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

I think Glyph means do something like this:

1. Create a directory ~/.local, if it doesn't already exist.
2. In your ~/.bashrc, ensure that ~/.local/bin is on PATH and that ~/.local is on PYTHONPATH.

3. Create a file ~/.pydistutils.cfg which contains

   [install]
   prefix=~/.local
   

   It's a standard ConfigParser-format file.

4. 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/

5. Run which easy_install to verify that it's coming from ~/.local/bin

6. Run pip install virtualenv
7. Run pip install virtualenvwrapper
8. Create a virtual env containing folder, say ~/.virtualenvs

9. 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 ve

On Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv

The package python-pip is a dependency, so it will be installed as well.

Update: As of July 2013 this project is no longer maintained. The author suggests using pyenv. (pyenv does not have built-in support for virtualenv, but plays nice with it.)

Pythonbrew is a version manager for python and comes with support for virtualenv.

After installing pythonbrew and a python-version using venvs is really easy:

# Initializes the virtualenv 
pythonbrew venv init

# Create a virtual/sandboxed environment 
pythonbrew venv create mycoolbundle  

# Use it 
pythonbrew venv use mycoolbundle

There is no problem to do sudo python setup.py install, if you're sure it's what you want to do.

The difference is that it will use the site-packages directory of your OS as a destination for .py files to be copied.

so, if you want pip to be accessible os wide, that's probably the way to go. I do not say that others way are bad, but this is probably fair enough.

Install ActivePython. It includes pip, virtualenv and Distribute.