Download the latest version of python-pip using apt-get

Question

• Ubuntu 12.04
• Python 2.7
• apt 0.8.16~exp12ubuntu10.17 for amd64 compiled on Jun 13 2014 17:42:13

When I run sudo apt-get install python-pip It installs a a very old version.

$ pip --version
pip 1.0 from /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (python 2.7)

This has caused me all sorts of problems as that version of pip has trouble locating many packages.

When I try to install the latest version 1.5.6 via apt-get It wont locate it.

[$ sudo apt-get install python-pip=1.5.6
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Version '1.5.6' for 'python-pip' was not found][2]

NOTE: I have previously run apt-get update and apt-get update

When I try to install pip by executing sudo python get-pip.py I get

$ python get-pip.py
Downloading/unpacking pip
  Cannot fetch index base URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/
  Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement pip
Cleaning up...
No distributions at all found for pip
Storing debug log for failure in /home/user/.pip/pip.log 

I believe this is because of some issues with the Ubuntu VM proxy settings which I can get resolved later in the week.

Preferably I just want to install a recent version of pip via apt-get but I am open to any solution.

Any help is much appreciated

Solution

sudo apt-get install --reinstall python2.7
sudo apt-get purge python-pip
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py
sudo pip install package-name

This works perfectly in Ubuntu 14.04,check in 12.04 otherwise upgrade the version and follow above steps.

Comments

[Deepend]

I have tried the 'sudo pip install -U pip' option already but as you summarised it was not possible due to the proxy issue. I have no control over the version of Ubunto being used unfortunately

[muru]

@Deepend how is proxy configured in your system? Are the http_proxy and https_proxy variables set properly? Are special characters URL-encoded?

[Rocky Raccoon]

These instructions worked for me to install Flask on 12.04.5 LTS, with the following changes: 0) Installed software-properties-common and python-software-properties to add a new PPA; 1) Switched python2.7 to the "deadsnakes" PPA, per this Superuser post; 2) Ran the apt-get purge command for pip and Flask first, then rebooted; 3) Then, I followed the above instructions, and I was able to run Flask per this Flask quickstart guide.