Unable to setup a virtualenv in ubuntu - linux

Question

I am following these steps to setup a virtual environment in Ubuntu 13.10 64-bit.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/244641/how-to-set-up-and-use-a-virtual-python-environment-in-ubuntu
After setting up the various things in bashrc and then on executing source .bashrc. I get the following traceback.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 162, in _run_module_as_main
"__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
exec code in run_globals
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenvwrapper/hook_loader.py", line 16, in <module>
from stevedore import ExtensionManager
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/stevedore/__init__.py", line 11, in <module>
from .extension import ExtensionManager
File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/stevedore/extension.py", line 4, in <module>
import pkg_resources
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 2825, in <module>
add_activation_listener(lambda dist: dist.activate())
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 710, in subscribe
callback(dist)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 2825, in <lambda>
add_activation_listener(lambda dist: dist.activate())
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 2257, in activate
self.insert_on(path)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 2364, in insert_on
self.check_version_conflict()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 2403, in check_version_conflict
for modname in self._get_metadata('top_level.txt'):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 2251, in _get_metadata
for line in self.get_metadata_lines(name):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 1219, in get_metadata_lines
return yield_lines(self.get_metadata(name))
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 1211, in get_metadata
return self._get(self._fn(self.egg_info,name))
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 1326, in _get
stream = open(path, 'rb')
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/google_api_python_client-1.2-py2.7.egg/EGG-INFO/top_level.txt'
virtualenvwrapper.sh: There was a problem running the initialization hooks.
If Python could not import the module virtualenvwrapper.hook_loader,
check that virtualenv has been installed for
VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python and that PATH is
set properly.
It seems that it is unable to find the installation of python. I too am puzzled bacause on executing "which python", I get /usr/bin/python but when I got /usr/bin, I am unable to find the python directory .Please help...
Thanks.

Answer 1

Permission denied seems like u need to be root to do that. Maybe you should use "sudo" before using the command which gives you the error

Answer 2

Did you install virtualenvwrapper? If yes, then sudo like mentioned by user2270433. If no, then install that and proceed with the instructions. I haven't used virtualenvwrapper, but the standard steps for virtualenv in my bootstraps are like this...
wget https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/raw/bootstrap/ez_setup.py
wget https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py
sudo -n python ez_setup.py && sudo python get-pip.py
sudo -n pip install virtualenv