<p>I have been enjoying learning the basics of python, but before I started reading things I tried to install various python versions and modules clumsily. Now that I have some ideas of what I want to do and how to do it I'm finding that various aspects are broken. For instance, 2.6 IDLE won't launch, and when I try to import modules they usually don't work.</p>

<p>My question is, how would you recommend I clean this up and start fresh? I have read information about modifying the 2.6 install, but I still can't get it to work.</p>

<p>IDLE 2.4 works, and when I launch python from the terminal I am running python 2.4.4.</p>

I had this problem so much when I first got my Mac. The best solution I found was to delete everything I'd installed and just go with the
pythonmac.org
version of Python (2.6). I then installed setuptools from the same site, and then used easy_install to install every other package.
Oh, and I got the GNU C Compiler from the Xcode developer tools CD (which you can download from Apple's website), so that I can compile C extensions.