Python packaging is complicated and often clashes with distro package managers. To make things worse, now there's pimp. It uses pip and distutils http://docs.python.org/2/library/distutils.html to download packages from PyPI and build RPMs out of them, which it installs using the system's package management.
Every self-respecting pimp needs a Fedora (purple color recommended), no other distributions have even been tested. To install pimp, first install pip and virtualenv using yum:
yum install python-pip virtualenvAfter that, we'll bootstrap pimp with itself:
TMPDIR=`mktemp -d` && virtualenv --distribute $TMPDIR && \
$TMPDIR/bin/pip install pimp -U &&\
$TMPDIR/bin/pimp --python /usr/bin/python install pimp -U &&\
rm -rf $TMPDIRThis will create temporary directory and a new virtual environment in it, install pimp from PyPI, use pimp to package itself, install that package and remove the temporary directory.
/usr/local aside, there shouldn't be any files in your /usr directory that aren't managed by the package manager (and even then I'm not even fond of installing stuff into /usr/local). When you use pip to install packages system-wide, they end up /usr, without the local-part.
pimp tries to remedy this situation, by giving you a way to install packages through auto-generated rpm-packages that can be uninstalled cleanly.
As of spring 2013, Python packaging is a complete mess (just google distutils, distutils2, setuptools, distlib, packaging, pip, easy_install or any other crazy piece of software messing with packages). Since pimp largely relies on some of these, there are a few issues described below. The general message here is though, only use pimp for the one thing it is intended: Installing the occasional script system-wide.
pip does not support local filesystem packages or checkouts using git+git://-urls in the same way it does PyPI downloads. This makes it hard to support these, so for now, only PyPI packages are supported.
For reasons unknown, distutils' bdist_rpm command allows a lot of customization - but not the RPM name. Your best is hoping that you do not run into a naming conflict with another package. On the bright side, you'll be warned by rpm beforehand and nothing should break.
pimp sets the release-version of every package it creates to pimp. This means that you can list all packages installed by it using:
rpm -qa release="pimp"Uninstalling all these is just as simple:
sudo rpm -ve `rpm -qa release="pimp"`