Installing virtualenv virtualenvwrapper with pip on osx 10.11.1

Question

Objective

Install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper

Background

I am trying to create a sample flask app by following this tutorial https://realpython.com/blog/python/flask-by-example-part-1-project-setup/

But I am running into constant issues since I am setting up Python and related technologies on this new Mac running on 10.11.1

I am stuck at the command where I enter this

$ mkvirtualenv --python=/usr/local/bin/python3 wordcounts

I later realized that I did not have python 3. But still i have the error of

-bash: mkvirtualenv: command not found

So i found this tutorial to help install virtualenv Install virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper on Mac OS X and it said to run this

pip install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper

But then i ran into problem with pip

Current state

I thought I found an existing answer at Can't install virtualenvwrapper on OSX 10.11 El Capitan

The answer said to

sudo pip install pbr
sudo pip install --no-deps stevedore
sudo pip install --no-deps virtualenvwrapper

but even another user mentioned in the comments of the accepted answer that it was not working on 10.11.1

Logs

Captains-MacBook-Pro:flask-by-example mac$ sudo pip install pbr
Password:
The directory '/Users/mac/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/Users/mac/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): pbr in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages
Captains-MacBook-Pro:flask-by-example mac$ sudo pip install --no-deps stevedore
The directory '/Users/mac/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/Users/mac/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
Collecting stevedore
  Downloading stevedore-1.9.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: stevedore
Successfully installed stevedore-1.9.0
Captains-MacBook-Pro:flask-by-example mac$ sudo pip install --no-deps virtualenvwrapper
The directory '/Users/mac/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/Users/mac/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
Collecting virtualenvwrapper
  Downloading virtualenvwrapper-4.7.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: virtualenvwrapper
Successfully installed virtualenvwrapper-4.7.1
Captains-MacBook-Pro:flask-by-example mac$ sudo pip install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper
The directory '/Users/mac/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/Users/mac/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): virtualenv in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): virtualenvwrapper in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): virtualenv-clone in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from virtualenvwrapper)
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): stevedore in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from virtualenvwrapper)
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): pbr>=1.6 in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from stevedore->virtualenvwrapper)
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): argparse in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages (from stevedore->virtualenvwrapper)
Collecting six>=1.9.0 (from stevedore->virtualenvwrapper)
  Downloading six-1.10.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: six
  Found existing installation: six 1.4.1
    DEPRECATION: Uninstalling a distutils installed project (six) has been deprecated and will be removed in a future version. This is due to the fact that uninstalling a distutils project will only partially uninstall the project.
    Uninstalling six-1.4.1:
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 211, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/install.py", line 311, in run
    root=options.root_path,
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_set.py", line 640, in install
    requirement.uninstall(auto_confirm=True)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_install.py", line 716, in uninstall
    paths_to_remove.remove(auto_confirm)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_uninstall.py", line 125, in remove
    renames(path, new_path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-7.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/utils/__init__.py", line 315, in renames
    shutil.move(old, new)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 302, in move
    copy2(src, real_dst)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 131, in copy2
    copystat(src, dst)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 103, in copystat
    os.chflags(dst, st.st_flags)
OSError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/tmp/pip-tK4FXO-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/six-1.4.1-py2.7.egg-info'
Captains-MacBook-Pro:flask-by-example mac$

Answer 1

You shouldn't be using your system's version of Python.

According to Python's docs:

The version of Python that ships with OS X is great for learning but it’s not good for development.

According to Apple's docs:

Developers using Perl, Python, Ruby, or any other scripting languages that ship with OS X, are encouraged to manage their own installations of the language and dependencies ...

So, I recommend installing Python 2 and/or Python 3 using homebrew as suggested and described in Python's OS X installation docs.

Note that these instructions provide the command to install Python 2. To install Python 3, you would run:

brew install python3    # instead of 'brew install python'

These Python installation docs also link to detailed instructions for installing virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper.

Update:

It looks like you have virtualenvwrapper installed, but not properly configured. When I installed it, I ran the following code based on installation docs for virtualenvwrapper to configure:

# Create a directory to hold the virtual environments.
mkdir $HOME/.virtualenvs

echo "
# Python's virtualenvwrapper-RELATED
export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh 
" >> ~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile