how to uninstall pyenv(installed by homebrew) on Mac

how to uninstall pyenv(installed by homebrew) on Mac - python

I used to install pyenv by homebrew to manage versions of python, but now, I want to use anaconda.But I don't know how to uninstall pyenv.Please tell me.

From the docs:
Uninstalling pyenv
The simplicity of pyenv makes it easy to temporarily disable it, or
uninstall from the system.
To disable Pyenv managing your Python versions, simply remove the pyenv init line from your shell startup configuration. This will remove Pyenv shims directory from PATH, and future invocations like python will execute the system Python version, as before Pyenv.
pyenv will still be accessible on the command line, but your
Python apps won't be affected by version switching.
To completely uninstall pyenv, perform step (1) and then remove its root directory. This will delete all Python versions that were installed under $(pyenv root)/versions/ directory:
rm -rf $(pyenv root)
If you've installed Pyenv using a package manager, as a final step perform the Pyenv package removal. For instance, for Homebrew:
brew uninstall pyenv

Try removing it using the following command:
brew remove pyenv

None work for me (under brew) under Mac Cataline.
They have a warning about file missing under .pyenv.
(After I removed the bash_profile lines and also rm -rf ~/.pyenv,
I just install Mac OS version of python under python.org and seems ok.
Seems get my IDLE work and ...

Related

Virtualenv with pyenv gives wrong python version

I have pyenv installed on an up to date debian testing distribution, and have python 2.7.1 in it.
I create a virtualenv for a project with this version, but when activated it gives me the python system version (3.7).
Here is what I did:
$ pyenv virtualenv 2.7.16 my_project-2.7
Requirement already satisfied: virtualenv in /home/user/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages (15.1.0)
You are using pip version 18.1, however version 19.1.1 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.
Using base prefix '/usr'
New python executable in /home/user/.pyenv/versions/2.7.16/envs/my_project-2.7/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...
done.
Installing pip from https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py...
Collecting pip
Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/5c/e0/be401c003291b56efc55aeba6a80ab790d3d4cece2778288d65323009420/pip-19.1.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: pip
Found existing installation: pip 19.1.1
Uninstalling pip-19.1.1:
Successfully uninstalled pip-19.1.1
Successfully installed pip-19.1.1
$ pyenv activate my_project-2.7
pyenv-virtualenv: prompt changing will be removed from future release. configure `export PYENV_VIRTUALENV_DISABLE_PROMPT=1' to simulate the behavior.
$ python --version
Python 3.7.3
$ pip --version
pip 19.1.1 from /home/user/.pyenv/versions/2.7.16/envs/my_project-2.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/pip (python 3.7)
It is strange. The virtualenv is correctly set into ~/.pyenv/version/2.7.16, but I can see that pip come from /home/user/.pyenv/versions/2.7.16/envs/my_project-2.7/lib/python3.7/
I think I missed something, or I might have some mess in my python installation, but I can't find out what this python3.7 lib is doing here.
How can I have this virtualenv created for python2.7 ?
Edit
I tried to completely remove pyenv (removing the $(pyenv root) directory), then reinstall it with pyenv-installer but it did not change anything.
I created two virtualenvs for two projects I have (the above 2.7 and one in 3.5).
$ pyenv virtualenvs
2.7.16/envs/my_project-2.7 (created from /usr)
3.6.8/envs/other_project-3.6 (created from /home/user/.pyenv/versions/3.6.8)
my_project-2.7 (created from /usr)
other_project-3.6 (created from /home/user/.pyenv/versions/3.6.8)
I think the problem could be found from this created from /usr but I don't understand what it means. Why was this virtualenv not created from the pyenv python version ? Is it at all relevant ?
It seems that when I create a 3.+ virtual env, venv is used. But on 2.7, virtualenv is used and fails.

WFM as written if I install pyenv and pyenv-virtualenv from scratch according to the linked instructions.
I can see that pip come from /home/user/.pyenv/versions/2.7.16/envs/my_project-2.7/lib/python3.7/
This shows that most probably, that virtual environment already exists and has a wrong Python version.
I can only conjecture how it ended up like this. Most probably, you were messing with that virtualenv or with pyenv envvars by hand; or ran scripts/have something in your bash stratup scripts that do that. E.g. if you are using pyenv-virtualenv commands to manage your environments, you are not supposed to mix them with regular virtualenv commands.
Deleting this virtualenv with pyenv virtualenv-delete my_project-2.7 then recreating it should help.
If not, delete ~/.pyenv and everything relevant from your startup scripts, restart the shell and reinstall pyenv and pyenv-virtualenv.
For a less destructive fixing, you need to carefully inspect your shell environment (envvars, aliases, defined shell functions) and startup scripts for anything that might conflict with pyenv's work; if that doesn't help, debug pyenv machinery (export PS4='+(${BASH_SOURCE}:${LINENO}): ${FUNCNAME[0]:+${FUNCNAME[0]}(): }' helps here very much) to find out what exactly is happening.

How to add pipenv to the PATH in my .zshrc

I'm trying to work with pipenv and I installed it using pip, however whenever I run any command starting with pipenv, I get the following error:
zsh: command not found: pipenv
I know I should add it to my path somehow but I'm not entirely familiar with how to configure my ~/.zshrc.
Also, I tried locating where pipenv is located using where pipenv, but I get
pipenv not found

You will need to add support to your ~/.zshrc file. You can access it with code ~/.zshrc.
I needed to add these to the file:
export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"
export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"
export PYTHON_BIN_PATH="$(python3 -m site --user-base)/bin"
export PATH="$PATH:$PYTHON_BIN_PATH"
Once you add them you will need to restart your terminal before you can see these changes take effect.

Using pip
pipenv should be in your PATH if you installed it using pip as a user install, as recommended in the docs:
pip install --user pipenv
If it still isn't available, you'll need to add the user base's binary directory to your PATH:
UNIX default: ~/.local
MacOS Framework builds: ~/Library/Python/X.Y
Windows: %APPDATA%\Python
You can read more about this in the Python docs on site.USER_BASE.
Using Homebrew
If you're using Homebrew, then another option is to install pipenv like so:
brew install pipenv
This installs it globally. Since pipenv can manage even different python versions via pyenv, it's preferable to have it set up like this instead of installing it only for a specific python version using pip.
However, this method is discouraged according to the pipenv documentation:
Homebrew installation is discouraged because each time the Homebrew Python is upgraded, which Pipenv depends on, users have to re-install Pipenv, and perhaps all virtual environments managed by it.

Use a package manager such as apt, yum or brew to install pipenv.
Installing pipenv with a package manager rather than pip adds it directly to $PATH of any shell, like bash or zsh.
sudo apt install pipenv

Open ~/.zshrc and append these lines:
# Setting PATH for Python 3.4
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH
or:
# Setting PATH for Python 3.9
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH
I tested it on macOS.

Multiple python installations and pip, dude, where is my site-packages?

As we all know, Mac OS ships with its own python pre installed.
The recommendation seems to be to leave that alone and use homebrew to install a fresh python into the system.
My issue is that after installing python (and pip) using homebrew, pip is installing packages into the Mac OS site-packages instead of my own. I have confirmed I am running the "homebrew" pip:
$ which pip
/usr/local/bin/pip
But then when I pip install something I can se it is installed at:
/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Pip should be installing at /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages unless i'm miss understanding something.
The surprising thing is that checking with -V yields a surprising result:
pip -V
pip 7.1.0 from /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages (python 2.7)
Running pip list just after running pip install does not show the packages that were supposedly just installed by it but went to the wrong site-packages.
Adding to this, the packages installed on the /lib/python2.7/site-packages are not recognized by my $PYTHONPATH and as such I cannot use them.
To add even more confusion, I decided to use a virtualenv, but I was amazed as even using pip with the virtualenv active kept installing to the /lib/python2.7/site-packages instead of the virtualenv site-packages.
So, somehow I ended up with a homebrew pip, that installs packages outside of the homebrew site-packages and a python interpreter that cant use the packages installed by pip.
How do you recommend I go about finding the root cause and having a smooth python experience? :)

You can easily find you site-packages directory by invoking this command
python -c 'import site; print(site.getsitepackages())'

I think after you activate a virtualenv your python path should point to that environments site-package location--if not it's probably not activated. Only once you activate it will you run pip so it installs in that virtual env's site-packages. if it's not activated, it will go in whatever other site-packages it already knows about:
Step 1: create a virtual env
a la... virtualenv venv
Do this only once!
Step 2: Activate the vitual env
something like source /venv/bin/activate
Needs doing every time you want to use this virtual environment
Step 3: run pip commands, watch them get installed in the virtual env site-packages!
If you do step 3 before step 2 your not actually using the virtual environment you created, so all bets are off--That's probably the reason pip is still installing to the old location.
Now, my overall recommendation is to go further and use pyenv to install specific version of python into your /Users/username/.pyenv folder and abandon both the default OSX and homebrew packages. It's simple and you can control easily the exact version of python to use by simple issuing of command to change versions.
THEN use virtualenv in python2 or pyvenv if in python3 (not to be confused with pyenv) to build vitual environments with their own local site-packages to store pip modules. When you activate a virtualenv, your $PYTHONPATH will switch to the specific location.
The flow would then be:
Use pyenv to pull down and switch to a specific version of python you want to use--overriding homebrew and the OSX version.
Create your vitrualenv. This will create a bin that will link to the pyenv python stack you just specified in the previous step.
Activate the virtual env, and proceed.
Totally control your environment!

