How to install 64-bit Python on Solaris?

Question

I am trying to install Python 2.6 on Solaris by building the source on Solaris machine. I installed one this way and it appears that it is 32-bit. I downloaded some source tar ball as Linux or Unix for this purpose. Everything works well but I need 64-bit Python.

I looked up the Python download site and there is no separate installation for a 64-bit Python. That makes me think that there must be some option while running configure and/or install commands to install Python. I tried reading README.txt of the installation but could not find any info. I am very new to installations on "Unix" like systems.

How can I install 64-bit Python on Solaris?

Answer 1

It's currently an acknowledged bug that Solaris 64-bit support is suboptimal, but that bug report looks to contain some flags that you might want to use. See also this mailing list posting.

Answer 2

I would strongly suggest seeing if you can get away with the 32 bit version of Python. If your new to compiling stuff on Solaris, this will save you many headaches. However, it is possible, and I do have a working 64 bit version of Python. I'm using cc: Sun C 5.8 2005/10/13 to compile. Additionally, I've already compiled 64-bit version of readline and ncurses.

My configure line looks like this:

../Python-2.6.1/configure CCSHARED="-KPIC" LDSHARED="cc -xarch=generic64 -G -KPIC" LDFLAGS="-xarch=generic64 -L/opt/tools/lib -R/opt/tools/lib -L/opt/tools/ssl/lib -ltermcap -lz -R $ORIGIN/../lib" CC="cc" CPP="cc -xarch=generic64 -E -I/opt/tools/include -I/opt/tools/include/ncurses -I/opt/tools/include/readline" BASECFLAGS="-xarch=generic64 -I/opt/tools/include -I/opt/tools/include/ncurses" OPT="-xO5" CFLAGS="-xarch=generic64 -I/opt/tools/include -I/opt/tools/include/ncurses -I/opt/tools/include/readline" CXX="CC -xarch=generic64 -I/opt/tools/include -I/opt/tools/include/ncurses"  --prefix=/opt/tools/python-2.6.1 --enable-64-bit --without-gcc --disable-ipv6 --with-ssl=openssl --with-ncurses --with-readline

Additionally, I modified these two lines in Modules/Setup.local to include the required locations:

readline readline.c -I/opt/tools/include/readline -L/opt/tools/lib -lreadline -ltermcap
_ssl _ssl.c -I/opt/tools/ssl/include -L/opt/tools/ssl/lib -lssl -lcrypto

Now, just pray you don't need to compile in some Sybase bindings or some other 64-bit libraries.