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4.1 Alternate installation: Unix (the home scheme)

Under Unix, there are two ways to perform an alternate installation. The ``prefix scheme'' is similar to how alternate installation works under Windows and Mac OS, but is not necessarily the most useful way to maintain a personal Python library. Hence, we document the more convenient and commonly useful ``home scheme'' first.

The idea behind the ``home scheme'' is that you build and maintain a personal stash of Python modules, probably under your home directory. Installing a new module distribution is as simple as

      python setup.py install --home=<dir>

where you can supply any directory you like for the --home option. Lazy typists can just type a tilde (`` ); the `install` command will expand this to your home directory:

      python setup.py install --home=~

The --home option defines the installation base directory. Files are installed to the following directories under the installation base as follows:

Type of file | Installation Directory | Override option
--- | --- | ---
pure module distribution | home/lib/python | --install-purelib
non-pure module distribution | home/lib/python | --install-platlib
scripts | home/bin | --install-scripts
data | home/share | --install-data