For one, you could try updating pip with pip install --upgrade pip command, which might or might not redirect your pip path.
Two, and I should have really started with this one is to set the preferred pip executable path in the .bash_profile or .zshrc if you are using one. The way you do it (on Mac) is by holding Shift+Command+Period to reveal hidden files, going to the User folder and opening the .bash_profile/.zshrc with a text editor. Afterward, add the path/to/bin where the pip that you require is. Like export PATH="User/Username/anaconda3/bin:$PATH" or /usr/local/bin or path/to/venv/bin. Whatever code you write in the end will overwrite the previous one.
Three, if you don't wanna change your default pip, but rather wanna use a different version for that specific case just include the full path of the pip executable like /usr/local/bin/pip list or Users/Username/Desktop/venv/bin/pip install module.

How to install packages for the custom installed python? [duplicate]

Short Question
What is the proper way to install pip, virtualenv, and distribute?
Background
In my answer to SO question 4314376, I recommended using ez_setup so that you could then install pip and virtualenv as follows:
curl -O http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py
sudo python ez_setup.py
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install virtualenv
I originally pulled these instructions from Jesse Noller's blog post So you want to use Python on the Mac?. I like the idea of keeping a clean global site-packages directory, so the only other packages I install there are virtualenvwrapper and distribute. (I recently added distribute to my toolbox because of this Python public service announcement. To install these two packages, I used:
sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper
curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
sudo python distribute_setup.py
No more setuptools and easy_install
To really follow that Python public service announcement, on a fresh Python install, I would do the following:
curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
sudo python distribute_setup.py
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install virtualenv
sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper
Glyph's Rebuke
In a comment to my answer to SO question 4314376, SO user Glyph stated:
NO. NEVER EVER do sudo python setup.py install whatever. Write a ~/.pydistutils.cfg that puts your pip installation into ~/.local or something. Especially files named ez_setup.py tend to suck down newer versions of things like setuptools and easy_install, which can potentially break other things on your operating system.
Back to the short question
So Glyph's response leads me to my original question:
What is the proper way to install pip, virtualenv, and distribute?

You can do this without installing anything into python itself.
You don't need sudo or any privileges.
You don't need to edit any files.
Install virtualenv into a bootstrap virtual environment. Use the that virtual environment to create more. Since virtualenv ships with pip and distribute, you get everything from one install.
Download virtualenv:
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/v/virtualenv/virtualenv-12.0.7.tar.gz
(or whatever is the latest version!)
Unpack the source tarball
Use the unpacked tarball to create a clean virtual environment. This virtual environment will be used to "bootstrap" others. All of your virtual environments will automatically contain pip and distribute.
Using pip, install virtualenv into that bootstrap environment.
Use that bootstrap environment to create more!
Here is an example in bash:
# Select current version of virtualenv:
VERSION=12.0.7
# Name your first "bootstrap" environment:
INITIAL_ENV=bootstrap
# Set to whatever python interpreter you want for your first environment:
PYTHON=$(which python)
URL_BASE=https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/v/virtualenv
# --- Real work starts here ---
curl -O $URL_BASE/virtualenv-$VERSION.tar.gz
tar xzf virtualenv-$VERSION.tar.gz
# Create the first "bootstrap" environment.
$PYTHON virtualenv-$VERSION/virtualenv.py $INITIAL_ENV
# Don't need this anymore.
rm -rf virtualenv-$VERSION
# Install virtualenv into the environment.
$INITIAL_ENV/bin/pip install virtualenv-$VERSION.tar.gz
Now you can use your "bootstrap" environment to create more:
# Create a second environment from the first:
$INITIAL_ENV/bin/virtualenv py-env1
# Create more:
$INITIAL_ENV/bin/virtualenv py-env2
Go nuts!
Note
This assumes you are not using a really old version of virtualenv.
Old versions required the flags --no-site-packges (and depending on the version of Python, --distribute). Now you can create your bootstrap environment with just python virtualenv.py path-to-bootstrap or python3 virtualenv.py path-to-bootstrap.

