title: ImportError: No module named sysconfig--can't get pip working
body: <p>I'm really struggling with pip on a RedHat 6.9 system. Every time I tried to use pip, I got </p>
  
  <pre><code>ImportError: No module named sysconfig
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I tried Googling for solutions. I don't have apt-get and can't seem to get it with yum, so purging setuptools was out of the question. I did my best to delete setuptools by hand so I could reinstall them, but yum is convinced there are still setuptools on the machine.</p>
  
  <p>Pretty much any of the advice involving downloading something with yum doesn't work for me. Yum always says it can't find what I'm looking for. So if there's a way I can download something without yum or apt-get (for example, not through the terminal), that would probably be best.</p>
  
  <p>I have both Python 3 and Python 2 on my machine, so I don't know if that will change the advice that you guys can give me.</p>
  
  <p>1000 thanks to anyone who can help! Right now I can only get things done through anaconda interfaces (such as Jupyter notebooks and Spyder) which is really limiting.</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT:</strong> Here is my error trace:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Traceback (most recent call last):
  
    File "/usr/bin/pip2", line 5, in &lt;module&gt;
  
      from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 947, in &lt;module&gt;
  
      class Environment(object):
  
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 951, in Environment
  
      self, search_path=None, platform=get_supported_platform(),
  
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 180, in get_supported_platform
  
      plat = get_build_platform()
  
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 380, in get_build_platform
  
      from sysconfig import get_platform
  
  ImportError: No module named sysconfig
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT 2:</strong> @hoefling requested that I post the output of the following commands; first:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ yum list installed | grep setuptools
  *Note* Red Hat Network repositories are not listed below. You must run this command as root to access RHN repositories.
  python-setuptools.noarch     0.6.10-4.el6_9      @ncep-base-x86_64-workstation-6
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ grep ^Version: /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/setuptools-*.egg-info/PKG-INFO
  grep: /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/setuptools-*.egg-info/PKG-INFO: No such file or directory
  </code></pre>