Try using virtualenvand pip( sudo easy_install virtualenv pip), which are great ways to avoid the hell that you're experiencing.
With, virtualenvyou can create Python sandboxes, and then with, pipyou can directly install new virtualenvs packages in you .
Here is a complete example:
virtualenv
pip -E twisted_env install -U twisted
cd twisted_env
source bin/activate
python -c "import twisted; print twisted.__version__"
source
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