I made some progress. I tried this command in the cloned version of scikit-image and it got fairly deep into the compilation process: python setup.py install --prefix ~/SCIKIT However, it ultimately failed with these error messages: Processing dependencies for scikit-image==0.13.dev0 Searching for PyWavelets>=0.4.0 Reading https://pypi.python.org/simple/PyWavelets/ Download error on https://pypi.python.org/simple/PyWavelets/: unknown url type: https -- Some packages may not be found! Couldn't find index page for 'PyWavelets' (maybe misspelled?) Scanning index of all packages (this may take a while) Reading https://pypi.python.org/simple/ Download error on https://pypi.python.org/simple/: unknown url type: https -- Some packages may not be found! No local packages or download links found for PyWavelets>=0.4.0 error: Could not find suitable distribution for Requirement.parse('PyWavelets>=0.4.0') What is the cause of this?