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I'm new to Python. Trying install pip. All tutorials I saw say me to install setuptools first before installing pip. But I have read, that pip is a replacement for setuptools.

So, why I have to install setuptools first and only then I can install pip?

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    When I started out I also felt this was strange that a package manager is required to install another package manager. I am also curious. – ashutosh raina Aug 20 '13 at 12:15

2 Answers2

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pip is not a replacement for setuptools, quite the contrary, it heavily depends on it and always will depend on it for installing packages from source. What pip does replace is the easy_install tool, which is provided as part of setuptools for historical reasons but shouldn't be used any more.

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You have to install setuptools in order to have easy_install package manager that allows you to install third party packages from pypi (https://pypi.python.org/pypi).

Pip is another package manager but it's more powerful, for instance, you can dump all the installed packages, install packages from a tar.gz, etc.

moliware
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