Linux Administration Cookbook

Python virtualenv

Python has an inherent problem – conflicting package versions – and because of this, virtualenv is a thing. Effectively, virtualenv is a way to segregate installs so that they don't conflict, and you can (potentially) easily install multiple versions of the same package.

One use case for this might be Molecule, a testing framework designed for Ansible roles. Versions 1 and 2 of Molecule are incompatible with each other, but you could definitely have some Ansible roles in your infrastructure written for version 1 (which no one is going to update any time soon, because there's more pressing issues... there's always more pressing issues.) We have virtualenv though, so we can install both Molecule 1 and Molecule 2 without worrying ...