SLOW downloads with pip, but not wget from same site (how to troubleshoot?)

[yekibud]

I can wget e.g. python coverage and pip install the package locally quickly and without any problem, but pip install coverage takes forever. Using pip 1.3.1 in a virtual env on Ubuntu 12.04. Any idea what could be the hold-up?

I've tried using pip install --use-mirrors.

[dstufft]

Most likely because of the crawling pip does to retain backwards compatibility with easy_install. See http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0438/ .

[yekibud]

I guess that's exacerbated by a slow network - since there's no lag when I'm on a fat pip (like my Linode VPS). But when I'm home on a 1MB DSL line, I have to wait literally like 10 minutes for a single package like coverage to download. Is my only work-around to not use pip and download files directly and install them? What a pain in my development process...

[qwcode]

use this process to get the downloads once, and use locally thereafter.
http://www.pip-installer.org/en/latest/cookbook.html#fast-local-installs

[dstufft]

Until PEP438 is implemented you can also use the restricted API of Crate.io, pip install -i https://restricted.crate.io/ this will only install releases that are directly hosted.

[yekibud]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll give them a try!

[yekibud]

@qwcode Just using the --download option didn't help.

@dstufft Using https://restricted.crate.io/ did help.

Thanks, guys.

[qwcode]

@yekibud, the advice wasn't "just using --download". the cookbook entry helps in the case where you'll be installing many of the same things over and over, which is common. you download those things only once (the first command), and then thereafter just install from a local cache (the 2nd command).

[yekibud]

@qwcode I see how that could be useful - thanks - but speeding up my installs for scenarios like that wasn't really the problem I was having. I couldn't even get past e.g. pip install --download coverage. Pip would just start crawling URLS painfully - forever. Using Crate.io got things going.