Easy_install and pip broke: pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: distribute==0.6.36

Question

I was tried to upgrade pip with pip install --upgrade pip on OSX and pip and easy_install both dont work.

When running pip

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/distribute-0.6.49-py2.7.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 2881, in <module>
    parse_requirements(__requires__), Environment()
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/distribute-0.6.49-py2.7.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 596, in resolve
    raise DistributionNotFound(req)
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: pip==1.3.1

When running easy_install

  File "/usr/local/bin/easy_install", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/distribute-0.6.49-py2.7.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 2881, in <module>
    parse_requirements(__requires__), Environment()
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/distribute-0.6.49-py2.7.egg/pkg_resources.py", line 596, in resolve
    raise DistributionNotFound(req)
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: distribute==0.6.36

How can I fix this?

UPDATE I found the solution.

I did cd /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages && ls

found pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg-info and distribute-0.6.49-py2.7.egg in the directory.

Then the following steps fixed the issue.

1. Changed the pip version to 1.4.1 in /usr/local/bin/pip

2. Changed distribute version to 0.6.49 in /usr/local/bin/easy_install

---

The answers on other such questions to curl ez_setup.py and install setuptools from it didnt work. It gave the following error.

Downloading https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/setuptools-1.1.6.tar.gz
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 370, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 366, in main
  File "<stdin>", line 278, in download_setuptools
  File "<stdin>", line 185, in download_file_curl
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 542, in check_call
    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['curl', 'https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/setuptools-1.1.6.tar.gz', '--silent', '--output', '/usr/bin/setuptools-1.1.6.tar.gz']' returned non-zero exit status 23

Answer 1

Install the distribute package as follows:

$ wget https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/oodt/tools/oodtsite.publisher/trunk/distribute_setup.py
$ python distribute_setup.py

You will have a working easy_install then.

Happy Coding.