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pip command not found after installed it

I'm stuck with an issue. I have a Python script that I would like to run on my OSX but seems that I crossed on many issues.
To run the script I should have both Python and Moviepy installed.
To install Moviepy I used this command:
sudo pip install moviepy
The response was:
sudo: pip: command not found
So I tried to install pip, with the command:
sudo easy_install pip
And got this answer:
Searching for pip
Best match: pip 9.0.1
Processing pip-9.0.1-py2.7.egg
pip 9.0.1 is already the active version in easy-install.pth
Using /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-9.0.1-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for pip
Finished processing dependencies for pip
I tried to run again the
sudo pip install moviepy
but I still got that issue. What I should do?
UPDATE:
not sure on OSX, but can u try pip3 – Rehan Azher 23 mins ago
sudo pip3 install moviepy
Password:
sudo: pip3: command not found
It seems that pip is not in your path, but as long as Python can find it: sudo python -m pip install moviepy should do it. Check your $PATH env. variable, tho. – zwer 14 mins ago
sudo python -m pip install moviepy
/usr/bin/python: No module named pip
UPDATE2
A good option for you is to consider installing pip using one of OSX's
sources, like the apt program in Debian-based distributions, rather
than easy_install. – Shiva 4 hours ago
sudo apt install moviepy
Password:
Unable to locate an executable at "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_131.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/apt" (-1)
No idea why everyone keeps getting stuck on this. You have a
fundamental decision to make when using Python. You either run Python
2.7 that Apple ships and which is ancient and doesn't have pip or you use homebrew and install Python3 and pip3 and put /usr/local/bin at
the start of your PATH. But don't try a mixture of the two. – Mark
Setchell 3 hours ago
Tried to install homebrew but it cannot find the package moviepy that I am looking for.

Try with this:
pip3 install package-name
This works for me!

Yes, it's a mess. Today, your best option is to leave the ageing, OS-provided version of Python (all the stuff in /Library/Python and similar) alone and start fresh.
It looks like you've already done this (since you have an executable at /usr/bin/python) but if not, the easiest way to get Python 2 is to use Homebrew. Install Homebrew using the instructions on the website and then use it to install Python:
brew install python#2
Python 2.7.9+ comes with pip already, but if you've ended up with an older version then use python itself and get-pip.py to install pip (instead of easy_install, which is deprecated):
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
python get-pip.py
Note that get-pip.py includes a copy of pip in order to install pip effectively. Yes, things are that bad.
Finally, note that Python 2 will be end of life in less than 6 months. If you have the luxury, consider skipping straight to Python 3. Then it's as easy as:
brew install python
because pip3 comes with python3 since version 3.4. Homebrew manages to handle the installation of both Python 2 and Python 3 without conflict.
Note this procedure is different on every operating system and every month or two. But at least it should get you going for the foreseeable future.

Can you go to python shell and type import pip? If that works, then it means the pip package is installed, but there is no command-line script/program available.
In my computer, the command-line pip program is actually a python script in itself, and is located in /usr/local/bin/, which is in my PATH. Below are the contents of my pip script.
#!/usr/bin/python
import re
import sys
from pip import main
if __name__ == '__main__':
sys.argv[0] = re.sub(r'(-script\.pyw|\.exe)?$', '', sys.argv[0])
sys.exit(main())
This is a dirty trick. What you could do is to create a new file called pip in your /usr/local/bin/ directory (or similar for OSX) and copy the above lines into it.
sudo touch /usr/local/bin/pip # create a new empty file called "pip"
# ... open the file in your favorite editor, copy the above contents and save the file
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pip # make it executable
The first line in the file (#!/usr/bin/python), called "Shebang", points to the program that should execute this file when you run it on your command-line. You should put the path to the python program in your computer over there.