I think Glyph means do something like this:
Create a directory ~/.local, if it doesn't already exist.
In your ~/.bashrc, ensure that ~/.local/bin is on PATH and that ~/.local is on PYTHONPATH.
Create a file ~/.pydistutils.cfg which contains
[install]
prefix=~/.local
It's a standard ConfigParser-format file.
Download distribute_setup.py and run python distribute_setup.py (no sudo). If it complains about a non-existing site-packages directory, create it manually:
mkdir -p ~/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
Run which easy_install to verify that it's coming from ~/.local/bin
Run pip install virtualenv
Run pip install virtualenvwrapper
Create a virtual env containing folder, say ~/.virtualenvs
In ~/.bashrc add
export WORKON_HOME
source ~/.local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
That's it, no use of sudo at all and your Python environment is in ~/.local, completely separate from the OS's Python. Disclaimer: Not sure how compatible virtualenvwrapper is in this scenario - I couldn't test it on my system :-)

If you follow the steps advised in several tutorials I linked in this answer, you
can get the desired effect without the somewhat complicated "manual" steps in Walker's and Vinay's answers. If you're on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install python-pip python-dev
The equivalent is achieved in OS X by using homebrew to install python (more details here).
brew install python
With pip installed, you can use it to get the remaining packages (you can omit sudo in OS X, as you're using your local python installation).
sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper
(these are the only packages you need installed globally and I doubt that it will clash with anything system-level from the OS. If you want to be super-safe, you can keep the distro's versions sudo apt-get install virtualenvwrapper)
Note: in Ubuntu 14.04 I receive some errors with pip install, so I use pip3 install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper and add VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3 to my .bashrc/.zshrc file.
You then append to your .bashrc file
export WORKON_HOME
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
and source it
. ~/.bashrc
This is basically it. Now the only decision is whether you want to create a virtualenv to include system-level packages
mkvirtualenv --system-site-packages foo
where your existing system packages don't have to be reinstalled, they are symlinked to the system interpreter's versions. Note: you can still install new packages and upgrade existing included-from-system packages without sudo - I tested it and it works without any disruptions of the system interpreter.
kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ sudo apt-get install python-pandas
kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ mkvirtualenv --system-site-packages s
(s)kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ pip install --upgrade pandas
(s)kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ python -c "import pandas; print(pandas.__version__)"
0.10.1
(s)kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ deactivate
kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ python -c "import pandas; print(pandas.__version__)"
0.8.0
The alternative, if you want a completely separated environment, is
mkvirtualenv --no-site-packages bar
or given that this is the default option, simply
mkvirtualenv bar
The result is that you have a new virtualenv where you can freely and sudolessly install your favourite packages
pip install flask

Python 3.4 onward
Python 3.3 adds the venv module, and Python 3.4 adds the ensurepip module. This makes bootstrapping pip as easy as:
python -m ensurepip
Perhaps preceded by a call to venv to do so inside a virtual environment.
Guaranteed pip is described in PEP 453.

On Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv
The package python-pip is a dependency, so it will be installed as well.

I made this procedure for us to use at work.
cd ~
curl -s https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pip/pip-1.3.1.tar.gz | tar xvz
cd pip-1.3.1
python setup.py install --user
cd ~
rm -rf pip-1.3.1
$HOME/.local/bin/pip install --user --upgrade pip distribute virtualenvwrapper
# Might want these three in your .bashrc
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin
export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_VIRTUALENV_ARGS="--distribute"
source $HOME/.local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
mkvirtualenv mypy
workon mypy
pip install --upgrade distribute
pip install pudb # Or whatever other nice package you might want.
Key points for the security minded:
curl does ssl validation. wget doesn't.
Starting from pip 1.3.1, pip also does ssl validation.
Fewer users can upload the pypi tarball than a github tarball.

Update: As of July 2013 this project is no longer maintained. The author suggests using pyenv. (pyenv does not have built-in support for virtualenv, but plays nice with it.)
Pythonbrew is a version manager for python and comes with support for virtualenv.
After installing pythonbrew and a python-version using venvs is really easy:
# Initializes the virtualenv
pythonbrew venv init
# Create a virtual/sandboxed environment
pythonbrew venv create mycoolbundle
# Use it
pythonbrew venv use mycoolbundle

