bootstrap script should fall back to 'pip install' during stage 1 if 'easy_install' fails

[boegel]

Several people, including @teojgo and @A1ve5 and also @adamryczkowski (cfr. #2354) have reported running into problems with the EasyBuild bootstrap stage 1 failing with:

SystemExit: error: Could not find suitable distribution for Requirement.parse('easybuild')

when running easy_install --quiet --upgrade --prefix=/tmp/<random_sudir>/eb_stage1 easybuild

The exact reason that this fails is unclear to me, but it looks like an incompatibility between old setuptools versions and pip.

One possible fix/workaround could be to fall back to trying pip install in case the easy_install fails, since the temporary installation of EasyBuild done in stage 1 is removed once the bootstrap completes anyway...

[teojgo]

I managed to successfully run the bootstrap script and install Easybuild. Let me be more specific. I am running Linux Mint 18.3. I initially had the above error but I solved it by installing setuptools via the apt package manager. It seems that somehow the setuptools installed by pip confuse the script and cannot run correctly the easy_install steps.

[jbd]

For what it's worth, the only way I can successfully run the bootstrap script (version 20180531.01) on CentOS 6/7 is to run it inside a virtualenv:

virtualenv eb && \
     source eb/bin/activate && \
         python bootstrap_eb.py $EASYBUILD_PREFIX

or

virtualenv eb --no-site-packages --no-pip && \
     source eb/bin/activate && \
         python bootstrap_eb.py $EASYBUILD_PREFIX

As soon as I'm using a virtualenv with the --no-setuptools option, it is not working anymore:

SystemExit: error: Could not find suitable distribution for Requirement.parse('easybuild')

I didn't manage to bootstrap easybuild without using a virtualenv.

Here is the singularity recipies I'm using if you're interested:
https://gist.github.com/jbd/a472155cef4da66f4f3ac82b3fbe0ded

[jbd]

Now, with bootstrap script version 20181121.101701, it is working without a virtualenv as long as I install python-setuptools (CentOS 7), just like @teojgo.

The singularity recipie I'm using to test the bootstrap script: #2389

[boegel]

@jdb Thanks for the feedback!

setuptools is indeed a strict requirement for EasyBuild (see also https://easybuild.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Installation.html#requirements).

I'm actually hoping to get rid of it at some point, but it won't be trivial...

[Flamefire]

I found the reason: Use of http instead of https to contact PyPi. But yes, pip should be used instead

[Flamefire]

Better solution: Use pip always --> #3223

[branfosj]

The bootstrap script has been removed (see #4233), so I'll close this issue. See https://docs.easybuild.io/installation/ for the current instructions for installing EasyBuild.