Howto install Python 2.3.3 on Redhat 9.0 by RPMs

The Problem

In the meantime Redhat 9.0 has become rather old. RedHat 9.0 is shipped with python 2.2.2 which is quite old as well. RedHat themselves provide no python 2.3.3 rpms which can easily be updated.

The Solution

There is a quite easy solution for this problem. Python.org provides binary RPMs for Fedora Core 1 which can be installed on RedHat 9.0 as well without much pain. There is only one dependency which you have to resolve manually. The Python.org RPM require db4-4.1, we have only 4.0 on Redhat 9.0 and updating this is a pain. So we just install db4-4.1 from Fedora Core in addition to our 4.0 which works fine.

Required Files, MD5 checksums and sizes

• 3eba1421977c7f4f0410b8e09c43a715 python2.3-2.3.3-2pydotorg.i386.rpm (6072688 bytes)
• 7fdc916537431b850d64e4654fbc012b python2.3-devel-2.3.3-2pydotorg.i386.rpm (676969 bytes)
• f7e1d3a7aacbfdde69a1d71c618e1e6d python2.3-tools-2.3.3-2pydotorg.i386.rpm (688674 bytes)
• 3aa62511ae17ca45f1fc8e1e3e485bdd db4-4.1.25-14.i386.rpm (1480750 bytes)

The Python 2.3.3 rpms are located at http://python.org/2.3.3/rpms.html. The db4-4.1 rpm is part of Fedora.

Doing it

# wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.3.3/rpms/fedora-1/python2.3-2.3.3-2pydotorg.i386.rpm
# wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.3.3/rpms/fedora-1/python2.3-devel-2.3.3-2pydotorg.i386.rpm
# wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.3.3/rpms/fedora-1/python2.3-tools-2.3.3-2pydotorg.i386.rpm
# wget --passive ftp://rpmfind.rediris.es/redhat/fc1/Fedora/RPMS/db4-4.1.25-14.i386.rpm

# rpm -ivh db4-4.1.25-14.i386.rpm python2.3-*
  warning: db4-4.1.25-14.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 4f2a6fd2
  warning: python2.3-2.3.3-2pydotorg.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 95ccbcff
  Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
     1:db4                    ########################################### [ 25%]
     2:python2.3              ########################################### [ 50%]
     3:python2.3-devel        ########################################### [ 75%]
     4:python2.3-tools        ########################################### [100%]

# python2.3
Python 2.3.3 (#1, Feb  7 2004, 17:28:49)
[GCC 3.3.2 20031022 (Red Hat Linux 3.3.2-1)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

That's it

Have fun with python 2.3.3 on RedHat 9. Please not that you need to run "python2.3" to get it. The original python 2.2.2 which can be invoked by "python" or "python2.2" was not touched or replaced.