I've had various problems (see below) installing upgraded SSL modules, even inside a virtualenv, on top of older OS-provided Python versions, so I now use pyenv.
pyenv makes it very easy to install new Python versions and supports virtualenvs. Getting started is much easier than the recipes for virtualenv listed in other answers:
On Mac, type brew install pyenv and on Linux, use pyenv-installer
this gets you built-in virtualenv support as well as Python version switching (if required)
works well with Python 2 or 3, can have many versions installed at once
This works very well to insulate the "new Python" version and virtualenv from system Python. Because you can easily use a more recent Python (post 2.7.9), the SSL modules are already upgraded, and of course like any modern virtualenv setup you are insulated from the system Python modules.
A couple of nice tutorials:
Using pyenv and virtualenv - when selecting a Python version, it's easier to use pyenv global 3.9.1 (global to current user) or pyenv local 3.6.3 (local to current directory).
pyenv basics and use with virtualenv
The pyenv-virtualenv plugin is now built in - type pyenv commands | grep virtualenv to check. I wouldn't use the pyenv-virtualenvwrapper plugin to start with - see how you get on with pyenv-virtualenv which is more integrated into pyenv, as this covers most of what virtualenvwrapper does.
pyenv is modelled on rbenv (a good tool for Ruby version switching) and its only dependency is bash.
pyenv is unrelated to the very similarly named pyvenv - that is a virtualenv equivalent that's part of recent Python 3 versions, and doesn't handle Python version switching
Caveats
Two warnings about pyenv:
It only works from a bash or similar shell - or more specifically, the pyenv-virtualenv plugin doesn't like dash, which is /bin/sh on Ubuntu or Debian.
It must be run from an interactive login shell (e.g. bash --login using a terminal), which is not always easy to achieve with automation tools such as Ansible.
Hence pyenv is best for interactive use, and less good for scripting servers.
Older distributions - SSL module problems
One reason to use pyenv was that there were often problems with upgrading Python SSL modules when using older system-provided Python versions. This may be less of a problem now that current Linux distributions support Python 3.x.

There is no problem to do sudo python setup.py install, if you're sure it's what you want to do.
The difference is that it will use the site-packages directory of your OS as a destination for .py files to be copied.
so, if you want pip to be accessible os wide, that's probably the way to go. I do not say that others way are bad, but this is probably fair enough.

Install ActivePython. It includes pip, virtualenv and Distribute.

I came across the same problem recently. I’m becoming more partial to the “always use a virtualenv” mindset, so my problem was to install virtualenv with pip without installing distribute to my global or user site-packages directory. To do this, I manually downloaded distribute, pip and virtualenv, and for each one I ran “python setup.py install --prefix ~/.local/python-private” (with a temporary setting of PYTHONPATH=~/.local/python-private) so that setup scripts were able to find distribute). I’ve moved the virtualenv script to another directory I have on my PATH and edited it so that the distribute and virtualenv modules can be found on sys.path. Tada: I did not install anything to /usr, /usr/local or my user site-packages dir, but I can run virtualenv anywhere, and in that virtualenv I get pip.

The good news is if you have installed python3.4, pyvenv is already been installed. So, Just
pyvenv project_dir
source project_dir/bin/activate
python --version
python 3.4.*
Now in this virtual env, you can use pip to install modules for this project.
Leave this virtual env , just
deactivate

You can do this without installing anything into python itself.
You don't need sudo or any privileges.
You don't need to find the latest version of a virtualenv tar file
You don't need to edit version info in a bash script to keep things up-to-date.
You don't need curl/wget or tar installed, nor pip or easy_install
this works for 2.7 as well as for 3.X
Save the following to /tmp/initvenv.py:
from __future__ import print_function
import os, sys, shutil, tempfile, subprocess, tarfile, hashlib
try:
from urllib2 import urlopen
except ImportError:
from urllib.request import urlopen
tmp_dir = tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix='initvenv_')
try:
# read the latest version from PyPI
f = urlopen("https://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv/")
# retrieve the .tar.gz file
tar_found = False
url = None
sha256 = None
for line in f.read().splitlines():
if isinstance(line, bytes):
line = line.decode('utf-8')
if tar_found:
if 'sha256' in line:
sha256 = line.split('data-clipboard-text')[1].split('"')[1]
break
continue
if not tar_found and 'tar.gz">' not in line:
continue
tar_found = True
for url in line.split('"'):
if url.startswith('https'):
break
else:
print('tar.gz not found')
sys.exit(1)
file_name = url.rsplit('/', 1)[1]
print(file_name)
os.chdir(tmp_dir)
data = urlopen(url).read()
data_sha256 = hashlib.sha256(data).hexdigest()
if sha256 != data_sha256:
print('sha256 not correct')
print(sha256)
print(data_sha256)
sys.exit(1)
with open(file_name, 'wb') as fp:
fp.write(data)
tar = tarfile.open(file_name)
tar.extractall()
tar.close()
os.chdir(file_name.replace('.tar.gz', ''))
print(subprocess.check_output([sys.executable, 'virtualenv.py'] +
[sys.argv[1]]).decode('utf-8'), end='')
if len(sys.argv) > 2:
print(subprocess.check_output([
os.path.join(sys.argv[1], 'bin', 'pip'), 'install', 'virtualenv'] +
sys.argv[2:]).decode('utf-8'), end='')
except:
raise
finally:
shutil.rmtree(tmp_dir) # always clean up
and use it as
python_binary_to_use_in_venv /tmp/initvenv.py your_venv_name [optional packages]
e.g. (if you really need the distribute compatibility layer for setuptools)
python /tmp/initvenv.py venv distribute
Please note that, with older python versions, this might give you InsecurePlatformWarnings¹.
Once you have your virtualenv (name e.g. venv) you can setup another virtualenv by using the virtualenv just installed:
venv/bin/virtualenv venv2
###virtualenvwrapper
I recommend taking a look at virtualenvwrapper as well, after a one time setup:
% /opt/python/2.7.10/bin/python /tmp/initvenv.py venv virtualenvwrapper
and activation (can be done from your login script):
% source venv/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
you can do things like:
% mktmpenv
New python executable in tmp-17bdc3054a46b2b/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.
This is a temporary environment. It will be deleted when you run 'deactivate'.
(tmp-17bdc3054a46b2b)%
¹ I have not found a way to suppress the warning. It could be solved in pip and/or request, but the developers point to each other as the cause. I got the, often non-realistic, recommendation to upgrade the python version I was using to the latest version. I am sure this would break e.g my Linux Mint 17 install. Fortunately pip caches packages, so the Warning is made
only once per package install.

