apt-get install vs pip install
PyPI is the Python Package index — repository of python modules.
pip
is used to download and install packages directly from PyPI. PyPI is hosted by Python Software Foundation. It is a specialized package manager that only deals with python packages.
apt-get
is used to download and install packages from Ubuntu repositories which are hosted by Canonical.
Some of the differences between installing python packages from apt-get
and pip
are as follows:
Canonical only provides packages for selected python modules. Whereas, PyPI hosts a much broader range of python modules. So, there are a lot of python modules which you won't be able to install using
apt-get
.Canonical only hosts a single version of any package (generally the latest or the one released in recent past). So, with
apt-get
we cannot decide the version of python-package that we want.pip
helps us in this situation. We can install any version of the package that has previously been uploaded on PyPI. This is extremely helpful in case of conflict in dependencies.apt-get
installs python modules in system-wide location. We cannot just install modules in our project virtualenv.pip
solves this problem for us. If we are usingpip
after activating the virtualenv, it is intelligent enough to only install the modules in our project virtualenv. As mentioned in previous point, if there is a version of a particular python package already installed in system-wide location, and one of our project requires an older version of the same python package, in such situations we can use virtualenv and pip to install that older version of python package without any conflicts.As @Radu Rădeanu pointed out in this answer, there would generally be difference in names of packages as well. Canonical usually names Python 2 packages as
python-<package_name>
and Python 3 packages aspython3-<package_name>
. Whereas forpip
we generally just need to use<package_name>
for both Python 2 as well as Python3 packages.
Which one should you use:
Both apt-get
and pip
are mature package managers which automatically install any other package dependency while installing. You may use anyone as you like. However, if you need to install a particular version of python-package, or install the package in a virtualenv, or install a package which is only hosted on PyPI; only pip
would help you solve that issue. Otherwise, if you don't mind installing the packages in system-wide location it doesn't really matter whether you use apt-get
or pip
.
As @AvinashRaj said in his comment, pip
is used to install python packages only, but apt-get
is used to install packages created in any programming language.
Your main problem is to find the right package name in both cases:
pip search pyudev
will give you the right name for the package you want to install using pip install
, as
apt-cache search pyudev
will give you the right name for the package you want to install using apt-get install
:
radu@Radu: ~ $ pip search pyudev
pyudev - A libudev binding
radu@Radu: ~ $ apt-cache search pyudev
python-pyudev - Python bindings for libudev
python3-pyudev - Python3 bindings for libudev
So, in conlusion, the correspondent of sudo apt-get install python-pyudev
is sudo pip install pyudev
, not sudo pip install python-pyudev
.
Now depends on you what you want to choose when you want to install a python package: pip
or apt-get
. See for example this Q&A about difference in installing a package using pip
and apt-get
.
My preferred way is to always use apt
and only in case the module is not yet available in Debian/Ubuntu repository to use pip
, but only in user context - --user
flag. By using pip
one anyway have to get all the build-dependencies installed from let's say Ubuntu's repository or provide them themselves which can be a tedious task. apt-get
install binary packages while pip
builds them after downloading. One shouldn't use pip to install modules into system locations. This is plain wrong. Always use --user
flag to install a module to home location. Properly configured PYTHONPATH let python to pick up the modules from the HOME first and then system modules installed with apt-get
.