Install a Python program locally on Linux (Fedora): setuptools

Question

I am trying to install Pithos locally for a user. The source is taken from here: https://github.com/kevinmehall/pithos.git, and I use the latest stable version.

I can't remember how exactly, but I am more than sure that I did it without any problem on Ubuntu about a year ago with something like this:

bash python setup.py install --prefix=$HOME/.local

However, now on Fedora I cannot do the same. At first it was saying something about not being able to find python in ~/.local/lib/python2.7. Then I added ~/.local/lib/python/ to PYTHONPATH, and somehow it helped with that error, but now stops with message:

copying data/icons/scalable/apps/pithos-mono.svg -> /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps
error: /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/pithos-mono.svg: Permission denied

I understand, that this is clearly "permission denied", but this is not what I am asking it to do. I tried other options such as --user, --install-data and others, but no luck.

I checked the repository to find out what happened, and realized that the project has switched around last summer to setuptools. This may explain why what worked before about a year ago, does not now.

To sum up. I have Python installed in /usr/lib/..., and want to build and install pithos into local folders ~/.local/bin, ~/.local/share/ etc. the way it worked before. Since the project moved to setuptools, --prefix does not work. Could someone help me to figure out how to do this?

Answer 1

The problem is with the setup.py script. Looking at this commit, the installation directories for these files are hard-coded as /usr/share/*. The package is installed in .local, just that these data files need to stay in /usr/share/* according to the installation script.