Comments on: Configure and compile Python with Zlib

By: Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:04:00 +0000

Thanks – worked for me. Pretty annoying how this isn’t shown as an option in ./configure –help.

By: sriram

sriram — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:04:00 +0000

Thanks for the posting Nico!! Helped greatly..

By: Mult

Mult — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:12:00 +0000

In point 2, do you mean to run python with
./configure –with-zlib=/usr/include
Im just trying to get this right

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:23:00 +0000

Yeah, maybe on python 2.7 its done differently. But on my reply to another comment, it occurred to me that the whole deal with 64bit systems may cause some problems. Like, if you have 32bit python, you’ll need 32bit libs intsalled for zlib too, right? Just a thought.

Do you need your own compiled version? Or can you just install your distro’s package of it? (which *is* easier, IMHO)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:20:00 +0000

Well I am glad you got it to work! I posted this years ago. I kept having to deal with this for a few years and decided to post a “how-to” to myself. Funny thing is, I haven’t had to deal with it since! LOL! I just use the packages, and haven’t had a problem. But I suppose depends on software you are using and versions you need, plus these 64bit systems and libs complicate things a little.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:22:00 +0000

whooaaa, man! I almost threw my computer out the window on this!!

I’m on CentOs, so I installed zlib-dev this way:
yum install zlib-devel.x86_64

then, I un-commented #zlib in the Setup file of Python

then, I did: (note that I had the same error as Matthew with the with-zlib thing, so I just ommited it, to see what would happen)
./configure
make
make install

from within the Python folder (classic installation)

then I tried to import zlib, and it worked!

such a complicated process, I can’t believe this…

Fred

By: Matthew Rapaport

Matthew Rapaport — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:01:00 +0000

I tried the above, also un-commenting the zlib line in Modules/Setup, but while the configure ran, I end up with the message “unrecognized options: –with-zlib” So still no luck getting this to run. Strange that the Python that appears to ship with this box (2.4.2) already has zlib built in (I can “import gzip” while this later downloaded version (2.7.2) does not, or at least it doesn’t work when installed…

This is not my forte.

By: Kernc

Kernc — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:30:00 +0000

nothing worked for me until I manually edited ./Python2.5/Modules/Setup and uncommented the line starting with:
zlib zlibmodule.c …

quite sad. :S

By: Leo

Leo — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:44:19 +0000

Thanks!! I did a clean install of Python 2.6.5 and was getting

ImportError: No module named zlib

but then I followed your instructions, reinstalled python, and now it works.

By: Katharine Osborne

Katharine Osborne — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:37:33 +0000

Thanks! This was driving me nuts :-/

By: many thanx

many thanx — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:30:26 +0000

just wasted half a day on this myself – another pointer for those having trouble re-installing, make sure to unset your PYHTONHOME and PYHTONPATH env vars … son of a …

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 07:27:20 +0000

Originally posted by Nico:
It worked !!!! if you were a girl I would kiss you

thnx mate