Idea #21453
closed
Install Python package virtualenvs under /usr/lib/PKGNAME
Description
Background: We used to ship Python packages that actually integrated with the distro packages, so we installed Python stuff under /usr/share/python3/dist/PKGNAME because that's where you put system-wide Python libraries.
When we switched to shipping an entire virtualenv, we didn't change this path. It doesn't hurt anything but it's kind of weird. So as of Arvados 2.7, we ship an entire virtualenv under /usr/share/python3/dist/PKGNAME.
As part of #20846, we updated the build process to consistently specify a minor version of Python, to avoid accidental breakage if Python got upgraded. As part of that change, the path we install under is now /usr/share/python3.NN/dist/PKGNAME. This is even weirder because /usr/share/python3.NN isn't really an established path for anything.
Since we're updating the path anyway, we might as well just make it /usr/lib/PKGNAME. This follows established convention better, it's easier to follow, and it's a very straightforward change.
This should be documented in the upgrade notes. If people have custom scripts that point to one of our shipped virtualenvs, they'll need to update those paths. This is already true after #20846, so making the path nicer makes the upgrade note nicer too.
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