Getting Plone to work on Fedora Core 3

When I tried to install Plone 2.0.3 I got an error message

error: Failed dependencies:
python2.3 >= 2.3.3 is needed by Plone2-2.0.3-2.i386

even though Fedora Core 3 comes with Python 2.3.4

A comment on this site:
http://longsleep.org/howto/rh9-python233/talkback/1101860526
suggests that it's a common-or-garden bug in the RPM file.

So (rather than wait for the next Plone RPM) I thought I'd try and use Python 2.3.3, rather than 2.3.4

http://longsleep.org/howto/rh9-python233
gives excellent installation instructions for Python 2.3.3.

However, the first time I tried this process I got an error message about more failed dependencies:
libstdc++.so.5
libstdc++.so.5(CXXABI_1.2)
libstdc++.so.5(GLIBCPP_3.2)

So I then tried getting and installing these, using the RPM:
libstdc++-3.2-1.i386.rpm

To do this I used the commands:
# wget ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/www.haoli.org/pub/redhat-7.x/RPMS/i386/libstdc++-3.2-1.i386.rpm
# rpm -ivh libstdc++-3.2-1.i386.rpm

But, no luck here either, 2.3.3 won't install if you already have 2.3.4 installed, all you get are lots of messages like:
file /usr/lib/python2.3/idlelib/textView.pyo from install of python2.3-tools-2.3.3-2pydotorg conflicts with file from package python-2.3.4-11

So I tried using -U for update
rather than -i for install:

rpm -Uvh db4-4.1.25-14.i386.rpm python2.3-*

But this generated, wait for it ... failed dependency error messages:

error: Failed dependencies:
      libdb-4.2.so is needed by (installed) perl-5.8.5-9.i386
      libdb-4.2.so is needed by (installed) python-2.3.4-11.i386
      libdb-4.2.so is needed by (installed) pam_ccreds-1-3.i386
      ... and so on ...
      db4 = 4.2.52 is needed by (installed) pam-0.77-65.i386
      db4 = 4.2.52-6 is needed by (installed) db4-devel-4.2.52-6.i386
      db4 = 4.2.52-6 is needed by (installed) db4-utils-4.2.52-6.i386

So I tried installing the db4 RPM, using:
# wget ftp://ftp.pbone.net/mirror/download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/db4-4.2.52-6.i386.rpm
# rpm -ivh db4-4.2.52-6.i386.rpm

To which I got:

Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
      package db4-4.2.52-6 is already installed

Which is weird, because why was the previous error message
complaining about something that was already installed?

I then searched for installed packages mentioning "python":

# rpm -qa|grep -i python
python-2.3.4-11
libxml2-python-2.6.14-2
gnome-python2-canvas-2.6.0-3
dbus-python-0.22-10
rpm-python-4.3.2-21
gnome-python2-2.6.0-3
python-devel-2.3.4-11
python-ldap-2.0.1-2
mod_python-3.1.3-5
gnome-python2-bonobo-2.6.0-3
gnome-python2-gtkhtml2-2.6.0-3
MySQL-python-0.9.2-4

and I tried to delete python-2.3.4-11:

# rpm -e python-2.3.4-11

but this just - yep, you've guessed it:
error: Failed dependencies:
followed by lots of lines like:

      /usr/bin/python2 is needed by (installed) system-config-rootpassword-1.1.6-1.noarch
      /usr/bin/python2 is needed by (installed) system-config-soundcard-1.2.10-1.noarch
      /usr/bin/python2 is needed by (installed) system-config-users-1.2.25-1.noarch
      /usr/bin/python2 is needed by (installed) system-config-display-1.0.23-1.noarch

At which point I decided it was time to give up on RPMs and try another way - namely installing from source files.

To do this, first get the tar files for Zope and Plone:
# wget http://zope.org/Products/Zope/2.7.3/Zope-2.7.3-0.tgz
# wget http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/plone/Plone-2.0.5.tar.gz

Then unpack them:
# gunzip Zope-2.7.3-0.tgz
# tar -xvf Zope-2.7.3-0.tar
# gunzip Plone-2.0.5.tar.gz
# tar -xvf Plone-2.0.5.tar

I then installed Zope (following the INSTALL.txt instructions).

[I also read WEBSERVER.txt, with a view to integrating Zone
with Apache at a later date]

# ./configure --prefix=/opt/zope
# make
# make install
# /opt/zope/bin/mkzopeinstance.py
Please choose a directory in which you'd like to install
Zope "instance home" files such as database files, configuration
files, etc.