The Installer Tool
Gordon
McMillan has developed a richer and more general solution to the same
problem that py2exe solves—preparing compact
ways to package up Python applications for installation on end user
machines that may not have Python installed. The
Installer tool, freely downloadable from
http://www.mcmillan-inc.com/install1.html,
is more general than py2exe, which supports only
Windows platforms. Installer natively supports
Linux as well as Windows. Also,
Installer’s portable,
cross-platform architecture may allow you to extend it to support
other Unix-like platforms with a reasonable amount of effort.
Installer does not rely on
distutils. To use Installer,
you must learn its own specification files’ syntax
and semantics. Installer can do much more than
py2exe, so it’s not surprising
that there is more for you to learn before making full use of it.
However, I recommend studying and trying out
Installer if you have the specific need of
building standalone Python applications for Linux or other Unix-like
architectures, or if you have tried py2exe and
found it did not quite meet your needs.
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