On 25 April 2018 at 16:32, Rodrigo Acosta <rodacor...@gmail.com> wrote: > Is there a rule of thumb in deciding where to install a package? What makes a > package, other than security vulnerabilities, better to install globally e.g. > using sudo pip install, or by changing directory to tmp folder, or by using > virtualenv?
Generally, I would say you should *never* use "sudo pip install". The system installed Python is managed by your distribution package manager, and you should only ever make changes to that using vendor supplied packages ("apt-get install python-requests" or whatever the incantation might be). If you're installing packages for a project, virtualenvs are a very good idea. (You can also use higher level tools like pew or pipenv to make management of virtual environments easier). Or if you just want to install packages for your own use in adhoc scripts, etc, then you can install them using "pip install --user" - this will make them available in the system Python without altering system-managed files or directories (note that I *didn't* use sudo!) Hope this helps, Paul -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list