There are a number of resources that compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of using apt-get and pip to install, update, and uninstall python packages.
What I cannot find is a resource that indicates what happens if something that is installed by one package manager is updated or uninstalled by the other.
When I run pip list, it lists a lot of packages that are installed, most of which on my system were installed by apt-get and not pip.
So, are these two package managers able to manage packages installed by the other? Or, is pip able to manage a package installed by apt-get, but then apt-get is messed up afterwards. Is apt-get able to manage a package installed by pip?
I would recommend to try and avoid using two (or more) package managers at the same time. It's not very likely that they will cooperate correctly and smoothly.
If possible, pick one of them and use it. Combine them only if you really need to. Usually you don't.
There are ways of avoiding conflicts such as
pip install --user <package> which installs the package into the user's directory only
virtualenv which allows you to have packages installed per application/project - this is a very good idea since various projects might need different versions of the same package and it's easy to move such project do a different computer etc.
venv - Python 3 has a built-in support for virtual environments
Related
I have pip3, installed via the yum install of python3-pip.
I've done a pip3 global install of some modules I need, but python3 can't find them to import. After a little investigation I see that pip3 installed the modules to /usrlib/python3.6/site-packages/pip/_vendor/
The problem is that python3 doesn't seem to know to look at pip/_vendor, it only finds modules directly installed under site-package. If I just copy the modules from .../site-package/pip/_vendor to .../site-package everything works fine.
The issue doesn't appear to be related to file permissions or ability to read the modules.
I'm wondering how I configure either pip to install directly to site-package or python3 to understand how to look in the pip/_vendor location.
I'm configuring this all with ansible and would like as module an option as possible. For instance I could manually use an argument to tell pip3 to install to the folder I want, but I don't want to hardcode the exact site-package directory if I don't have to.
I recommend starting over with pip by downloading and running get-pip.py. This will not only install the latest version of pip, but it will also install packages to a Python-readable location (the version of Python you use to run get-pip.py).
As an aside, I would avoid installing packages system-wide unless there is a specific need for them. At the very least, you should be installing them as a regular user, and even better you should be using a virtualenv.
Trying to use gym open-ai package (and somen other) I ran into some problems,
which structure I don't really understand.
As an example:
I tried to install gym in three different conda environments.
One way to do this is
pip install gym
Another is:
git clone https://github.com/openai/gym.git
cd gym
pip install -e .
A third would be:
pip3 install gym
In some environments I would use Python2, in other env. maybe Python 3.7
Even more possibilities for installation would be:
sudo pip install gym
(and even more permutations would be possible, if we would take into account,
if we activate an environment or don't activate any environment).
To me things get even more complicated, because I tried to install conda with
a not-administrator-user-account in Ubuntu, so that conda (or rather the user itself could not install any files in the /usr directory).
I began to test some of this possibilities and cases, because installation of some libaries
(e.g. keras-rl) seemed to need access to common ressources (/usr/ dir.), even if
installed in an local conda environment. But if so: would the installations in
different conda-environments interact?
And what, if one would install a package as local user in a conda environment and
afterward install a pip or pip3 as administrator. Would the admin-installation
overwrite (or overrule or interact) the environmental installation (or parts of it)?
While experimenting with the different possibilities (or more: while trying to
find a installations, which did not produce any errors like "gym not found" or
"attribute error ... " ) there did occur errors like:
Found existing installation: gym 0.15.4
Can't uninstall 'gym'. No files were found to uninstall.
after executing:
sudo pip3 install gym --force
So on this basis my questions specifically would be:
(1) Is there a best practice for establish good conda environments
(which don't tend to interact, especially if some packages
need sudo priviledges)?
And (2) if some environments interact with
general (sudo) ressources, how can they be resolved in a way,
that distinct environments can be tested and established beneath each other?
Annotation:
there was a similiar question:
conda environment pip is trying to install dependencies globally
some time ago, but the advice, not to use sudo, seems to be difficult to follow,
if some packages require access to global ressources.
So I would like to ask for a solution to interactions at bit more specifically.
you should not use sudo to install something in a conda environment. Most likely the used pip command is not stemming from the actual (activated?) environment, but the actual system-wide pip is used. Therefore you would need to use to use sudo to install to a system owned prefix.
You can check whether you are using the desired pip by invoking "which pip". The path should point to your environment. If it does not, you shall install pip inside your conda env.
I had the same problem before. I activated conda envirement and installed with pip3 locally since conda does not have support for it. Warning: Possible of wreckig some packs.
The conda envirement should ALLWAYS be activated before installing anything orelse it ends up as a global installation.
install a new conda envirement without using sudo. If it ask for sudo you need to remove the whole thing and clean up a bit. Its very easy to forget and NEVER use sudo !
You can try installing a newer version of python3.x (python 2 is getting history very soon anyways they said. Pip = python2, pip3 = python3. And to answer one of your new question if by installing globally will mess things up, not outside conda.
google pycharm and conda. there you can just use it to install 3 different types of envirements with python. Actually a darn good editor for python coding. The rest is more linux related when we talk about cleaning up PATHS etc.
I have no better to add! Hope you get it right.
Whenever I want to install a python package, I find the pip install <package> instructions on most of the sites / README.md documentation in github etc.
A colleague told me recently to try first a conda install <package> and if this fails (because the package is not available) to use the pip install process afterwards.
Is the try with the conda installation step really necessary / beneficial or can I just do the pip install directly?
