Installing numpy without sudo
The reason for the admins answer is simple. Ubuntu also uses python for internal scripts. So the admin will not update or change the python installation if you need a more recent version of a package.
This is what I would try:
- Compile source of python 2.7 yourself and install it in your preferred path in your home directory. This way you always have all needed headers. Put the interpreter into your PATH.
(Optional) Set PYTHONUSERHOME to your local python site packages
- Install virtualenv package via pip
- Setup virtualenv envirnoment for numpy etc...
(Optional) 4. Build Blas libraries e.g. OpenBlas in your home
- Install cython in virtualenv ... and probably some more packages needed for numpy
- Install numpy scipy in the virtualenv with the correct settings BLAS libraries settings
If you use your own python installation, the virtualenv is not really necessary. So you might want to omit that. You just need to make sure that your python interpreter is always first to be found.