Python error interpretation

[Chris Mohler]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Hal Burgiss <hal at burgiss.net> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 12:03:53PM -0500, Chris Mohler wrote:
>> On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 9:15 PM, Hal Burgiss <hal at burgiss.net> wrote:
>> [...]
>> > Could not find platform independent libraries <prefix>
>> > Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>]
>> > 'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
>>
>> OK - this is bad.  I'm not sure if this is the same problem as you had
>> originally, but it appears that your python cannot find *any* site
>> modules.  Check your permissions:

Perms look OK.

> In case 'import.os' shoulda been 'import os':

Yeah - sorry about that ;)  That looks OK too, so maybe I was wrong
about python being completely borked.


>> As a shot in the dark - do you have plenty of free disk space?
>
> Yea, basically a new installation:

Yeah - I figured that was not it...

> This system had been CentOS at one point, then went to 6.06, and now 8.04, so
> there may be some buried cruft (I did none of those installations personally). I
> had some wierd Apache and php package related issues too (fixed with a
> purge/reinstall).

I suspect something from the migration from 6.06 -> 8.04 is causing
you grief.  If this were my server, I'd try to persuade someone at the
data center to do a clean install for me - that may be easier in the
long run, as opposed to dealing with weirdness here and there.

Apt is pretty robust, but I've used it to hose my system too - also
with yum and plain old rpm too ;)  I'm not sure how far back the apt
logs go by default, but it might be worth poking around in there to
look for python-related problems in the past.  I'm rapidly running out
of useful advice though...

Chris