Minimize python distribution size

Question

The hindrance we have to ship python is the large size of the standard library. Is there a minimal python distribution or an easy way to pick and choose what we want from the standard library? The platform is linux.

Answer 1

If all you want is to get the minimum subset you need (rather than build an exe which would constrain you to Windows systems), use the standard library module modulefinder to list all modules your program requires (you'll get all dependencies, direct and indirect). Then you can zip all the relevant .pyo or .pyc files (depending on whether you run Python with or without the -O flag) and just use that zipfile as your sys.path (plus a directory for all the .pyd or .so native-code dynamic libraries you may need -- those need to live directly in the filesystem to let the OS load them in as needed, can't be loaded directly from a zipfile the way Python bytecode modules can, unfortunately).

Answer 2

Like Hank Gay and Alex Martelli suggest, you can use py2exe. In addition I would suggest looking into using something like IronPython. Depending on your application, you can use libraries that are built into the .NET framework (or MONO if for Linux). This reduces your shipping size, but adds minimum requirements to your program.

Further, if you are using functions from a library, you can use from module import x instead of doing a wildcard import. This reduces your ship size as well, but maybe not by too much

Hope this helps

Answer 3

Have you looked at py2exe? It provides a way to ship Python programs without requiring a Python installation.