Okay for centos 6.4 also On apu.0xdata.loc, after this install was done

$ which python 
/usr/local/bin/python

$ python -V
Python 2.7.3

$ ls -ltr /usr/local/bin/pyth*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      24 Jan 30  2013 /usr/local/bin/python -> /usr/local/bin/python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6162289 Sep  3 00:59 /usr/local/bin/python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1624 Sep  3 01:00 /usr/local/bin/python2.7-config

So yum will use '/usr/bin/python' which is 2.6

$ /usr/bin/python -V
Python 2.6.6

"python" will give you python 2.7.

"python2.7" will give you python 2.7.

"easy_install" and "easy_install-2.7" will easy install for python 2.7. While separate files, they both seem to install into /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/

$ ls -ltr /usr/local/bin | grep easy_
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root     340 Jan 30  2013 easy_install-2.7
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root     332 Jan 30  2013 easy_install

note the dash before the 2.7

The easy_install's in /usr/bin are for 2.6

$ ls -ltr /usr/bin/easy*
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 331 Nov 11  2010 /usr/bin/easy_install-2.6
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 323 Nov 11  2010 /usr/bin/easy_install

I would recommend python 2.7 on all local machines

I suspect everyone is already ok?. To check:

[root@apu etc]# python -V
Python 2.7.3

Instructions for python 2.7 install on windows 7, ubuntu, mac will be on another page.

Because of centos 6.3 on the cluster machines, we need both 2.6 and 2.7 to coexist there. hopefully only there.

Centos relies on python 2.6 for yum

if you install python 2.7 in any way other than the following you will destroy the system and make yum inoperable

zlib failure message may be from internal python scripts doing uncompression and they may be referring to python module files, rather than looking at links directly. Not sure.

I believe only the x86_64 zlib is needed. i.e. you don't need 32-bit and 64-bit, but just follow these instructions. They worked on apu.0xdata.loc (192.168.1.160) on 9/28/2012

to check centos version

[root@apu etc]# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS release 6.3 (Final)

(also okay for centos 6.4)

How to install Python 2.7.6 on CentOS 6.3 (6.2 and 6.4 okay too, probably others)

stolen from Daniel Eriksson. Thanks Daniel!

http://toomuchdata.com/2012/06/25/how-to-install-python-2-7-3-on-centos-6-2/

(modified a little)

CentOS 6.2 ships with Python 2.6.6 and depends on that specific version. Be careful not to replace it or bad things will happen. If you need access to a newer version of Python you must compile it yourself and install it side-by-side with the system version.

Here are the steps necessary to install Python 2.7.6. Execute all the commands below as root. Either log in as root temporarily or use sudo.

Install development tools

In order to compile Python you must first install the development tools:

yum groupinstall "Development tools"

You also need a few extra libs installed before compiling Python or else you will run into problems later when trying to install various packages:

yum install zlib-devel
yum install bzip2-devel
yum install openssl-devel
yum install ncurses-devel

Download, compile and install Python

The --no-check-certificate is optional

cd /opt
wget --no-check-certificate https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.6/Python-2.7.6.tar.xz
tar xf Python-2.7.6.tar.xz
cd Python-2.7.6
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make && make altinstall

It is important to use altinstall instead of install, otherwise you will end up with two different versions of Python in the filesystem both named python.

(Depending on your version of wget, you may need to add the --no-check-certificate option to the wget command line.)

After running the commands above your newly installed Python 2.7.6 interpreter will be available as /usr/local/bin/python2.7 and the system version of Python 2.6.6 will be available as /usr/bin/python and /usr/bin/python2.6.

Check with:

root@lg1:/opt/Python-2.7.6 ] ls -ltr /usr/bin/python*

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    6 Nov 16  2002 /usr/bin/python2 -> python
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1418 Jul 10  2013 /usr/bin/python2.6-config
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4864 Jul 10  2013 /usr/bin/python2.6
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4864 Jul 10  2013 /usr/bin/python
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   16 Oct 24 15:39 /usr/bin/python-config -> python2.6-config

root@lg1:/opt/Python-2.7.6 ] ls -ltr /usr/local/bin/python*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6214533 Mar 19 22:46 /usr/local/bin/python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1674 Mar 19 22:46 /usr/local/bin/python2.7-config

If things don't look right, you might need to create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin

cd /usr/local/bin
ls -ltr python*
ln -s /usr/local/bin/python2.7 /usr/local/bin/python

final check:

sudo sh
root@lg1:~ ] which python
/usr/bin/python
root@lg1:/home/0xdiag ] python
Python 2.6.6 (r266:84292, Jul 10 2013, 22:48:45) 
[GCC 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-3)] on linux2
root@lg1:~ ] exit

sudo - user
user@lg1:~ ] which python
/usr/local/bin/python
user@lg1:~ ] python
Python 2.7.6 (default, Mar 19 2014, 22:45:29) 
[GCC 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-4)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

Installing and configuring distribute (setuptools)

After installing Python 2.7.6 you also need to install distribute (setuptools) so you can easily install new packages in the right location.

wget https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/raw/bootstrap/ez_setup.py
sudo /usr/local/bin/python2.7 ez_setup.py
sudo /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7 pip

The commands above will generate the script /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7. Use this script to install packages for your new Python version. You should be able to use "easy_install" if "which easy_install" points to the correct 2.7 versions 0xdiag@lg1:~ ] which pip /usr/local/bin/pip

$ which easy_install
/usr/local/bin/easy_install

$ ls -ltr /usr/local/bin/easy_install*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 340 Jan 30  2013 /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 332 Jan 30  2013 /usr/local/bin/easy_install

sudo /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7 requests
sudo /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7 psutil
sudo /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7 paramiko

(for normal user, easy_install should work too, if your PATH gets /usr/local/bin first)

I had to rename pip and easy_install in /user/local/bin and create links. The existing ones were 2.6 variants i.e.

cd /usr/local/bin
mv pip pip2.6
mv easy_install easy_install-2.6
ln -s pip2.7 pip
ln -s easy_install-2.7 easy_install

result in /usr/local/bin

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6214533 Mar 19 22:46 python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1674 Mar 19 22:46 python2.7-config
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      24 Mar 19 22:51 python -> /usr/local/bin/python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     323 Mar 19 23:18 easy_install-2.6
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     331 Mar 19 23:18 easy_install-2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     296 Mar 19 23:22 pip2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     290 Mar 19 23:22 pip2.6
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     292 Mar 19 23:22 pip2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      16 Mar 19 23:29 easy_install -> easy_install-2.7

result in /usr/bin

 ls -ltr /usr/bin/pip
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 281 Oct 24 15:38 /usr/bin/pip

 ls -ltr /usr/bin/easy_install
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 323 Nov 11  2010 /usr/bin/easy_install