What should I use under *nix instead of freeze?

[Mike Kent]

In a comment Guido made on a recent bug report for the 'freeze'
utility, he stated:

"I think nobody really cares about freeze any more -- it isn't
maintained."

That being the case, what is the preferred/best replacement for freeze
on a *nix platform? I'm looking for something that, like freeze,
turns my application into a single-file executable, of the smallest
size possible, that can be executed on a machine with no Python
installation or development system.

 

[Noah]

In a comment Guido made on a recent bug report for the 'freeze'
utility, he stated:

"I think nobody really cares about freeze any more -- it isn't
maintained."

That being the case, what is the preferred/best replacement for freeze
on a *nix platform? I'm looking for something that, like freeze,
turns my application into a single-file executable, of the smallest
size possible, that can be executed on a machine with no Python
installation or development system.

This isn't a complete answer -- it requires Python, but
you might figure out a way to also embed an interpreter and
libraries.
I remember seeing such an installation somewhere (I think on
SourceForge),
but I don't remember the name of it. At any rate, this explains how
to
package your python project and libs as a self-extracting compressed
executable:

http://www.noah.org/wiki/Python_zip_exe

 

[Wildemar Wildenburger]

That being the case, what is the preferred/best replacement for freeze
on a *nix platform?

Don't know about best or preferred, but pyinstaller seems to do that.
<URL:http://pyinstaller.python-hosting.com>

good luck
/W

 

[Martin v. Löwis]

"I think nobody really cares about freeze any more -- it isn't

maintained."

That being the case, what is the preferred/best replacement for freeze
on a *nix platform?

I don't think that there is one, or that there should be one.

If you care about the feature (i.e. provide a single executable of
your application), you should contribute to maintenance of freeze.
Maybe there is only a few of you (because people typically assume
that Python comes preinstalled with *nix, so why would you have to
redistribute the interpreter?), but then, maintenance of freeze
doesn't take that much effort, either.

I'm looking for something that, like freeze,
turns my application into a single-file executable, of the smallest
size possible, that can be executed on a machine with no Python
installation or development system.

Please understand that it's not freeze that nobody cares about
anymore - it's this specific use case that nobody cares about anymore.
You must have a very odd collection of target systems if you can't
assume that a Python binary is provided by the system vendor. In
that case, consider giving back to the community, and contribute
any patches to freeze that you may find necessary.

Regards,
Martin

 

[Wildemar Wildenburger]

I don't think that there is one, or that there should be one.

So haven't I understood what freeze does? Isn't pyinstaller just that?

/W

 

[Thorsten Kampe]

* Wildemar Wildenburger (Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:39:05 +0100)

Don't know about best or preferred, but pyinstaller seems to do
that. <URL:http://pyinstaller.python-hosting.com>

Doesn't work (on Linux).

Thorsten

 

[Martin v. Löwis]

That being the case, what is the preferred/best replacement for freeze

So haven't I understood what freeze does? Isn't pyinstaller just that?

No. First, it works on Windows, Linux and Irix only, not on arbitrary
*nix systems. Second, it doesn't create a single executable, but depends
on the extension modules that the host Python interpreter uses. To
compile a simple "print 'Hello, world'" with Python 2.5 on Debian, I
get an executable consisting of 22 binaries.

Regards,
Martin

 

[Eric Brunel]

In a comment Guido made on a recent bug report for the 'freeze'
utility, he stated:

"I think nobody really cares about freeze any more -- it isn't
maintained."

That being the case, what is the preferred/best replacement for freeze
on a *nix platform? I'm looking for something that, like freeze,
turns my application into a single-file executable, of the smallest
size possible, that can be executed on a machine with no Python
installation or development system.

Never used it, but it seems cx_Freeze
(http://python.net/crew/atuining/cx_Freeze/) does just that... Don't know
if it's maintained anymore, but versions are available for the latest
Python version (2.5).

HTH