Python2 virtual environment

Sometimes you need to run old tools on a modern system. As long as your distro of choice still ships python2, you can set up a virtual environment to use it for a specific tool. These are the steps:

Step 1: Get pip for your old Python2

$ wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/pip/2.7/get-pip.py
$ python2 get-pip.py

Step 2: Install virtualenv

$ pip2 install --user -U setuptools
$ pip2 install --user virtualenv

Step 3: Create your venv

$ virtualenv --python=$(which python2) /my/new/env

Now you can activate /my/new/env and anything you run in there (pip, your own script, whatever) will run using python2 and the libraries installed in the venv.