python in user space

with a setup.py package, http://docs.python.org/install/index.html

python setup.py install --home=$HOME/Python2.6

not bad... can't we do something better? Trying to setup distutils according to http://docs.python.org/install/index.html , I was ending up with nasty errors (like "error: install-base or install-platbase supplied, but installation scheme is incomplete"), stumbled on http://pwang.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/contortions-and-eventual-success-with-pydistutils-cfg/ and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3560865/problems-defining-install-platlib-in-pydistutils-cfg to finally end up doing:

1. ``vim ~/.pydistutils.cfg ``

   System Message: WARNING/2 (<string>, line 28); backlink

   Inline literal start-string without end-string.

2. put

   [install]
   install-base=$HOME/python
   install-purelib=$base/site-packages
   install-platlib=$base/plat-mac
   install-headers=$base/Include
   install-scripts=$base/bin
   install-data=$base/data

3. add $HOME/python/site-packages/ to your PYTHONPATH and $HOME/python/bin/ to your PATH in your .profile environment

4. you may have to refresh your ENV and create the appropriate directories:

   source .bashrc
   mkdir  ~/python
   mkdir  ~/python/site-packages/

5. now simply issue

   python setup.py install

6. or even

   pip install progressbar

7. if you do not have pip, try first:

   easy_install pip