It depends on your use case. Conda does more than pip does. Conda was developed after pip because the Conda folks did not think pip did enough. It aims to handle library dependencies outside of the realm of python such as C libraries, R packages, or really anything with a wheel. as well as handling the python packages themselves. This is important because these packages do not have the standard setup.py in their source code, so python will not install them into the site-packages directory which is useful for easy importing.
It is important to note that you can't use pip and conda interchangeably, as conda has a different packaging format.
To answer your question succinctly: If you use one, I would stick to it for the entirety of whatever you are doing, and not use conda "until it doesn't work for something" and then just switch to pip for installations that conda can't handle. That is a super good way to get into trouble you can't explain.
My advice: if you are sticking to python and python only, use pip. If you are considering outside libraries that have value to your project, conda is a good option.
When I install some python packages in Fedora, there're two ways:
use dnf install python-package
use pip install package
I notice even I use dnf update to make my Fedora the newest,
when I use pip, it still tell me something like
pip is a old version, please use pip update
I guess the dnf package management is different with python-pip package management.
So which one is more recommended to install python packages ?
Quoted from Gentoo Wiki:
It is important to understand that packages installed using pip will not be tracked by Portage. This is the case for installing any package through means other than the emerge command. Possible conflicts can be created when installing a Python package that is available in the Portage tree, then installing the same package using pip.
Decide which package manager will work best for the use case: either use emerge or pip for Python packages, but not both. Sometimes a certain Python packages will not be available in the Portage tree, in these cases the only option is to use pip. Be wise and make good choices!
This is true for almost any nowadays package managers. If you are using packages or certain package versions that only exists in pip, use it but don't try to install that from dnf. Doing this will not only cause file collisions but also will (most possibly) break the package manager's knowledge of the system, which usually leads to major package management issues.
Other solution would be using pip in user mode, without root permissions, which will install relevant things into your home directory.
So again, it's both okay to use pip or dnf, but just don't mix these two package managers together.
I have an external package I want to install into my python virtualenv from a tar file.
What is the best way to install the package?
I've discovered 2 ways that can do it:
Extract the tar file, then run python setup.py install inside of the extracted directory.
pip install packagename.tar.gz from example # 7 in https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/reference/pip_install/#examples
Is if there is any difference doing them in these 2 ways.
On the surface, both do the same thing: doing either python setup.py install or pip install <PACKAGE-NAME> will install your python package for you, with a minimum amount of fuss.
However, using pip offers some additional advantages that make it much nicer to use.
pip will automatically download all dependencies for a package for you. In contrast, if you use setup.py, you often have to manually search out and download dependencies, which is tedious and can become frustrating.
pip keeps track of various metadata that lets you easily uninstall and update packages with a single command: pip uninstall <PACKAGE-NAME> and pip install --upgrade <PACKAGE-NAME>. In contrast, if you install a package using setup.py, you have to manually delete and maintain a package by hand if you want to get rid of it, which could be potentially error-prone.
You no longer have to manually download your files. If you use setup.py, you have to visit the library's website, figure out where to download it, extract the file, run setup.py... In contrast, pip will automatically search the Python Package Index (PyPi) to see if the package exists there, and will automatically download, extract, and install the package for you. With a few exceptions, almost every single genuinely useful Python library can be found on PyPi.
pip will let you easily install wheels, which is the new standard of Python distribution. More info about wheels.
pip offers additional benefits that integrate well with using virtualenv, which is a program that lets you run multiple projects that require conflicting libraries and Python versions on your computer. More info.
pip is bundled by default with Python as of Python 2.7.9 on the Python 2.x series, and as of Python 3.4.0 on the Python 3.x series, making it even easier to use.
So basically, use pip. It only offers improvements over using python setup.py install.
If you're using an older version of Python, can't upgrade, and don't have pip installed, you can find more information about installing pip at the following links:
Official instructions on installing pip for all operating systems
Instructions on installing pip on Windows (including solutions to common problems)
Instructions on installing pip for Mac OX
pip, by itself, doesn't really require a tutorial. 90% of the time, the only command you really need is pip install <PACKAGE-NAME>. That said, if you're interested in learning more about the details of what exactly you can do with pip, see:
Quickstart guide
Official documentation.
It is also commonly recommended that you use pip and virtualenv together. If you're a beginner to Python, I personally think it'd be fine to start of with just using pip and install packages globally, but eventually I do think you should transition to using virtualenv as you tackle more serious projects.
If you'd like to learn more about using pip and virtualenv together, see:
Why you should be using pip and virtualenv
A non-magical introduction to Pip and Virtualenv for Python beginners
Virtual Environments
python setup.py install is the analog of make install: it’s a limited way to compile and copy files to destination directories. This doesn’t mean that it’s the best way to really install software on your system.
pip is a package manager, which can install, upgrade, list and uninstall packages, like familiar package managers including: dpkg, apt, yum, urpmi, ports etc. Under the hood, it will run python setup.py install, but with specific options to control how and where things end up installed.
In summary: use pip.
The question is about the preferred method to install a local tarball containing a python package, NOT about the advantage of uploading package to an indexing service like PyPi.
As lest I know some software distributor does not upload their package to PyPi, instead asking developers to download package from their website and install.
python setup.py install
This can work but not recommended. It's not necessary to unwrap the tarball file and go into it to run setup.py file.
pip install ../path/to/packagename.tar.gz
This is the way designed and preferred. Concise and align with PyPi-style packages.
More information about pip install can be found here: https://pip.readthedocs.io/en/stable/reference/pip_install/