Recommended way to install pip(3) on centos7

Question

I am interrested in knowing the recommended way to install pip3 for python3.6 (as of today, may 2018) on current version of centos7 (7.5.1804) and the accepted answer of How

Answer 1

Pip is not bundled in the EPEL version of python 3.6 for some reason. I assume a decent amount of people (such as me) will find this page because of that.

$ sudo yum install -y python36
...
$ python36 -m pip
/usr/bin/python36: No module named pip

So in this case, the setuptools package was the easiest solution.

$ sudo yum install python36-setuptools
$ sudo easy_install-3.6 pip
...
$ python36 -m pip --version
pip 18.0 from /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pip-18.0-py3.6.egg/pip (python 3.6)

Answer 2

1. Is pip the same for 3.4+

   No, it's not. A single pip installation serves a single Python distribution (pip2.7/pip3.4/pip3.5 etc).

2. Since Python 3.5, pip is already bundled with the python distribution, so you can just run python3.6 -m pip instead of pip.

3. Python 3.6 is not available in CentOS 7 vanilla repo. I usually resort to IUS repo when needing to install a fresh Python on CentOS. It always has the most recent Python version, the current one being 3.6.5. It also offers a correspondent pip package.

   $ yum install https://centos7.iuscommunity.org/ius-release.rpm
   $ yum install python36u python36u-devel python36u-pip
   

   Unfortunately, IUS doesn't offer a package for Python 3.7 yet so if you are looking for Python 3.7 on CentOS 7, building from source is your only option.

Edit: when yum is not an option

You should prefer the bootstrapping solution described in this answer as it is the most reliable way to get a working pip installed.