pip

Original author: Tommy Nguyen

Last modified: Mon Aug 1 17:02

pip already comes with your Python installation from your distribution’s package manager. It is not recommended to run pip as root because it can interfere with your system packages and screw up your installation. While Fedora has manage attempts to make sudo pip safer, it is still not completely safe and you should use --user whenever possible.

Another thing to take into consideration is that due to pip historically lacking a dependency resolver, there is no safe way to upgrade all of your packages at once. pip is more geared towards developers rather than end user package management. pip recently obtained a dependency resolver in 20.3.x, however many are recommending using Poetry for developers and pipx if you need to install CLI programs.

One last caveat is that if your python interpreter is upgraded, your packages may be orphaned. You can simply copy over the files in .local/lib/python3.x/site-packages to the newer version. pipx takes care of this automatically.