Trying to install pygame for python 3.6, running into difficulties [duplicate]

I'm having trouble installing a Python package on my Windows machine, and would like to install it with Christoph Gohlke's Window binaries. (Which, to my experience, alleviated much of the fuss for many other package installations). However, only .whl files are available.
http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#jpype
But how do I install .whl files?
Notes
I've found documents on wheel, but they don't seem so staightforward in explaining how to install .whl files.
This question is a duplicate with this question, which wasn't directly answered.

I just used the following which was quite simple. First open a console then cd to where you've downloaded your file like some-package.whl and use
pip install some-package.whl
Note: if pip.exe is not recognized, you may find it in the "Scripts" directory from where python has been installed. If pip is not installed, this page can help:
How do I install pip on Windows?
Note: for clarification
If you copy the *.whl file to your local drive (ex. C:\some-dir\some-file.whl) use the following command line parameters --
pip install C:/some-dir/some-file.whl

First, make sure you have updated pip to enable wheel support:
pip install --upgrade pip
Then, to install from wheel, give it the directory where the wheel is downloaded. For example, to install package_name.whl:
pip install --use-wheel --no-index --find-links=/where/its/downloaded package_name

There are several file versions on the great Christoph Gohlke's site.
Something I have found important when installing wheels from this site is to first run this from the Python console:
import pip
print(pip.pep425tags.get_supported())
so that you know which version you should install for your computer. Picking the wrong version may fail the installing of the package (especially if you don't use the right CPython tag, for example, cp27).

I am in the same boat as the OP.
Using a Windows command prompt, from directory:
C:\Python34\Scripts>
pip install wheel
seemed to work.
Changing directory to where the whl was located, it just tells me 'pip is not recognized'. Going back to C:\Python34\Scripts>, then using the full command above to provide the 'where/its/downloaded' location, it says Requirement 'scikit_image-...-win32.whl' looks like a filename, but the filename does not exist.
So I dropped a copy of the .whl in Python34/Scripts, ran the exact same command over again (with the --find-links= still going to the other folder), and this time it worked.

There's a slight difference between accessing the .whl file in python2 and python3. In python3, you need to install wheel first and then you can access .whl files.
Python3
pip install package.whl
OR
pip install wheel
And then by using wheel
wheel unpack some-package.whl
Python2
pip install some-package.whl

You have to run pip.exe from the command prompt on my computer.
I type C:/Python27/Scripts/pip2.exe install numpy

On Windows you can't just upgrade using pip install --upgrade pip, because the pip.exe is in use and there would be an error replacing it. Instead, you should upgrade pip like this:
easy_install --upgrade pip
Then check the pip version:
pip --version
If it shows 6.x series, there is wheel support.
Only then, you can install a wheel package like this:
pip install your-package.whl

To be able to install wheel files with a simple doubleclick on them you can do one the following:
1) Run two commands in command line under administrator privileges:
assoc .whl=pythonwheel
ftype pythonwheel=cmd /c pip.exe install "%1" ^& pause
2) Alternatively, they can be copied into a wheel.bat file and executed with 'Run as administrator' checkbox in the properties.
PS pip.exe is assumed to be in the PATH.
Update:
(1) Those can be combined in one line:
assoc .whl=pythonwheel& ftype pythonwheel=cmd /c pip.exe install -U "%1" ^& pause
(2) Syntax for .bat files is slightly different:
assoc .whl=pythonwheel& ftype pythonwheel=cmd /c pip.exe install -U "%%1" ^& pause
Also its output can be made more verbose:
#assoc .whl=pythonwheel|| echo Run me with administrator rights! && pause && exit 1
#ftype pythonwheel=cmd /c pip.exe install -U "%%1" ^& pause || echo Installation error && pause && exit 1
#echo Installation successfull & pause
see my blog post for details.

In-case if you unable to install specific package directly using PIP.
You can download a specific .whl (wheel) package from - https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/
CD (Change directory) to that downloaded package and install it manually by -
pip install PACKAGENAME.whl
ex:
pip install ad3‑2.1‑cp27‑cp27m‑win32.whl

EDIT: THIS NO LONGER IS A PART OF PIP
To avoid having to download such files, you can try:
pip install --use-wheel pillow
For more information, see this.

