is simple to install wihtout X, so if you only want command line or ssh access in a VM, you'd save a bit of downloading and disk space.

link|improve this answer
yum is written in python, which means fedora, redhat, and centos all use python as their cores also. – Sirex Nov 30 '11 at 15:14
very useful information thanks, like the support for different python versions, will likely come in handy at some point. My python web server of choice (fapws3) has been tested on gentoo too so I think I'll go with that. – rutherford Nov 30 '11 at 18:09
feedback

There's little differences, also all are linux os, the examples you name are called "distributions". some have python out the box (i think all you mention, possibly except gentoo) but its easy to install or update on all.

Define "python friendly" ?

link|improve this answer
feedback

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.