Some note on plug bash, python, and gcc into HPUX. Totally binary depots, not compiling from source :) Don't think gcc is better then aCC on production tasks but it adds possibilities.

• OS: HP-UX APP B.11.23 U ia64
• goal: ksh⇒bash; perl⇒python,ipython; cc,aCC ⇒ gcc,g++

Bringing gnu toolchains is quite easy and straight-forward. Just grab depots and install them. I'm just using

swinstall -s /path/to/depot/file

Only thing to mention is the requirements, obviously these depots are included:

• libiconv
• gettext
• termcap
• zlib

Then libgcc, gcc, make, less, bash. Yummy bash! Bye bye ksh!

The most recent Python depot I found is Python 2.5.2. Py2.5 is a great pleasure for me over perl.:) Just grab the depot and use swinstall to gear the OS up with python.

swinstall -s /depots/python-2.5.2-ia64-11.23.depot

Like Perl, Python shines with humongous module library. Get a recent setuptools is prefered. Upon installing setuptools-0.6c11, I found that a critical package is lost in current python:

import error: no module named _md5

Some encryption lib is stripped(US export law?)… For this Python 2.5.2, this should be hashlib.Grab it and install:

python setup.py install
...
ld: Can't find library or mismatched ABI for -lpython2.5
Fatal error.
error: command 'ld' failed with exit status 1

Ahh to my suprise setuptools didn't include the python library path for C extensions! Trying to fix it:

export SHLIB_PATH=$SHLIB_PATH:/usr/local/lib/python2.5/config

Yet setup.py is not using SHLIB_PATH(wonder if it cares about LD_LIBRARY_PATH in Linux…)
Then my workaround is lil'bit brutal(not graceful but works):

export CFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib/python2.5/config

And this let HPUX shipped cc builds c extensions with proper lib path I commanded. Get ipython installed and now I have a nice python enviroment!

This site provides sweet HPUX depots mentioned above.