Find all packages installed with easy_install/pip?

Question

Is there a way to find all Python PyPI packages that were installed with easy_install or pip? I mean, excluding everything that was/is installed with the distributions tool

Answer 1

If Debian behaves like recent Ubuntu versions regarding pip install default target, it's dead easy: it installs to /usr/local/lib/ instead of /usr/lib (apt default target). Check https://askubuntu.com/questions/173323/how-do-i-detect-and-remove-python-packages-installed-via-pip/259747#259747

I am an ArchLinux user and as I experimented with pip I met this same problem. Here's how I solved it in Arch.

find /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages -maxdepth 2 -name __init__.py | xargs pacman -Qo | grep 'No package'

Key here is /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages, which is the directory pip installs to, YMMV. pacman -Qo is how Arch's pac kage man ager checks for ownership of the file. No package is part of the return it gives when no package owns the file: error: No package owns $FILENAME. Tricky workaround: I'm querying about __init__.py because pacman -Qo is a little bit ignorant when it comes to directories :(

In order to do it for other distros, you have to find out where pip installs stuff (just sudo pip install something), how to query ownership of a file (Debian/Ubuntu method is dpkg -S) and what is the "no package owns that path" return (Debian/Ubuntu is no path found matching pattern). Debian/Ubuntu users, beware: dpkg -S will fail if you give it a symbolic link. Just resolve it first by using realpath. Like this:

find /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages -maxdepth 2 -name __init__.py | xargs realpath | xargs dpkg -S 2>&1 | grep 'no path found'

Fedora users can try (thanks @eddygeek):

find /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages -maxdepth 2 -name __init__.py | xargs rpm -qf | grep 'not owned by any package'