Error for pip install Pillow on Ubuntu virtualenv

Question

I have an ec2 instance and had Pillow 2.0 installed in my virtualenv initially. Somehow when I tried to upgrade it to Pillow 2.5, it failed with the following message. The e

Answer 1

You might need to install the python development headers.

sudo apt-get install build-dep python-imaging

Answer 2

Ubuntu 16.04 virtualenv

pip install pillow==2.9.0

Answer 3

I had the same headache too...

The solution was found after reading docs, that says:

Starting from version 3.0.0 Pillow needs libjpeg...

So try the previous one:

pip install pillow==2.9.0

(It works for python 2.6 and above)

Good Luck!

Answer 4

The new version 3.0 doesn't work, we need to install the 2.9.0 version which works with Django. Do this while inside the virtual environment:

pip install Pillow==2.9.0

This should work also in Ubuntu, I use Elementary OS.

Answer 5

Finally I have found the answer to this headache!

It turns out I have two flag settings in my .bashrc:

export CFLAGS=-Qunused-arguments                                    
export CPPFLAGS=-Qunused-arguments

The .bashrc was copied from my Macbook Pro and these two flags were required as a work around for XCODE. It seems that they will break in Linux.

After removing these two flags, pip install Pillow works as expected.

Thanks everyone for the help.

Answer 6

On Fedora, installing rpm-build solved it for me. Make sure you have python-devel and libjpeg-devel installed too.