Request: Add a step-by-step guide explaining how to get a portable python build on linux

[fyhertz]

Hello,

Thank your your work on this tool !

I'm trying to get a portable build of python 3.10 out of portable-python and I'm probably missing something because builds are... not portable :'(

Here is what I have tried to far in docker running ubuntu:18.04

apt update && apt install python3-pip gcc make libffi-dev zlib1g-dev
pip3 install portable-python
portable-python build 3.10.9

The build succeeds but the resulting python build is linked against libffi and libz:

 prefix /build/ppp-marker/3.9.16
 _bz2 *absent* None
 _ctypes 1.1.0 _ctypes*.so ffi:6
 _curses *absent* None
 _dbm *absent* None
 _decimal 1.70 _decimal*.so
 _gdbm *absent* None
 _lzma _lzma*.so
 _sqlite3 *absent* None
 _ssl *absent* None
 _tkinter *absent* None
 _uuid *absent* None
 pip 22.0.4 lib/python3.9/site-packages/pip
 pyexpat 2.5.0 pyexpat*.so
 readline *absent* None
 setuptools 58.1.0 lib/python3.9/site-packages/setuptools
 zlib 1.2.11 zlib*.so z:1
 libpython*.a 67 MB lib/libpython3.9.a lib/python3.9/config-3.9-x86_64-linux-gnu/libpython3.9.a
 libpython*.so -not used-
 install size 122 MB
ERROR Build failed: Uses system libs: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.6
INFO Compiling cpython took 6 minutes 46 seconds
INFO Overall compilation took 6 minutes 57 seconds

What should I do to get a fully portable build? And could we document that in a step-by-step how-to guide?

[zsimic]

So sorry I failed to respond earlier, got distracted by other projects.
I will add such a guide, it is lacking indeed!

To see what is going to end up compiled in as shared vs static, you can run the build-report command as in: portable-python build-report 3.9.16, the output tries to tell you what is going to be shared vs static, and why

Contrast that with what would happen if you explicitly asked it to do say "openssl" and "readline" as static: use the -m (short for --modules) CLI flag for example:

portable-python build-report 3.9.16 -m openssl,readline

What modules to compile in statically can also be configured, with a section like this (this is what I use on macos):

macos:
 cpython-modules: xz openssl gdbm