[Distutils] can someone explain why I have started to get these pip failures

[Robin Becker]

> (myenv) rptlab at app0:~/myenv
> $ python
> Python 2.7.11+ (default, Apr 17 2016, 14:00:29)
> [GCC 5.3.1 20160413] on linux2
> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>>

 > (myenv) rptlab at app0:~/myenv
> $ pip --version
> pip 8.1.2 from /home/rptlab/myenv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages (python 2.7)


 > (myenv) rptlab at app0:~/myenv
>  pip install -r requirements.txt
> Collecting MySQL-python<1.3,>=1.2.5 (from -r requirements.txt (line 1))
>   Downloading MySQL-python-1.2.5.zip (108kB)
>     100% |################################| 112kB 2.1MB/s
> Could not import setuptools which is required to install from a source distribution.
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "/home/rptlab/> (myenv) rptlab at app0:~/myenv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_install.py", line 372, in setup_py
>     import setuptools  # noqa
>   File "/home/rptlab/> (myenv) rptlab at app0:~/myenv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/__init__.py", line 11, in <module>
>     from setuptools.extern.six.moves import filterfalse, map
>   File "/home/rptlab/> (myenv) rptlab at app0:~/myenv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools/extern/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
>     from pkg_resources.extern import VendorImporter
> ImportError: No module named pkg_resources.extern
 > (myenv) rptlab at app0:~/myenv
> $ pip install setuptools -U
> Requirement already up-to-date: setuptools in ./lib/python2.7/site-packages


This is on a unbuntu 16.04lts system

> $ uname -a
> Linux app0 4.4.0-28-generic #47-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 24 10:09:13 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

-- 
Robin Becker