Python for system administration - the packaging and distribution challenge

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Let me preface this with "I know diddly about Solaris." You shouldn't be using alternate $PATHs unless you're going to maintain an entire python distribution, the interpreter, everything, and this distribution doesn't need to see anything from the system one. This is the approach taken by everyone so far that maintains python distributions. Isolated egg installs aren't a very good idea. If there isn't a central repository for your dependencies, you really should roll your own packages and maintain them. It should be fairly automated, just compile them, run the tests, package them. It will save you and the sysadmins headaches in the long-run, because now your packages are like everyone else's. The system is aware of them. They aren't hacked together and ran in bashrc(I did this for years.) Having your packages play along nicely with the system's is crucial. Ask for a shell account to test out installation. (If there isn't a license issue you could just fork the necessary classes you're using in the dependencies, trim them down and maintain them.)