Develop Reference

Python tries to install everything into /lib on os x

I think that somehow the path /lib is stored in my python dist where it should not be.
It started when I was having troubles installing python modules using pip. Pip seemed to install everything into /lib/python2.7/site-packages where python could not find it.
Sidenote: pip uninstall could not find the package in /lib either, but it is where pip install would install it.
I tried:
which pip
$/usr/bin/pip
$which python
/usr/bin/python
I decided to uninstall pip, but then
$ easy_install uninstall pip
error: can't create or remove files in install directory
The following error occurred while trying to add or remove files in the
installation directory:
[Errno 13] Permission denied: '/lib'
The installation directory you specified (via --install-dir, --prefix, or
the distutils default setting) was:
/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
It seemed that even in my easy-install, the '/lib' location was used. I googled a bit, and decided to reinstall easy-install. I removed it:
$sudo rm /usr/local/bin/easy_install
And tried to install it again:
$ sudo curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/ez_setup.py -o - | python
Checking .pth file support in /lib/python2.7/site-packages/
error: can't create or remove files in install directory
So my problem is basically that I want to get my python installation as clean as possible, and that this /lib location is stored somewhere.
Some side information
I am getting more familiar with the file structure of python now but I used to know little about it. I also had many problems installing python packages so I used many different python versions trough tutorials. (Via brew, canopy, anaconda, ipython). I uninstall most of them because I just want a clean installation as possible. (I once had tried to uninstall a site-package and I discovered that it was stored in 4 different locations simultaniously!)
$ which python
/usr/bin/python
Most of my site-packages right now are installed in:
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages
/Users/myusersname/Library/Python/2.7/lib/python/site-packages
Empty:
$ echo $PYTHONPATH
OS-X 10.9.5
I hope you guys can help me!
easy install pip
I want to get everything as clean as possible so I uninstalled my homebrew version of python.
EDIT:
Python from homebrew
So I uninstalled all python versions except the system one (/usr/bin/python). Now I tried to install python via homebrew (/usr/local/bin/python does link to cellar).
When I try to run pip:
$which pip
/usr/local/pip
$pip
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 2603, in <module>
working_set.require(__requires__)
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 666, in require
needed = self.resolve(parse_requirements(requirements))
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 565, in resolve
raise DistributionNotFound(req) # XXX put more info here
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: pip==1.5.6
When I try to
sudo easy_install -U pip
TEST FAILED: /lib/python2.7/site-packages/ does NOT support .pth files
error: bad install directory or PYTHONPATH
Python from python.org
I uninstalled homebrew python and installed python using the GUI installer from the website. I checked that /usr/local/bin/python does link to this python.
This python does not come with pip or easy install. So I run setuptools:
$ sudo python ez_setup.py
Extracting in /tmp/tmpR80Ydp
Now working in /tmp/tmpR80Ydp/setuptools-7.0
Installing Setuptools
running install
Checking .pth file support in /lib/python2.7/site-packages/
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python -E -c pass
TEST FAILED: /lib/python2.7/site-packages/ does NOT support .pth files
error: bad install directory or PYTHONPATH
You are attempting to install a package to a directory that is not
on PYTHONPATH and which Python does not read ".pth" files from. The
installation directory you specified (via --install-dir, --prefix, or
the distutils default setting) was:
/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
This is the error I am allways getting. It is very persistent and I hope you guys can help me with it. I allready tried some of the solutions here:
Python pip broken after OS X 10.8 upgrade
pip install on Mac OS X - PYTHONPATH
but nothing helps.
Setting the PYTHONPATH or running with or witouth sudo doesn't help eigther.
export PYTHONPATH='/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages'

If you want to get your python installation as clean as possible you should consider using a virtual environment.
$ sudo pip install virtualenv
$ pyvenv env # create a virtual environment
$ source env/bin/activate # activate the virtual environment
(env) $ curl https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py | python # install pip in the virtualenv
This code works for python 3.4 but it should be something similar for python 2.7. Then you can install packages as you would normally do:
(env) $ pip install [package name]
All the packages you install this way will be saved in the "env" directory. If you want to run a program inside the virtual environment you have to activate it first. When you are done, you can simply deactivate it.
(env) $ deactivate

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.

How to use pip with new Python version?

I have python2.6 as my default python and I've been using distribute easy_install to install packages in ~/.local. easy_install has many issues and I'd like to switch to pip, while at the same time upgrading to python2.7 from python2.6. My existing pip version is tied to python2.6 and always looks in ~/.local/lib/python2.6 for packages. This means I have to install pip again with Python2.7 but it seems like this cannot be done with the existing python2.6 pip, right?
Therefore I tried to download pip and install it like this:
python2.7 setup.py install --prefix=~/.local
Note that I do not have root, so I have to install pip locally. When I try this I get:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "setup.py", line 5, in <module>
from setuptools import setup
ImportError: No module named setuptools
How can I fix this situation? I obviously cannot install setuptools with pip, because I can't install pip... all I want to do is link up pip with python2.7, upgrade pip and then install everything with pip and forget about easy_install and the old python2.6 and its packages.
When I try the answer below, I get:
The installation directory you specified (via --install-dir, --prefix, or
the distutils default setting) was:
/home/user/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages
This directory does not currently exist. Please create it and try again, or
choose a different installation directory (using the -d or --install-dir
option).
I had to manually create (with mkdir) the directory:
~/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages
This seems broken... it worked once I did it, but why does it require manual creation of a directory?
thanks.

You need to install setuptools first; it has it's own installation script (it's part of the egg file):
wget "http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.7/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg"
sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg --prefix=~/.local
Note that it, too, supports a --prefix= option. It'll find your python2.7 binary (and not the 2.6 version) because you downloaded the 2.7 egg version.

Macport installed py26 - Problem installing independent modules

I've installed py26 using macports. I want to install a separate module that isn't on Macports. It gets installed in to my default OSX installation. How do I point my install to my macport installation.

First make sure your PATH is set up properly for MacPorts Python. You need to ensure that the Python framework bin directory is on it along with the normal MacPorts bin directories:
$ export PATH=opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
If the package is installed by running a command like python setup.py ... then you should be all set. You could be extra sure by using an absolute path to the MacPorts Python:
$ sudo /opt/local/bin/python2.6 setup.py ...
If the package is installed with an easy_install command, make sure you have installed a version of easy_install for the MacPorts Python. The simplest way to do that:
$ sudo port install py26-distribute # setuptools replacement, provides easy_install
$ sudo /opt/local/bin/easy_install-2.6 ...

Put py26 on your path. In your .bash_profile for instance this should work
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
don't forget to source at the end from the commandline
. ~/.bash_profile

Install the "python_select" port. It will then be easier for you to install packages for your selected python version.
See the discussion in What is the best way to install python 2 on OS X?

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?

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.