python – How should I install Core Lightning if my VPS won’t let me use pip install?

openoms suggested this fix on Telegram to keep using pip:

sudo rm /usr/lib/python3.*/EXTERNALLY-MANAGED

Christian Decker added some context around Core Lightning’s use of Python in its build process:

Python is not a runtime dependency, which is why it is not
being listed as a direct dependency, but we use it for a variety of
build steps. The error you received is because the pip environment is
owned by root since you installed it via the package manager. If you
want to install the build dependencies we strongly suggest using a
virtualenv. Steps on how to set that up depend on the OS, and your
Python setup, hence why it is left undocumented (it’s not CLN
specific, and any documentation on how to create virtualenvs would
bitrot, and we can’t be authoritative anyway, since it is an external
project). We just need to find a good point to cut off the long tail,
and for venv that was the place that felt right.

Python dependency management grew quite organically, which explains the mess of different ideas and models being mixed. Usually you have the system environment, which you can extend through a user environment that gets overlaid. This does not work however if a user package clashes with a system package. We seem to rely on rather recent package versions, that may clash, causing this error. A virtualenv (initialized with --no-site-packages) creates a blank page without weird combinations of system and user packages.