title: Python 2.7 created with altinstall needs to access scipy dependencies
body: <p>I recently updated my CentOS6 server from Python 2.6 to 2.7, by leaving the system version alone and using the altinstall method. </p>
  
  <pre><code># yum groupinstall "Development tools"
  # yum install zlib-devel bzip2-devel openssl-devel ncurses-devel sqlite-devel readline-devel tk-devel
  
  # wget http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.3/Python-2.7.3.tar.bz2
  # tar xf Python-2.7.3.tar.bz2
  # cd Python-2.7.3
  # ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
  # make &amp;&amp; make altinstall
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Then I installed distribute and through it, virtual env</p>
  
  <pre><code># wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/d/distribute/distribute-0.6.35.tar.gz
  # tar xf distribute-0.6.35.tar.gz
  # cd distribute-0.6.35
  # python2.7 setup.py install
  
  # easy_install-2.7 virtualenv
  # virtualenv-2.7 --distribute someproject
  New python executable in someproject/bin/python2.7
  Also creating executable in someproject/bin/python
  Installing distribute...................done.
  Installing pip................done.
  # source someproject/bin/activate
  (someproject)# python --version
  Python 2.7.3
  (someproject)#
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Everything works great, I activate my virtualenv and install anything I need there, with one exception, those damn scipy and numpy modules!!
  When I try to instal scipy, I get the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>error: 
      Blas (http://www.netlib.org/blas/) libraries not found.
      Directories to search for the libraries can be specified in the
      numpy/distutils/site.cfg file (section [blas]) or by setting
      the BLAS environment variable.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I did loads of research and reading, and it seems that the problem is not with the virtualenv settings but with the python2.7 installation which doesn't seem to be using those libraries at all. It also seems that it is really difficult to recompile them for just this version of Python. Is this the case or I am missing something here?</p>
  
  <p>Do you know how I can point my newly installed python2.7 version to use those libraries? Or just point me to the correct direction?</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT</strong>: The -dev packages that include those dependencies have already been installed in the past for python2.6, however they cannot be accessed for the new version created with altinstall.</p>