There are good instructions on the Virtualenv official site. https://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv
Basically what I did, is install pip with sudo easy_install pip, then used sudo pip install virtualenv then created an environment with: virtualenv my_env (name it what you want), following that I did: virtualenv --distribute my_env; which installed distribute and pip in my virtualenv.
Again, follow the instruction on the virtualenv page.
Kind of a hassle, coming from Ruby ;P

Here is a nice way to install virtualenvwrapper(update of this).
Download virtualenv-1.11.4 (you can find latest at here), Unzip it, open terminal
# Create a bootstrapenv and activate it:
$ cd ~
$ python <path to unzipped folder>/virtualenv.py bootstrapenv
$ source bootstrapenv/bin/activate
# Install virtualenvwrapper:
$ pip install virtualenvwrapper
$ mkdir -p ~/bootstrapenv/Envs
# append it to file `.bashrc`
$ vi ~/.bashrc
source ~/bootstrapenv/bin/activate
export WORKON_HOME=~/bootstrapenv/Envs
source ~/bootstrapenv/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
# run it now.
$ source ~/.bashrc
That is it, now you can use mkvirtualenv env1, lsvirtualenv ..etc
Note: you can delete virtualenv-1.11.4 and virtualenv-1.11.4.zip from Downloads folders.

What's the proper way to install pip, virtualenv, and distribute for Python?

Short Question
What is the proper way to install pip, virtualenv, and distribute?
Background
In my answer to SO question 4314376, I recommended using ez_setup so that you could then install pip and virtualenv as follows:
curl -O http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py
sudo python ez_setup.py
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install virtualenv
I originally pulled these instructions from Jesse Noller's blog post So you want to use Python on the Mac?. I like the idea of keeping a clean global site-packages directory, so the only other packages I install there are virtualenvwrapper and distribute. (I recently added distribute to my toolbox because of this Python public service announcement. To install these two packages, I used:
sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper
curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
sudo python distribute_setup.py
No more setuptools and easy_install
To really follow that Python public service announcement, on a fresh Python install, I would do the following:
curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
sudo python distribute_setup.py
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install virtualenv
sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper
Glyph's Rebuke
In a comment to my answer to SO question 4314376, SO user Glyph stated:
NO. NEVER EVER do sudo python setup.py install whatever. Write a ~/.pydistutils.cfg that puts your pip installation into ~/.local or something. Especially files named ez_setup.py tend to suck down newer versions of things like setuptools and easy_install, which can potentially break other things on your operating system.
Back to the short question
So Glyph's response leads me to my original question:
What is the proper way to install pip, virtualenv, and distribute?

I think Glyph means do something like this:
Create a directory ~/.local, if it doesn't already exist.
In your ~/.bashrc, ensure that ~/.local/bin is on PATH and that ~/.local is on PYTHONPATH.
Create a file ~/.pydistutils.cfg which contains
[install]
prefix=~/.local
It's a standard ConfigParser-format file.
Download distribute_setup.py and run python distribute_setup.py (no sudo). If it complains about a non-existing site-packages directory, create it manually:
mkdir -p ~/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
Run which easy_install to verify that it's coming from ~/.local/bin
Run pip install virtualenv
Run pip install virtualenvwrapper
Create a virtual env containing folder, say ~/.virtualenvs
In ~/.bashrc add
export WORKON_HOME
source ~/.local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
That's it, no use of sudo at all and your Python environment is in ~/.local, completely separate from the OS's Python. Disclaimer: Not sure how compatible virtualenvwrapper is in this scenario - I couldn't test it on my system :-)

