"pycentral rtinstall" script does not add symlinks for python2.6 on upgrade

I think the problem is that rtinstall calls "requested_versions()" and that calls:
    supported = supported_versions(version_only=True)
so it runs into the problem that /usr/share/python/debian_defaults are not listing python2.6 when
the rtinstall script is run (because this file is part of python-minimal and at the intrepid version
when python2.6-minimal gets installed).

If we would reverse the logic to byte-compile everything that is not explictely unsupported that
would byte-compile python3.0 (with lots of failures) as well.

A possible solution is to have a python-common package that contains the debian_defaults file. python-minimal would depend on it (unversionized). python2.6-minimal would depends on it with a versionized dependency to ensure it gets the updated debian_defaults file before the postinst is run. This needs to be tested of course.

Why do we need to consider the supported Python versions at all in this case? When python2.6 is installed, shouldn't we just byte-compile things for python2.6 without protesting? (Yes, C extensions won't be available, but I don't get why we shouldn't make what modules we can available when you install pythonX.Y.)

Here is a possible patch:

=== modified file 'debian/changelog'
--- debian/changelog 2009-04-03 08:13:53 +0000
+++ debian/changelog 2009-04-15 14:11:26 +0000
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+python-central (0.6.11ubuntu7) jaunty; urgency=low
+
+ * When the rtinstall action runs, do not check the support
+ status of the runtime but byte-compile anyway. This fixes
+ the problem that python2.6-minimal gets installed before
+ the /usr/share/python/debian_defaults file gets updated
+ and has python2.6 as supported (LP: #357884)
+
+ -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:09:42 +0200
+
 python-central (0.6.11ubuntu6) jaunty; urgency=low

   * fix logic in get_installed_runtime() to not error when a

=== modified file 'pycentral.py'
--- pycentral.py 2009-04-03 10:03:05 +0000
+++ pycentral.py 2009-04-15 14:33:34 +0000
@@ -1718,6 +1718,9 @@
         for pkgname, vstring in packages:
             try:
                 requested = list(pyversions.requested_versions(vstring, version_only=True))
+ if not self.rtname[6:] in requested:
+ logging.info("%s not in what requested_versions() returned, adding it anyway" % self.rtname)
+ requested.append(self.rtname[6:])
             except ValueError:
                 logging.info('\tunsupported for %s: %s (%s)' % (self.rtname, pkgname, vstring))
                 continue

This bug was fixed in the package python-central - 0.6.11ubuntu7

---------------
python-central (0.6.11ubuntu7) jaunty; urgency=low

  * When the rtinstall action runs, do not check the support
    status of the runtime but byte-compile anyway. This fixes
    the problem that python2.6-minimal gets installed before
    the /usr/share/python/debian_defaults file gets updated
    and has python2.6 as supported (LP: #357884)

 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:09:42 +0200

This particular implementation is not the proper fix, it breaks installation of python2.5 when some packages which only support python2.6 and later get installed; see bug #412338.