[Trac-dev] Installing in a virtualenv

[RjOllos]

I've considered installing in a virtualenv to, in general, be the preferred
mode of installing Trac. In reviewing TracInstall, I found that we don't
mention virtualenv at all. So I'm wondering, should we mention virtualenv,
and whether we go so far as to suggest this as the preferred method of
installation?

Thank you for any comments.

- Ryan

[Christopher Nelson]

Post by RjOllos
I've considered installing in a virtualenv to, in general, be the preferred
mode of installing Trac. In reviewing TracInstall, I found that we don't
mention virtualenv at all. So I'm wondering, should we mention virtualenv,
and whether we go so far as to suggest this as the preferred method of
installation?

I'm not really sure what you mean so I guess I can't comment.

[RjOllos]

Post by Christopher Nelson
I'm not really sure what you mean so I guess I can't comment.

More information can be found in (1) and (2). One advantage is that all the
dependencies are installed in an isolated Python environment and it's
easier to control the state of that Python environment with respect to the
Trac install.

One downside though is that it seems to be more difficult to install some
dependencies (e.g. Subversion Python bindings) and packages installed in
the global site-packages directory using the OS package manager are not
available by default. It somewhat defeats the purpose of creating a
virtualenv to make these dependencies available using the
--system-site-packages option.

(1)
http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracDev/DevelopmentEnvironmentSetup#Getvirtualenv
(2) https://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv

[Christopher Nelson]

Post by RjOllos

Post by Christopher Nelson
I'm not really sure what you mean so I guess I can't comment.

More information can be found in (1) and (2). One advantage is that all the
dependencies are installed in an isolated Python environment and it's easier
to control the state of that Python environment with respect to the Trac
install.
...

I pretty much use Python only for Trac so unless I was interested in
isolating two Trac instances from one another, this really doesn't
seem to have high utility to me.

[RjOllos]

Post by RjOllos
I've considered installing in a virtualenv to, in general, be the
preferred mode of installing Trac. In reviewing TracInstall, I found that
we don't mention virtualenv at all. So I'm wondering, should we mention
virtualenv, and whether we go so far as to suggest this as the preferred
method of installation?
Thank you for any comments.
- Ryan

After spending some time working through the TracInstall instructions I'm
left feeling that a more extensive rework is needed to simplify the steps
and make it less intimidating for new users. I think this is a difficult
but important task. Not unexpectedly given that it's a wiki, the
TracInstall instructions have evolved into a patchwork of incomplete
platform-specific caveats, but most of the document targets Linux.

One of the changes I might propose for the TracInstall page is to use a
virtualenv and make Linux the canonical platform, with platform-specific
pages containing all the caveats for non-Linux platforms. Later on I'll
raise another thread to discuss the changes.