You can install the .whl file, using pip install filename. Though to use it in this form, it should be in the same directory as your command line, otherwise specify the complete filename, along with its address like pip install C:\Some\PAth\filename.
Also make sure the .whl file is of the same platform as you are using, do a python -V to find out which version of Python you are running and if it is win32 or 64, install the correct version according to it.

The only way I managed to install NumPy was as follows:
I downloaded NumPy from here
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/numpy
This Module
https://pypi.python.org/packages/d7/3c/d8b473b517062cc700575889d79e7444c9b54c6072a22189d1831d2fbbce/numpy-1.11.2-cp35-none-win32.whl#md5=e485e06907826af5e1fc88608d0629a2
Command execution from Python's installation path in PowerShell
PS C:\Program Files (x86)\Python35-32> .\python -m pip install C:/Users/MyUsername/Documents/Programs/Python/numpy-1.11.2-cp35-none-win32.whl
Processing c:\users\MyUsername\documents\programs\numpy-1.11.2-cp35-none-win32.whl
Installing collected packages: numpy
Successfully installed numpy-1.11.2
PS C:\Program Files (x86)\Python35-32>
PS.: I installed it on Windows 10.

New Python users on Windows often forget to add Python's \Scripts directory to the PATH variable during the installation. I recommend to use the Python launcher and execute pip as a script with the -m switch. Then you can install the wheels for a specific Python version (if more than one are installed) and the Scripts directory doesn't have to be in the PATH. So open the command line, navigate (with the cd command) to the folder where the .whl file is located and enter:
py -3.6 -m pip install your_whl_file.whl
Replace 3.6 by your Python version or just enter -3 if the desired Python version appears first in the PATH. And with an active virtual environment: py -m pip install your_whl_file.whl.
Of course you can also install packages from PyPI in this way, e.g.
py -3.6 -m pip install pygame

I would be suggesting you the exact way how to install .whl file.
Initially I faced many issues but then I solved it, Here is my trick to install .whl files.
Follow The Steps properly in order to get a module imported
Make sure your .whl file is kept in the python 2.7/3.6/3.7/.. folder.
Initially when you download the .whl file the file is kept in downloaded folder, my
suggestion is to change the folder. It makes it easier to install the file.
Open command prompt and open the folder where you have kept the file by entering
cd c:\python 3.7
3.Now, enter the command written below
>py -3.7(version name) -m pip install (file name).whl
Click enter and make sure you enter the version you are currently using with correct
file name.
Once you press enter, wait for few minutes and the file will be installed and you will
be able to import the particular module.
In order to check if the module is installed successfully, import the module in idle
and check it.
Thank you:)

On the MacOS, with pip installed via MacPorts into the MacPorts python2.7, I had to use #Dunes solution:
sudo python -m pip install some-package.whl
Where python was replaced by the MacPorts python in my case, which is python2.7 or python3.5 for me.
The -m option is "Run library module as script" according to the manpage.
(I had previously run sudo port install py27-pip py27-wheel to install pip and wheel into my python 2.7 installation first.)

What I did was first updating the pip by using the command:
pip install --upgrade pip and then I also installed wheel by using command: pip install wheel and then it worked perfectly Fine.
Hope it works for you I guess.

Download the package (.whl).
Put the file inside the script folder of python directory
C:\Python36\Scripts
Use the command prompt to install the package.
C:\Python36\Scripts>pip install package_name.whl

Theoretically:
Because wheel is a built distribution spec ie, no dependency on a build system and because it's a ZIP-format archive, it just has to be unpacked to the target location in-order to be used.
While pip install *.wheel adds extra features, we can also unzip (using a standard archive tool eg: 7zip) the .whl file into site-packages directory to use the package.
https://packaging.python.org/specifications/binary-distribution-format/

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?

