The Story about Distribute and Setuptools [Edit]

To make a long story short, I've switched my packages to use distribute instead of setuptools. Distribute is an actively maintained fork of setuptools and provides the setuptools package name. I expect distribute to be "the way of the future".

The need for this change came from Python 2.6.3, which broke every C/C++ extension on the planet that was shipped using setuptools (which includes PyCuda, PyOpenCL, and many more of my packages.) Python 2.6.4 eventually fixed the issue.

How to switch to Distribute [Edit]

Step 1: Completely Remove Setuptools [Edit]

First, check if setuptools was installed using the package manager. In Debian and Ubuntu, do

sudo apt-get remove --purge python-setuptools python-virtualenv

to be sure.

Update 8/11/2010: When you install setuptools in Debian unstable nowadays, you actually get distribute.

Once that's done, try

Python 2.5.4 (r254:67916, Sep 26 2009, 08:19:36)
[GCC 4.3.4] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import setuptools
>>> setuptools.__file__
'/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/setuptools/__init__.pyc'
>>>

If setuptools is still found, delete it:

$ sudo rm -Rf /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/setuptools

where you obviously need to subsitute the path that was found for setuptools above.

For completeness, also get rid of easy_install:

$ which easy_install
/usr/bin/easy_install
$ sudo rm /usr/bin/easy_install

Repeat until no more copies of setuptools are found. Then repeat with distribute instead of setuptools.

Step 2: Download and Unpack Distribute [Edit]

Download distribute from here, unpack, install:

$ tar xvfz distribute-x.y.z.tar.gz
$ cd distribute-x.y.z
$ [sudo?] python setup.py install

Step 3: Install virtualenv (Optional) [Edit]

If you use virtualenv prior to version 1.5.1, note that you need to use the command line option --distribute to force the use of distribute rather than setuptools. Distribute seems to have become the new default. virtualenv-distribute, a former solution to using distribute with virtualenv, does not work any more.

Error Messages and Solutions [Edit]

KeyError: '_something' [Edit]

Does your error message look like this?

"/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/setuptools-0.6c9-
py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/build_ext.py",
line 85, in get_ext_filename
KeyError: '_something'

You are using Python 2.6.3 with Setuptools. This will not work. Uninstall setuptools, install distribute.

Invalid Command 'develop' [Edit]

Does your error message look like this?

Scanning installed packages
Setuptools installation detected at /home/schwede/PIC_Hedge/pytools
Non-egg installation
Removing elements out of the way...
Already patched.
/home/schwede/PIC_Hedge/pytools/setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg-info already patched.
Extracting in /tmp/tmpGSNq8D
Now working in /tmp/tmpGSNq8D/distribute-0.6.4
Building a Distribute egg in /home/schwede/PIC_Hedge/pytools
/home/schwede/PIC_Hedge/pytools/setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg-info already exists
usage: setup.py [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
   or: setup.py --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
   or: setup.py --help-commands
   or: setup.py cmd --help

error: invalid command 'develop'

You've managed to install both setuptools and distribute. This shouldn't happen. To clean up the mess, follow the steps above.