Installing setuptools in a private version of python

Question

A newbie question but.....

I've installed python2.7 on a host where the system version is 2.3 (2.7 at ~/python2.7/bin/python). I'd like to add a few packages such as MySQLdb but need setuptools.

The directions say that you can use --prefix as an argument. However, if I do the following: sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg --prefix=~/python2.7/bin/python

I get the error msg: -bash-3.00$ sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg --prefix=~/python2.7/bin/python setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg: line 3: exec: python2.7: not found

Am I not using the --prefix command correctly? Naturally, typing sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg --help can't find python either.

How do I tell setuptools where to find python explicitly? Any other issues I need to be aware of?

jedi_coder · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-02 22:13:14Z

5

I'm an old-fashioned guy and I avoid using eggs, I usually download the source code tarball, extract it and use setup.py

When dealing with multiple python versions, I usually call the required one explicitly, like this:

$ /usr/bin/python2.6 setup.py build
$ sudo /usr/bin/python2.6 setup.py install

There is also a way to do a preliminary "chroot" when installing:

$ python setup.py install --root /tmp

This is useful when you want a temporary install into a certain directory, which later gets used to build a distro-specific package.

This workflow always serves me well.

answered Aug 2, 2010 at 22:13

jedi_coder

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PJ Eby · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-02 21:33:41Z

3

Add ~/python2.7/bin to your PATH, e.g.:

$ export PATH=$PATH:~/python2.7/bin
$ sh setuptools-0.6.c11-py2.7.egg

This should then work without needing a prefix, since python itself will tell setuptools what its default --prefix is.

answered Aug 2, 2010 at 21:33

PJ Eby

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1 Comment

Mead Over a year ago

Useful. I had python2.7 in my path, but not in the path used by sudo.

SaiyanGirl · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-30 20:43:33Z

2

To install easy_install for a specific python version. I just installed from source and used the python version you want to install setuptools too. I used the following steps in Ubuntu 11.04 with Python 2.5 and Python 2.7 installed.

wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11.tar.gz#md5=7df2a529a074f613b509fb44feefe74e
tar -zxvf setuptools-0.6c11.tar.gz
cd setuptools-0.6c11/
sudo python2.5 setup.py build
sudo python2.5 setup.py install

The following command installs a python module to 2.5:

sudo easy_install-2.5 pil

This command installs a module to 2.7

sudo easy_install-2.7 pil

edited Aug 30, 2012 at 20:43

SaiyanGirl

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answered Jul 18, 2011 at 18:50

Sam Stoelinga

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Comments

Hengjie · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-17 23:42:02Z

1

So I ran into the same problem and the above solutions did not work for me. However, what did work (and it's a bit hacky) was creating a temporary symbolic link to where your Python is installed:

sudo mv /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/python.bak

sudo ln -s ~/python2.7/bin/python /usr/bin/python

sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg --prefix=~/python2.7/bin/python 

rm /usr/bin/python

mv /usr/bin/python.bak /usr/bin/python

Warning: This is assuming that Python is installed, so if the mv commands fail, then that should be fine.

answered Jan 17, 2012 at 23:42

Hengjie

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Comments

Tal Weiss · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-12 08:16:50Z

0

I had the same error due to the fact that Python2.7 was not on the path used by sudo.
I just added:
alias sudo='sudo env PATH=$PATH'
before running the installer.

answered Nov 12, 2012 at 8:16

Tal Weiss

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