Distributing a large Python-enabled application: best practices

Question

There is a large Python application that consists of numerous third-party packages and binary libraries. Here is an overview of my requirements:

• Cross-platform (currently Windows and modern Linux distributions)
• Installing lots (say >100 MB) of binary libraries (DLLs on Windows)
• Installing third-party Python packages (some of them cannot be installed on Windows using tools like easy_install)
• Installing Visual Studio redistributable package it needed
• Preserving file layout for my package if possible (no compressed eggs)
• A clear way to remove all packages and libraries
• Distribute test suite (py.test in my case)
• Option for no-source distribution (.pyc-only)

The application should be "portable" at least as a Python package (can be installed anywhere using VirtualEnv).

What are my choices? Should I just stick with setuptools (distribute)? Should I roll out custom installer?

The application being developed is proprietary, but it provides Python API for developers, and I want it to look and feel as pythonish and hackerish as possible.

Answer 1

Py2Exe can done most of the prerequisites, and dependencies, to remove and additional install/uninstall you could use any msi installer creator.