If you follow the steps advised in several tutorials I linked in this answer, you
can get the desired effect without the somewhat complicated "manual" steps in Walker's and Vinay's answers. If you're on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install python-pip python-dev
The equivalent is achieved in OS X by using homebrew to install python (more details here).
brew install python
With pip installed, you can use it to get the remaining packages (you can omit sudo in OS X, as you're using your local python installation).
sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper
(these are the only packages you need installed globally and I doubt that it will clash with anything system-level from the OS. If you want to be super-safe, you can keep the distro's versions sudo apt-get install virtualenvwrapper)
Note: in Ubuntu 14.04 I receive some errors with pip install, so I use pip3 install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper and add VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3 to my .bashrc/.zshrc file.
You then append to your .bashrc file
export WORKON_HOME
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
and source it
. ~/.bashrc
This is basically it. Now the only decision is whether you want to create a virtualenv to include system-level packages
mkvirtualenv --system-site-packages foo
where your existing system packages don't have to be reinstalled, they are symlinked to the system interpreter's versions. Note: you can still install new packages and upgrade existing included-from-system packages without sudo - I tested it and it works without any disruptions of the system interpreter.
kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ sudo apt-get install python-pandas
kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ mkvirtualenv --system-site-packages s
(s)kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ pip install --upgrade pandas
(s)kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ python -c "import pandas; print(pandas.__version__)"
0.10.1
(s)kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ deactivate
kermit#hocus-pocus:~$ python -c "import pandas; print(pandas.__version__)"
0.8.0
The alternative, if you want a completely separated environment, is
mkvirtualenv --no-site-packages bar
or given that this is the default option, simply
mkvirtualenv bar
The result is that you have a new virtualenv where you can freely and sudolessly install your favourite packages
pip install flask

Python 3.4 onward
Python 3.3 adds the venv module, and Python 3.4 adds the ensurepip module. This makes bootstrapping pip as easy as:
python -m ensurepip
Perhaps preceded by a call to venv to do so inside a virtual environment.
Guaranteed pip is described in PEP 453.

On Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv
The package python-pip is a dependency, so it will be installed as well.

I made this procedure for us to use at work.
cd ~
curl -s https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pip/pip-1.3.1.tar.gz | tar xvz
cd pip-1.3.1
python setup.py install --user
cd ~
rm -rf pip-1.3.1
$HOME/.local/bin/pip install --user --upgrade pip distribute virtualenvwrapper
# Might want these three in your .bashrc
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin
export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_VIRTUALENV_ARGS="--distribute"
source $HOME/.local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
mkvirtualenv mypy
workon mypy
pip install --upgrade distribute
pip install pudb # Or whatever other nice package you might want.
Key points for the security minded:
curl does ssl validation. wget doesn't.
Starting from pip 1.3.1, pip also does ssl validation.
Fewer users can upload the pypi tarball than a github tarball.

Update: As of July 2013 this project is no longer maintained. The author suggests using pyenv. (pyenv does not have built-in support for virtualenv, but plays nice with it.)
Pythonbrew is a version manager for python and comes with support for virtualenv.
After installing pythonbrew and a python-version using venvs is really easy:
# Initializes the virtualenv
pythonbrew venv init
# Create a virtual/sandboxed environment
pythonbrew venv create mycoolbundle
# Use it
pythonbrew venv use mycoolbundle

There is no problem to do sudo python setup.py install, if you're sure it's what you want to do.
The difference is that it will use the site-packages directory of your OS as a destination for .py files to be copied.
so, if you want pip to be accessible os wide, that's probably the way to go. I do not say that others way are bad, but this is probably fair enough.

Install ActivePython. It includes pip, virtualenv and Distribute.

I came across the same problem recently. I’m becoming more partial to the “always use a virtualenv” mindset, so my problem was to install virtualenv with pip without installing distribute to my global or user site-packages directory. To do this, I manually downloaded distribute, pip and virtualenv, and for each one I ran “python setup.py install --prefix ~/.local/python-private” (with a temporary setting of PYTHONPATH=~/.local/python-private) so that setup scripts were able to find distribute). I’ve moved the virtualenv script to another directory I have on my PATH and edited it so that the distribute and virtualenv modules can be found on sys.path. Tada: I did not install anything to /usr, /usr/local or my user site-packages dir, but I can run virtualenv anywhere, and in that virtualenv I get pip.

