these docs add support for a clean OS X python install

[b-meson]

Status

Ready for review

Description of Changes

Fixes #2698.

Testing

Ran through a clean SecureDrop install (from scratch including VirtualBox, Vagrant, python etc) on a brand new OS X machine.

If you made changes to documentation:

• Doc linting passed locally

[redshiftzero]

Why do you need sudo?

[b-meson]

This will not work without sudo. You get a permission denied error. That's why you pass the -H flag, to install in the users' home directory. Correct me if I'm wrong @redshiftzero but I think pip recommends not using sudo with pip but in this case I think the correct behavior is to use sudo and -H.

I think this is the upstream issue

[conorsch]

The traceback in #2698 showed attempts to write the pip libs to /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/, thus the root perms. Personally, I use pip install --user to avoid having to elevate perms for pip libs. Not sure that'll work out of the box on macOS, though.

Might be worthwhile to recommend a homebrew workflow, if possible.

The --ignore-installed six strikes me as a more glaring problem, particularly because there's no explanation for it.

[b-meson]

@conorsch I looked for a homebrew solution for pip install virtualenvwrapper and couldn't easily find one.

[redshiftzero]

Did you try brew install pyenv-virtualenvwrapper? I think that should work and obviate the need for sudo pip

[conorsch]

Must defer to folks using macOS full-time, but I vastly prefer a homebrew workflow for bootstrapping the dev env. Reasons homebrew is rad:

• common for developers to have it already
• setup docs can be linked to, so we don't have to maintain
• no sudo required to install pip libs (warrants further testing)

Let's shoot for a homebrew solution and fall back from there if possible. @redshiftzero I think you're honestly the best candidate for nailing these steps down, mind creating a fresh env—possibly in a new user—and running through the doc?

[redshiftzero]

Fair, I'll put this in my queue for today

[redshiftzero]

brew install worked for me locally, so added a commit making that change

[b-meson]

Hmm, I did a pip uninstall of virtualenvwrapper and tried to brew install pyenv-virtualenvwrapper and the virtualenvwrapper.sh script doesn't exist. This is on a brand new user I created (named python).

zerohistory:~ python$ source /usr/local/bin/virtualenv
virtualenv        virtualenv-clone  
zerohistory:~ python$ source /usr/local/bin/virtualenv

[redshiftzero]

OK if you're still having trouble let's just leave it as is since at least one other contributor reported success. Restamping