[Solved]-Workflow using virtualenv and pip

I have installed every Python verison I need (which is 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 3.1 and also 3.2) from source. That’s always the best thing to do, so you don’t mess up the system Python.

I installed them in /opt. Like so (you need a bunch of Ubuntu packages too, first):

./configure --prefix /opt/pythonxx
make -j2; make install # j2 is a nice trick there for dualcores not everyone knows.

Then I for each version install the things I need. I start with installing Distribute:

wget http://nightly.ziade.org/distribute_setup.py
/opt/pythonxx/bin/python distribute_setup.py

(Except for Python 3, who needs distribute_setup3.py)
Then I can install pip

/opt/pythonxx/bin/easy_install pip

And virtualenv:

/opt/pythonxx/bin/pip install virtualenv

(Virtualenv3 or virtualenv5 for Python 3)

And that’s it! If I want to make a virtualenv using Python 2.4, I do:

/opt/python24/bin/virtualenv foobar

And Python 2.7:

/opt/python27/bin/virtualenv foobar

Running python is just

/opt/python24/bin/python

Etc. I never install anything in the above Pythons except these modules, and PIL (because PIL is a pain, but now there is Pillow, so you don’t have to do that either). I use zc.buildout and virtualenv to keep the pythons clean.

You can use virtualenv --no-site-packages ENVNAME and that will make sure the default Django in your system Python won’t be included in your new environment.

For different versions of Python, you can follow these instructions from a superuser.com post.