Ubuntu – How to detect and remove Python packages installed via pip

package-managementpippython

I have accidently installed Python packages to my system using pip instead of apt-get. I did this in two ways:

using an older version of virtualenv, I forgot to append --no-site-packages when creating the virtualenv – after that when I called pip install, the Python packages where installed to the system rather than the virtualenv
in a correctly setup virtualenv, I typed sudo pip install somepackage – the sudo installed to the system rather than the virtualenv

I happened to notice this because I typed pip freeze outside a virtualenv, and spotted some Python packages listed that shouldn't be there. So now my question is:

how do I identify all Python packages that have been erroneously installed on the system (that is, Python packages that appear in the pip freeze list, but were not installed with apt-get)?
how do I remove them?

Best Answer

Ubuntu Oneiric (and I expect newer versions too) install pip packages to /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages, and apt packages to /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages. So just check the former directory and sudo pip uninstall every package you find there.

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Ubuntu – How to correctly install multiple non-package Distribute/virtualenv/pip ecosystems on Ubuntu

virtualenvwrapper does much or all of what you're asking for. It is very popular based on the traffic here and at stackoverflow. It has been packaged in Ubuntu since Precise / 12.04.

virtualenvwrapper is a set of extensions to Ian Bicking’s virtualenv tool. The extensions include wrappers for creating and deleting virtual environments and otherwise managing your development workflow, making it easier to work on more than one project at a time without introducing conflicts in their dependencies.

See this answer on StackOverflow for some examples. In your case, you seem to be looking for this virtualenvwrapper command: mkvirtualenv --python=PYTHON_EXE (makes a virtualenv with a specific Python executable).

Finally, there is a coordinated effort to review and update Python packaging in general and taking platform-specific use cases into account, so you may want to consider following progress in the Python Packaging User Guide.

Ubuntu – Uninstall virtualenv which was installed through sudo pip

I was looking for the same thing and I saw this by chance. you can do this.

sudo apt-get remove virtualenv  
sudo apt-get remove --auto-remove virtualenv

If it is normal, the following statement is not executed. But try it once.

sudo apt-get purge python-virtualenv  
sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove python-virtualenv

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – How to correctly install multiple non-package Distribute/virtualenv/pip ecosystems on Ubuntu

Ubuntu – Uninstall virtualenv which was installed through sudo pip

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