CentOS 6.5 still come with Python 2.6 and I need 2.7, below a simple tutorial how to achieve this with no pain and not messing with installed Python.

Update CentOS and install development tools

  1. yum -y update
  2. yum groupinstall -y 'development tools'

Also you need the packages below to enable SSL, bz2, zlib for Python and some utils:

  1. yum install -y zlib-devel bzip2-devel openssl-devel xz-libs wget

Installing Python 2.7.8 from source

Download Python and extract it

  1. wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.8/Python-2.7.8.tar.xz
  2. xz -d Python-2.7.8.tar.xz
  3. tar -xvf Python-2.7.8.tar

Installation process

Since we already installed all the dependencies we are ready to go:

  1. # Enter the directory:
  2. cd Python-2.7.8
  4. # Run the configure:
  5. ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
  7. # compile and install it:
  8. make
  9. make altinstall
  11. # Checking Python version:
  12. [root@nicetry ~]# python2.7 -V
  13. Python 2.7.8

If you need set PATH variable check the line below:

  1. export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

Installing pip and virtualenv

Now we have Python installed, but something is missing isn’t? Yes! We need pip and virtualenv.

Install setuptools

  1. wget --no-check-certificate https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/setuptools-1.4.2.tar.gz
  3. # Extract the files:
  4. tar -xvf setuptools-1.4.2.tar.gz
  5. cd setuptools-1.4.2
  7. # Install setuptools using the Python 2.7.8:
  8. python2.7 setup.py install

Install pip

  1. curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py | python2.7 -

And finally virtualenv

  1. pip2.7 install virtualenv

And that’s all, we have Python 2.7.8 installed on CentOS.