Standalone Python applications in Linux

Question

How can I distribute a standalone Python application in Linux?

I think I can take for granted the presence of a recent Python interpreter in any modern distribution.

Answer 1

You can't easily do it in a distribution-neutral format. The only reliable dependency tracking mechanisms are built into the package management systems on the distributions and will vary from distribution to distribution. You'll effectively have to do rpm for fedora, debs for ubuntu and debian etc.

Py2exe works fine on Windows. It builds a distribution with all of the necessary DLL's and a wrapper for the python interpreter that starts your program. It's fairly straightforward to install - just drop it in a directory - so making a msi file for it is trivial.