I've been trying to test installation procedures for Paste as I get ready for a release. This is hard, because I've installed everything piecewise as I've been doing development.

So I've created a script to set up a non-root installation of Python, suitable for testing installation procedures. It follows the instructions located in the setuptools documentation; it's located in non_root_python.py.

To do testing I've created a new user on my system, so I don't mix things up with my normal development, and so I have nothing to lose. Then I use it like:

/usr/bin/python non_root_python.py --no-site-packages --clear

In the process it copies (symlinks) the standard library into ~/lib/pythonX.Y (and site-packages unless you use --no-site-packages).

The --clear argument can be used to reset the system quickly, so you can restart your installation process from zero.

I also use --include-package=sqlite --include-package=_sqlite to copy those modules/packages from site-packages, because easy_install doesn't install pysqlite very well.

You have to make sure ~/bin is first in your $PATH, but it's pretty straight-forward. I'll have to test the Windows installation procedure later.