I already searched for solution to my problem via Google and stackoverflow's search facility, but haven't found anything related specifically to it.

Here's the problem: I needed python 2.7.3 on CentOS 5.8 machine which has only python 2.4.3 preinstalled. Also neither there's the suitable version in it's repositories nor I can upgrade installed version. That's why I decided to build python from source code. But I've made a mistake: instead of make altinstall I did make install thus changing default version of the current installation. It was before I found this article - How to install Python 2.7.3 on CentOS 6.2 . I guess 5.8 and 6.2 versions aren't different to the extent this article is inapplicable. After installation of new python version I installed pip, but once I tried to invoke it, I got "No module named pkg_resources" error. In order to solve this issue I installed setuptools from repository. But it had only led to another error: "Distribution Not Found". My final step was to follow the guide I posted the link to, but I was unable to perform last step: easy_install-2.7 virtualenv command threw "-bash: /usr/local/bin/easy_install-2.7: .: bad interpreter: Permission denied" error. Now when I try to invoke pip or pip-2.7 both commands raise the same error with different names of binaries after "-bash:".

Is there any way to fix this problem, so I could install new python version (2.7.3) alongside with the preinstalled one (2.4.3) according to the guide? Any help will be appreciated.

P.S.: yum is working fine, although it needs python to function, so I hope the damage I unknowingly caused isn't very severe. Also I'm not a native English speaker, so I apologize for possible occasional grammatical and/or spelling errors.