pip/python: normal site-packages is not writeable
pip/python: normal site-packages is not writeable
As @TomdeGeus mentioned in the comments, this command works for me:
Python 3:
python3 -m pip install [package_name]
Python 2:
python -m pip install [package_name]
Its best to not use the system-provided Python directly. Leave that one alone since the OS can change it in undesired ways, as you experienced.
The best practice is to configure your own Python version(s) and manage them on a per-project basis using virtualenv (for Python 2) or venv, possibly via poetry, (for Python 3). This eliminates all dependency on the system-provided Python version, and also isolates each project from other projects on the machine.
Each project can have a different Python point version if needed, and gets its own site_packages directory so pip-installed libraries can also have different versions by project. This approach is a major problem-avoider.
pip/python: normal site-packages is not writeable
python3.7 -m pip install [package_name]
(you should use the version that you have, of course)
solved it for me.
The most voted answer python3 -m pip install [package_name] does not help me here.
In my case, this was caused by a conflict with the dominating 3.6 version that was also installed as a default. You might ask yourself why you have 3.6 on your system, you will most probably not use that version now. The reason is that 3.6 is used as an independent default python version for many package installers. Those installers do not want to check which individual version you use and whether that fits, they just use 3.6 as a default, if you like it or not.
Here is a proof by example --upgrade pip:
pip3 install --upgrade pip
Defaulting to user installation because normal site-packages is not writeable
Requirement already satisfied: pip in
/home/USERNAME/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages (20.3.1)
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
Defaulting to user installation because normal site-packages is not writeable
Requirement already satisfied: pip in
/home/USERNAME/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages (20.3.1)
python3.7 -m pip install --upgrade pip
Collecting pip
Cache entry deserialization failed, entry ignored
Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/ab/11/2dc62c5263d9eb322f2f028f7b56cd9d096bb8988fcf82d65fa2e4057afe/pip-20.3.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: pip Successfully installed pip-20.3.1