Pip and Virtualenv are the packaging tools recommended by the Python Packaging User Guide. Use Pip to install Python packages from PyPI, and virtualenv to isolate application specific dependencies from a shared Python installation.
For comprehensive and up to date instructions for OSX installs look here but for simple cases the instructions below should help.
To install python3 on OSX use
brew install python3
or if python3 is not supported by a required library use python 2.7
brew install python
On Debian and Ubuntu
sudo aptitude install python3.5-dev
On Fedora
sudo yum install python3.5-dev
To install Pip on a Mac OS, follow the Pip installer instructions:
To install or upgrade pip, securely download get-pip.py. [1]
Then run the following (which may require administrator access):
$ python get-pip.py
If setuptools (or distribute) is not already installed, get-pip.py will install setuptools for you. [2]
On Debian and Ubuntu:
$ sudo aptitude install python3-pip
On Fedora:
$ sudo yum install python3-pip
If you need to use python 2.7 just remove the 3 from the commands.
Virtualenv is a tool that allows projects to have isolated environments on the same machine so that developing on multiple projects doesn't create a dependency conflict nightmare. This tutorial should help get virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper installed on your development machine.
Once you have virtualenvwrapper installed you can start a new virtualenv like so
mkvirtualenv -p
which python3--no-site-packages project_name
or if you have to use python 2
mkvirtualenv -p
which python--no-site-packages project_name
The --no-site-packages option means that none of the system versions of your requirements will be used, which greatly decreases the risk of unexpected conflicts.