Workaround read-only site-packages for cx_freeze

Question

I'm currently trying to make cx_freeze to work on a Solaris workstation I have to work with, in order to make an executable from a Python script I have. Problem is, I'm not administrator of this machine, and installation of cx_freeze requests write to site-packages, which is read-only for me.

So, obviously, I get this error:

creating /usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cx_Freeze
error: could not create '/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cx_Freeze': Read-only file system

And if I try to run it anyway, it fails:

bash-3.00$ python /home/xxxx/cx_freeze-4.2.3/cxfreeze --target-dir cx_dist src/p_tool.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/xxxx/cx_freeze-4.2.3/cxfreeze", line 5, in <module>
    main()
  File "/home/xxxx/cx_freeze-4.2.3/cx_Freeze/main.py", line 187, in main
    silent = options.silent)
  File "/home/xxxx/cx_freeze-4.2.3/cx_Freeze/freezer.py", line 91, in __init__
    self._VerifyConfiguration()
  File "/home/xxxx/cx_freeze-4.2.3/cx_Freeze/freezer.py", line 371, in _VerifyConfiguration
    self._GetInitScriptFileName()
  File "/home/xxxx/cx_freeze-4.2.3/cx_Freeze/freezer.py", line 283, in _GetInitScriptFileName
    raise ConfigError("no initscript named %s", name)
cx_Freeze.freezer.ConfigError: no initscript named Console

Obviously, this is linked to the failed installation. So, here's my question:

Without installation of virtualenv, could I avoid the writing to site-packages, and make cx_freeze to execute from my home folder?

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EDIT I had a look at site.py documentation, and PYTHONPATH filling should be equivalent to use of site-packages. So my question is now more something like: what is the path to be added to PYTHONPATH, so that cx_freeze could be executed from any location?

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Notes:

• I would like to avoid to deal with virtualenv, as I'm already struggling to understand the executable tools...
• I saw this question, but this still requires access to site-packages folder, plus it's not user-specific;
• I tried adding the following path to PYTHONPATH, but this does not work: /home/xxxx/cx_freeze-4.2.3/build/lib.solaris-2.10-sun4v-2.6;
• I'm also trying to use PyInstaller but have dependency problems (and the administrator is not really helping me).

Answer 1

This works like a charm for me :

$ python setup.py install --home=$HOME

Run in the source directory of cx_freeze found on the Sourceforge download page.