Install development tools
In order to compile Python you must first install the development tools:
yum groupinstall "Development tools"
You also need a few extra libs installed before compiling Python or else you will run into problems later when trying to install various packages:
yum install zlib-devel
yum install bzip2-devel
yum install openssl-devel
yum install ncurses-devel
Download, compile and install Python
cd /opt
wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.3/Python-2.7.3.tar.bz2
tar xf Python-2.7.3.tar.bz2
cd Python-2.7.3
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make && make altinstall
It is important to use altinstall instead of install, otherwise you will end up with two different versions of Python in the filesystem both named python.
(Depending on your version of wget, you may need to add the –no-check-certificate option to the wget command line. Even better, upgrade to a version of wget that handles SNI appropriately.).
After running the commands above your newly installed Python 2.7.3 interpreter will be available as /usr/local/bin/python2.7 and the system version of Python 2.6.6 will be available as /usr/bin/python and /usr/bin/python2.6.
you can create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin and things should be fine be careful here:
cd /usr/local/bin
ls -ltr python*
ln -s /usr/local/bin/python2.7 /usr/local/bin/python
Installing and configuring distribute (setuptools)
After installing Python 2.7.3 you also need to install distribute (setuptools) so you can easily install new packages in the right location.
cd /opt
wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/d/distribute/distribute-0.6.27.tar.gz
tar xf distribute-0.6.27.tar.gz
cd distribute-0.6.27
python2.7 setup.py install
The commands above will generate the script /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7. Use this script to install packages for your new Python version. You should be able to use “easy_install” if “which easy_install” points to the correct 2.7 versions
which easy_install
ls -ltr /usr/local/bin/easy_install*
easy_install-2.7 requests
easy_install-2.7 psutil
easy_install-2.7 paramiko
(easy_install should work too, if your PATH gets /usr/local/bin first)