Why does installing Graphite from GitHub result in a different installation directory than installing from PyPI?

See https://github.com/graphite-project/graphite-web/issues/1508.

Jason Dixon
Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 20, 2016, at 5:22 PM, Andrew Meyer <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> New question #401544 on Graphite:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/graphite/+question/401544
>
> While attempting to automate installation of a Graphite server with Puppet, I noticed the following behavior:
>
> When I install Carbon and Graphite Web from the default pip package repository, PyPI, the packages are installed by default to `/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/`. For example:
>
> pip install carbon==0.9.15
> pip install graphite-web==0.9.15
>
> results in packages installed to the following directories (on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS):
>
> /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/carbon-0.9.15.dist-info/
> /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/graphite_web-0.9.15.dist-info/
>
> However, when I instead install the _exact_ same versions of Carbon and Graphite Web from GitHub:
>
> pip install https://github.com/graphite-project/carbon/tarball/0.9.15
> pip install https://github.com/graphite-project/graphite-web/tarball/0.9.15
>
> The packages end up in `/opt/graphite`:
>
> /opt/graphite/webapp/graphite_web-0.9.15-py2.7.egg-info/
> /opt/graphite/lib/carbon-0.9.15-py2.7.egg-info/
>
> Why is this? Why does it matter where I'm getting the package from given that I'm installing the exact same version of each package (0.9.15) each time? Is there a way to get the `/opt` style installation behavior using the regular PyPI packages?
>
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Thanks, that's very helpful.

Looks like that issue needs to be reopened, since the person who closed it incorrectly assumed that the problem not showing up on master was a result of the master branch containing some sort of fix, whereas in reality I'm guessing it has to do with the difference in the way pip handles installing from different sources, as I demonstrated in my original question.

Oh, and just to clarify for future people arriving from Google. The temporary fix for this is to install graphite with `--no-binary=:all:`. E.g.:

    pip install graphite-web --no-binary=:all:

I've deleted the comment you're referring to but the resolution described in https://github.com/graphite-project/graphite-web/issues/1508#issuecomment-244383013 is still accurate. The problem is due to a behavioral change in pip. Down the road we intend to "fix" Graphite so that it works better with wheels and is not so statically tied to /opt/graphite. There's no point in reopening that issue.

Ah okay. So basically this problem is the result of a larger issue with the way Graphite works with Wheels, and the linked issue will be fixed as part of a larger effort to resolve that underlying problem?

Thanks Jason Dixon, that solved my question.