I have installed and configured python from online tutorials, python books, and other various sources in the past only to find myself digging through forums when things go wrong and piecing various information together to try and reach my objective. Which is a clean installation/configuration of python 3.X.X that does not interfere with the system's default interpreter, has pip, easy install, distribute tools, and virtualenv all properly configured and working; can be used side-by-side with the system's python interpreter, is installed in the /opt/ directory (the proper location), is named clearly in the /opt/ directory (e.g. python3.3.0, python3.3.1, python3.3.2), and can be called from the terminal window without using alias (i.e. the path is setup and working). This is a lot of criteria, but is the setup I'm looking for. When following online tutorials, I can typically achieve a few of these, but never all of them.
The closest tutorial I have found so far is here (How do I install Python 3.3?), but it still doesn't provide enough clarification or has broken steps. For example, the answer with the most votes (by Sergey and minerz029) has the following issues:
Does not explain how to setup pip, easy install, distribute tools, and virtualenv. It appears impossible with those steps because they do not include setting up the proper dependencies before compiling to get distribute tools (necessary to get pip) prior to compiling (as indicated here (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18833442/installing-distribute-for-python-3-3). But then when trying to follow the second link, openssl-devel doesnt seem available from apt-get.
Does not setup the python path but rather uses a systemlink.
All the tutorials I follow start a chain reaction in going from forum to forum with no clear answer because everyone uses different steps, commands, methodologies etc. and often leave out key points that start the hunt all over again. Can anyone take a look at the first link and explain how to get pip, easy_install working? I have also followed the second author's instructions (i.e. “Boolean”) but his steps break at step 3 and appears to exclude key points between steps 2 and 3 in switching directories.
/opt
installation to be a virtualenv?