Устанавливаем необходимое для сборки:

yum install sqlite-devel openssl-devel make gcc

Скачиваем исходники Python:

wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.1/Python-2.7.1.tgz tar xvfz ./Python-2.7.1.tgz cd ./Python-2.7.1

Конфигурация:

./configure --prefix=/opt/python2.7 --with-threads --enable-shared

Сборка и установка:

make && make install

Создаем символическую ссылку:

ln -s /opt/python2.7/bin/python /usr/bin/python2.7

Прописываем пути к библиотекам в /etc/ld.so.conf.d/opt-python2.7.conf:

/opt/python2.7/lib

Запускаем:

ldconfig

Проверяем:

python2.7

Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, Apr 26 2011, 12:11:59)
[GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-50)] on linux2
Type «help», «copyright», «credits» or «license» for more information.
>>>

Установка дополнительных модулей, например setuptools:

wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.7/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg

sh ./setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg --prefix=/opt/python2.7/

Processing setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
Copying setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg to /opt/python2.7.1/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Adding setuptools 0.6c11 to easy-install.pth file
Installing easy_install script to /opt/python2.7.1//bin
Installing easy_install-2.7 script to /opt/python2.7.1//bin

Installed /opt/python2.7.1/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
Processing dependencies for setuptools==0.6c11
Finished processing dependencies for setuptools==0.6c11