setuptools-34.0 fails with 'ImportError: No module named packaging.version'

Upgrading to setuptools-34.0 fails with ImportError: No module named packaging.version:

pip --version
pip 1.4.1 from /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages (python 2.6)

---- Begin output of /usr/bin/pip install  --upgrade setuptools ----
STDOUT: Downloading/unpacking setuptools from https://pypi.python.org/packages/4f/5d/77ab299135d7a882fff2970b45c6a77d7d79db0363c395081770632e6f1d/setuptools-34.0.0.zip#md5=927ea526582deefbf98779b2c302dd3d
  Running setup.py egg_info for package setuptools
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 3, in <module>
      File "setuptools/__init__.py", line 12, in <module>
        import setuptools.version
      File "setuptools/version.py", line 1, in <module>
        import pkg_resources
      File "pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 70, in <module>
        import packaging.version
    ImportError: No module named packaging.version
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<string>", line 3, in <module>

  File "setuptools/__init__.py", line 12, in <module>

    import setuptools.version

  File "setuptools/version.py", line 1, in <module>

    import pkg_resources

  File "pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 70, in <module>

    import packaging.version

ImportError: No module named packaging.version

CentOS 6 in AWS.

[davidavdav]

@rampageservices referenced method worked for me, for a clean debian-8 (jessie) install in a Vagrant VM. For those like me at python2.7:

sudo -i
apt-get purge -y python-pip
wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
python ./get-pip.py
apt-get install python-pip

It was the only one of all suggestions I could find that actually did the job. Thanks!

[realmhamdy]

I’m unable to pip anything now because of this error. It occurred when I updated my Ubuntu trusty: Not pip --version

vagrant@vagrant-ubuntu-trusty-32:~/$ pip --version
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 70, in <module>
    import packaging.version
ImportError: No module named packaging.version

And of course not pip install:

vagrant@vagrant-ubuntu-trusty-32:~/$ pip install packaging
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 70, in <module>
    import packaging.version
ImportError: No module named packaging.version

easy_install doesn’t work either with the same error. what should I do?