What's the difference between dist-packages and site-packages?

python pip easy-install package-managers
maxm picture maxm · Feb 22, 2012 · Viewed 85.5k times · Source

I'm a bit miffed by the python package installation process. Specifically, what's the difference between packages installed in the dist-packages directory and the site-packages directory?

Answer

jterrace picture jterrace · Feb 22, 2012

dist-packages is a Debian-specific convention that is also present in its derivatives, like Ubuntu. Modules are installed to dist-packages when they come from the Debian package manager into this location:

/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages

Since easy_install and pip are installed from the package manager, they also use dist-packages, but they put packages here:

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages

From the Debian Python Wiki:

dist-packages instead of site-packages. Third party Python software installed from Debian packages goes into dist-packages, not site-packages. This is to reduce conflict between the system Python, and any from-source Python build you might install manually.

This means that if you manually install Python from source, it uses the site-packages directory. This allows you to keep the two installations separate, especially since Debian and Ubuntu rely on the system version of Python for many system utilities.

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