Hmm... are you able to use the appbrowser or tce-load in 2.3.1 to install python-2.5.2-minimal.tczl?
tc@box:~$ uname -a
Linux box 2.6.29.1-tinycore #1337 SMP Fri Apr 10 19:12:39 EEST 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
tc@box:~$ date
Fri Sep 18 13:49:04 UTC 2009
tc@box:~$ tce-load -w -i python-2.5.2-minimal.tczl
wget: server returned error: HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Connecting to distro.ibiblio.org (152.46.7.109:80)
wget: server returned error: HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
md5sum: python-2.5.2-minimal.tczl.md5.txt: No such file or directory
on python-2.5.2-minimal.tczl
tc@box:~$ ping yahoo.com
PING yahoo.com (209.191.93.53): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: seq=0 ttl=48 time=50.942 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: seq=1 ttl=48 time=48.922 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.53: seq=2 ttl=48 time=51.284 ms
^C
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 48.922/50.382/51.284 ms
tc@box:~$ tce-load -w -i ace-of-penguins.tczl
ace-of-penguins.tczl: OK
tc@box:~$
also, fwiw
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/tinycorelinux/2.x/tcz/python-2.5.2-minimal.tczl.md5.txt
The requested URL /pub/linux/distributions/tinycorelinux/2.x/tcz/python-2.5.2-minimal.tczl.md5.txt was not found on this server.
as always, thanks for your hard work and diligence