pip upgrade OSError: [Errno:13] Permission Denied

Question

I need to upgrade pip on my Ubuntu system but I am getting error:

Collecting pip
  Using cached pip-9.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages:         


        

Answer 1

Since you want to upgrade your system-wide Python, you need to run this command with administrator privilege:

sudo pip install -U pip

But, I recommend you not changing/polluting your system-wide Python. Instead use a virtualenv:

virtualenv myapp
source myapp/bin/activate
pip install -U pip  # <- only if virtualenv is not up to date