Larry,

the thing about the python ecosystem is that it holds to a philosophy of  "backwards compatibility my A**! we told we're gonna break it and we did! We have a new, shiny idea and
it's better. recode your already working stuff".  Not acceptable in my mind, but to each their own.

There can be  (often are) system utilities that depend on a particular version.  They tend to NOT call out version dependencies and it's quite nasty to find them broken...
Especially if you don't use them often.  I know, I did this a few times before I ran with some python-istas for a while.

What your rpm check told you is all the python packages on the system... Which doesn't tell which one depend on the python version and won't.

What your student will almost certainly run into, unless they are python experts, is their code will grab system python packages and break their code or have unexpected behaviors.

because you mention this is on a cluster, my number one suggestion (give them a VM), likely won't fly.

number two, is a /usr/local/bin of the needed version and tell them if they break the cluster (system packages) for the other users, You'll hand them over to the pitchforks and
torches crowd.  Not nice, but fun.


My condolences



On 07/30/2016 04:36 PM, P. Larry Nelson wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Please don't shoot the questioner (me), as I have no experience with
> Python, other than knowing "what" it is and that my SL6.8 systems have
> version 2.6.6 installed.
>
> I have been asked by one of our Professors that one of his grad students
> apparently needs Python 2.7.x installed on our cluster (optimally in
> /usr/local, which is an NFS mounted dir everywhere).
>
> In my brief Googling, I have not found OS requirements for 2.7.x, but
> have inferred that it probably needs SL7.x.
>
> Can anyone confirm that?
> Or has anyone installed Python 2.7.x (and which .x?) on an SL6.8 system
> without replacing 2.6.x?
>
> I'm guessing this can be quite a morass to delve into as when I do a
> 'rpm -qa|grep -i python|wc'
> It returns with 67 rpms with python in the rpm name!
>
> If the solution is indeed simple, I might proceed, otherwise, I'm
> of a tendency to reply to the Professor and student, "No way - won't work."
> I think the student probably has access to CERN systems that probably
> have what he's looking for.
>
> I've followed up with that inquiry to the student and waiting to hear back.
>
> Thanks!
> - Larry
>
>