Is it possible to add PyQt4/PySide packages on a Virtualenv sandbox?

I'm using Virtualenv with profit on my development environment with web.py, simplejson and other web oriented packages.
I'm going to develop a simple python client using Qt to reuse some Api developed with web.py.

Does anybody here had succesfully installed PyQt4 with Virtualenv?
Is it possible?

I've downloaded all the binaries and have PyQt4 installed globally on my python2.6 directory.
If I don't use --no-site--packages option, Virtualenv correctly includes PyQt4 in my new sandbox but, obviously, with all the global packages that I don't need.

Is there a clean way to prepare a new sandbox with --no-site--packages option and then add PyQt4 or PySide using pip, easy_install or some other magic trick?


It should be enough to create an empty virtualenv and then copy the contents of the .../site-packages/PyQt4 directories into it.

I suggest to install PyQt4 once globally, make a copy of the directory, uninstall it and then use this trick to create VEs.


I have the same problem. I use virtualenvwrapper, so I wrote this script to create a link to PyQt in every new virtual environment. Maybe is useful for someone else:

#!/bin/bash
# This hook is run after a new virtualenv is activated.
# ~/.virtualenvs/postmkvirtualenv

LIBS=( PyQt4 sip.so )

PYTHON_VERSION=python$(python -c "import sys; print (str(sys.version_info[0])+'.'+str(sys.version_info[1]))")
VAR=( $(which -a $PYTHON_VERSION) )

GET_PYTHON_LIB_CMD="from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print (get_python_lib())"
LIB_VIRTUALENV_PATH=$(python -c "$GET_PYTHON_LIB_CMD")
LIB_SYSTEM_PATH=$(${VAR[-1]} -c "$GET_PYTHON_LIB_CMD")

for LIB in ${LIBS[@]}
do
    ln -s $LIB_SYSTEM_PATH/$LIB $LIB_VIRTUALENV_PATH/$LIB 
done

link to gist


Linux debian, python 2.7:

  • Install python-qt4 globaly: sudo apt-get install python-qt4
  • Create symbolic link of PyQt4 to your virtual env ln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PyQt4/ ~/.virtualenvs/myEnv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
  • Create symbolic link of sip.so to your virtual envln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/sip.so ~/.virtualenvs/myEnv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/