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 do I remove packages installed with Python's easy_install?

Python's easy_install makes installing new packages extremely convenient. However, as far as I can tell, it doesn't implement the other common features of a dependency manager - listing and removing installed packages.
What is the best way of finding out what's installed, and what is the preferred way of removing installed packages? Are there any files that need to be updated if I remove packages manually (e.g. by rm /usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/my_installed_pkg.egg or similar)?

pip, an alternative to setuptools/easy_install, provides an "uninstall" command.
Install pip according to the installation instructions:
$ wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
$ python get-pip.py
Then you can use pip uninstall to remove packages installed with easy_install

To uninstall an .egg you need to rm -rf the egg (it might be a directory) and remove the matching line from site-packages/easy-install.pth

First you have to run this command:
$ easy_install -m [PACKAGE]
It removes all dependencies of the package.
Then remove egg file of that package:
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.X/site-packages/[PACKAGE].egg

All the info is in the other answers, but none summarizes both your requests or seem to make things needlessly complex:
For your removal needs use:
pip uninstall <package>
(install using easy_install pip)
For your 'list installed packages' needs either use:
pip freeze
Or:
yolk -l
which can output more package details.
(Install via easy_install yolk or pip install yolk)

There are several sources on the net suggesting a hack by reinstalling the package with the -m option and then just removing the .egg file in lib/ and the binaries in bin/. Also, discussion about this setuptools issue can be found on the python bug tracker as setuptools issue 21.
Edit: Added the link to the python bugtracker.

If the problem is a serious-enough annoyance to you, you might consider virtualenv. It allows you to create an environment that encapsulates python libraries. You install packages there rather than in the global site-packages directory. Any scripts you run in that environment have access to those packages (and optionally, your global ones as well). I use this a lot when evaluating packages that I am not sure I want/need to install globally. If you decide you don't need the package, it's easy enough to just blow that virtual environment away. It's pretty easy to use. Make a new env:
$>virtualenv /path/to/your/new/ENV
virtual_envt installs setuptools for you in the new environment, so you can do:
$>ENV/bin/easy_install
You can even create your own boostrap scripts that setup your new environment. So, with one command, you can create a new virtual env with, say, python 2.6, psycopg2 and django installed by default (you can can install an env-specific version of python if you want).

Official(?) instructions: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/EasyInstall#uninstalling-packages
If you have replaced a package with another version, then you can just delete the package(s) you don't need by deleting the PackageName-versioninfo.egg file or directory (found in the installation directory).
If you want to delete the currently installed version of a package (or all versions of a package), you should first run:
easy_install -mxN PackageName
This will ensure that Python doesn't continue to search for a package you're planning to remove. After you've done this, you can safely delete the .egg files or directories, along with any scripts you wish to remove.

try
$ easy_install -m [PACKAGE]
then
$ rm -rf .../python2.X/site-packages/[PACKAGE].egg

To list installed Python packages, you can use yolk -l. You'll need to use easy_install yolk first though.

Came across this question, while trying to uninstall the many random Python packages installed over time.
Using information from this thread, this is what I came up with:
cat package_list | xargs -n1 sudo pip uninstall -y
The package_list is cleaned up (awk) from a pip freeze in a virtualenv.
To remove almost all Python packages:
yolk -l | cut -f 1 -d " " | grep -v "setuptools|pip|ETC.." | xargs -n1 pip uninstall -y

I ran into the same problem on my MacOS X Leopard 10.6.blah.
Solution is to make sure you're calling the MacPorts Python:
sudo port install python26
sudo port install python_select
sudo python_select python26
sudo port install py26-mysql
Hope this helps.

For me only deleting this file : easy-install.pth
worked, rest pip install django==1.3.7

This worked for me. It's similar to previous answers but the path to the packages is different.
sudo easy_install -m
sudo rm -rf /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/.egg
Plaform: MacOS High Sierra version 10.13.3