CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonubuntupython-2.7virtualenv
Mike
Mike

Reputation: 1337

Installing Custom Python

I am trying to install the latest (2.7.6) version of python on my ubuntu box that already has 2.7.4 installed through the package manager. I'm up for any solution that someone has for this, but am not quite sure how to do this myself.

I have used virtualenv to create virtual python setups for different django versions, but I don't know how to use virtualenv to create an environment with an updated python version (or if it is even possible).

So to install I downloaded the source and created a custom install using the below code

wget http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.6/Python-2.7.6.tgz
tar -xvf Python-2.7.6.tgz
cd Python-2.7.6
./configure PREFIX=$SOMEBASE/python-2.7.6
make install DESTDIR=$SOMEBASE/python-2.7.6

This seems to work for the installation, however when trying to install a package on python I get the error that it can't write to /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages. I could have it write there by running as root, but wasn't sure what that would do to my existing installation and really, really don't want to break what is already there. So I would love to know if there is a way (and how) I could specify a location for the site-packages to be used (like $SOMEBASE/python-2.7.6/Lib/site-packages).

Upvotes: 0

Views: 3045

Answers (2)

unutbu
unutbu

Reputation: 880289

Lennart Regebro has written instructions on how to install easy_install, virtualenv, and pip for a particular Python installation.

Alternatively, there is a shell tool called virtualenvwrapper which can automate much of the process. After installing python2.7.6, (and virtualenvwrapper), you'd type

cd ~/.virtualenvs
mkvirtualenv myenv -p /path/to/python2.7.6

to make a new environment called myenv. mkvirtualenv will install easy_install and pip for you. Once you activate myenv with

workon myenv

additional modules or packages which you install with easy_install or pip will use the right version of Python and will install the modules in ~/.virtualenvs/myenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages.

Upvotes: 1

Lennart Regebro
Lennart Regebro

Reputation: 172309

Normally you rn and build Python like this:

./configure --prefix=/wherever/python-2.7.6
make
sudo make install

You'll still have to sudo when installing modules, but that's good, prevents you from doing it by mistake. They will be installed to /wherever/python-2.7.6/lib/python2.7/site-packages.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions