How to Build Python from Source Correctly on Centos

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How to build Python from source

It's important to know how to compile Python from source, especially on shared environments.

I used the following sources of information:

Correct yum packages to install before building python

When building python from source, you need to have already installed various libraries with your package manager. Python will compile fine without these, but your access to a lot of modules will be restricted. These are the packages I installed for my blog

# Update yum first
yum update
yum upgrade
# Install development tools - great for programmers
yum groupinstall -y development
yum install -y zlib-dev openssl-devel sqlite-devel bzip2-devel readline-devel tk-devel

Building Python

mkdir /apps
cd /apps
# Get Latest python 2
wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.12/Python-2.7.12.tar.xz
# Decode the XZ encoded tar archive
xz -d Python-2.7.12.tar.xz
# Extract python
tar -xvf Python-2.7.12.tar

cd Python-2.7.12
# prefix defaults to /usr/local
# Change it with ./configure --prefix=/apps/Python2.7
./configure
make
# altinstall prevents the build from replacing the system's python
make altinstall

# Verify it worked
# If --prefix was used, add its location to the path
python2.7 --version

Install pip and some packages

# Install pip
cd /apps
wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
python2.7 get-pip.py
rm get-pip.py

# Install some pip packages to global namespace
pip install virtualenv
pip install supervisor

Using virtualenv

virtualenv blog
cd blog
source bin/activate
python --version  # Should be 2.7.12
deactivate

Clone blog with git

cd /apps/blog
source bin/activate
mkdir blog
cd blog
git init
git remote add origin https://github.com/mkmoisen/blog.git
git pull origin master
pip install -r requirements.txt
deactivate

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