It is possible that "makesetup" fails with an obscure sed
error. This is a bug in bash. Replace /bin/sh with /bin/ash
in both makesetup and Makefile.pre.in. This has been observed
in Slackware version 2.2, bash 1.14.3; Slackware 2.1 did not
have the problem.
I am running Linux 1.2.4 with bash 1.14.3. I installed ash and replaced
the symbolic link for sh from bash to ash. Python built without problem.
HOWEVER, upon reboot the root file system could not be changed from
read only to read write. This is not good.
After some investigation, I was able to determine that /etc/rc.d/rc.S
is not compatible with ash and will fail to remount the root as read
write. If this happens to you, follow these steps:
1. remount the root filesystem by hand...
mount -o remount,rw -w -n /dev/sda2 /
(of course, use your actual root device/partition name)
2. restore /bin/sh as a symbolic link to bash (be sure bash
is still in /bin first!)
3. reboot
BTW: as noted, this is a bug in bash 1.14.3. It is not a related to
any specific release of Slackware or Linux. Slackware 2.2 includes
bash 1.14.3, but you would have the same problem on any version of
Linux running bash 1.14.3.
-- George M. Sipe - gsipe@mindspring.com Phone or FAX: (404) 447-4731