The good news is if you have installed python3.4, pyvenv is already been installed. So, Just
pyvenv project_dir
source project_dir/bin/activate
python --version
python 3.4.*
Now in this virtual env, you can use pip to install modules for this project.
Leave this virtual env , just
deactivate

You can do this without installing anything into python itself.
You don't need sudo or any privileges.
You don't need to find the latest version of a virtualenv tar file
You don't need to edit version info in a bash script to keep things up-to-date.
You don't need curl/wget or tar installed, nor pip or easy_install
this works for 2.7 as well as for 3.X
Save the following to /tmp/initvenv.py:
from __future__ import print_function
import os, sys, shutil, tempfile, subprocess, tarfile, hashlib
try:
from urllib2 import urlopen
except ImportError:
from urllib.request import urlopen
tmp_dir = tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix='initvenv_')
try:
# read the latest version from PyPI
f = urlopen("https://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv/")
# retrieve the .tar.gz file
tar_found = False
url = None
sha256 = None
for line in f.read().splitlines():
if isinstance(line, bytes):
line = line.decode('utf-8')
if tar_found:
if 'sha256' in line:
sha256 = line.split('data-clipboard-text')[1].split('"')[1]
break
continue
if not tar_found and 'tar.gz">' not in line:
continue
tar_found = True
for url in line.split('"'):
if url.startswith('https'):
break
else:
print('tar.gz not found')
sys.exit(1)
file_name = url.rsplit('/', 1)[1]
print(file_name)
os.chdir(tmp_dir)
data = urlopen(url).read()
data_sha256 = hashlib.sha256(data).hexdigest()
if sha256 != data_sha256:
print('sha256 not correct')
print(sha256)
print(data_sha256)
sys.exit(1)
with open(file_name, 'wb') as fp:
fp.write(data)
tar = tarfile.open(file_name)
tar.extractall()
tar.close()
os.chdir(file_name.replace('.tar.gz', ''))
print(subprocess.check_output([sys.executable, 'virtualenv.py'] +
[sys.argv[1]]).decode('utf-8'), end='')
if len(sys.argv) > 2:
print(subprocess.check_output([
os.path.join(sys.argv[1], 'bin', 'pip'), 'install', 'virtualenv'] +
sys.argv[2:]).decode('utf-8'), end='')
except:
raise
finally:
shutil.rmtree(tmp_dir) # always clean up
and use it as
python_binary_to_use_in_venv /tmp/initvenv.py your_venv_name [optional packages]
e.g. (if you really need the distribute compatibility layer for setuptools)
python /tmp/initvenv.py venv distribute
Please note that, with older python versions, this might give you InsecurePlatformWarnings¹.
Once you have your virtualenv (name e.g. venv) you can setup another virtualenv by using the virtualenv just installed:
venv/bin/virtualenv venv2
###virtualenvwrapper
I recommend taking a look at virtualenvwrapper as well, after a one time setup:
% /opt/python/2.7.10/bin/python /tmp/initvenv.py venv virtualenvwrapper
and activation (can be done from your login script):
% source venv/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
you can do things like:
% mktmpenv
New python executable in tmp-17bdc3054a46b2b/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.
This is a temporary environment. It will be deleted when you run 'deactivate'.
(tmp-17bdc3054a46b2b)%
¹ I have not found a way to suppress the warning. It could be solved in pip and/or request, but the developers point to each other as the cause. I got the, often non-realistic, recommendation to upgrade the python version I was using to the latest version. I am sure this would break e.g my Linux Mint 17 install. Fortunately pip caches packages, so the Warning is made
only once per package install.

There are good instructions on the Virtualenv official site. https://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv
Basically what I did, is install pip with sudo easy_install pip, then used sudo pip install virtualenv then created an environment with: virtualenv my_env (name it what you want), following that I did: virtualenv --distribute my_env; which installed distribute and pip in my virtualenv.
Again, follow the instruction on the virtualenv page.
Kind of a hassle, coming from Ruby ;P

Here is a nice way to install virtualenvwrapper(update of this).
Download virtualenv-1.11.4 (you can find latest at here), Unzip it, open terminal
# Create a bootstrapenv and activate it:
$ cd ~
$ python <path to unzipped folder>/virtualenv.py bootstrapenv
$ source bootstrapenv/bin/activate
# Install virtualenvwrapper:
$ pip install virtualenvwrapper
$ mkdir -p ~/bootstrapenv/Envs
# append it to file `.bashrc`
$ vi ~/.bashrc
source ~/bootstrapenv/bin/activate
export WORKON_HOME=~/bootstrapenv/Envs
source ~/bootstrapenv/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
# run it now.
$ source ~/.bashrc
That is it, now you can use mkvirtualenv env1, lsvirtualenv ..etc
Note: you can delete virtualenv-1.11.4 and virtualenv-1.11.4.zip from Downloads folders.

Develop Reference

Python is a programming language that lets you work quickly and integrate systems more effectively.