2026-01-05 || Tags: python self-hosting quick
So I was wanting to run beets on the music I have stored on my Truenas Scale NAS. For better or worse, Truenas severly limits what you can install on the commandline etc. For example, you cannot run apt at all. This means you can't apt install python3-pip, and pip is a requirement if you want to python3 -m venv <venv_name>
I'm relatively confident that if I'm only working in a virtual environment that I won't fuck up other installation things, so here's a way to install a venv without pip, then install pip inside that venv.
I found these instructions here, so thank you to user sfatula for this. I wanted this reference in an easy to find place, so I've reproduced them here.
python -m venv yourenv --without-pip --system-site-packages
source yourenv/bin/activate # make sure you're in the virtual env before installing anything
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
python get-pip.py # this should install pip inside your venv
rm get-pip.py
That should do it. You can pip install beets from here without any issue.
As per usual when dealing with virtual envs, make sure you're inside one when doing anything. Although, the locked down nature of Truenas Scale means you likely won't screw anything up too much if you're not in there.