upgrade python and django

$ cd /usr/local/src
$ mkdir TARFILES
$ chown -R dev .
$ cd TARFILES
$ wget http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.3/Python-2.7.3.tgz
...
$ cd ..
$ tar xvfz TARFILES/Python-2.7.3.tgz 
$ cd Python-2.7.3
$ ./configure --help
$ ./configure --rpe
$ make
...
Python build finished, but the necessary bits to build these modules were not found:
_curses            _curses_panel      _sqlite3        
_ssl               bsddb185           bz2             
dl                 gdbm               imageop         
readline           sunaudiodev                        
To find the necessary bits, look in setup.py in detect_modules() for the module's name.
...
$ sudo yum install openssl-devel readline-devel ImageMagick sqllite-devel \
  bzip2-devel gdbm-devel ncurses-devel curses-devel
...
# make yum stop complaining about incomplete transaction...
$ sudo yum install yum-utils
$ rpm -ql yum-i
$ sudo /usr/sbin/yum-complete-transaction
...
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/python27
# --prefix=/usr/local/python27 (where to install)
# --enable-unicode=ucs4 (needed for psycopg2 - ?)
# --enable-shared (needed for mod_wsgi ?)
$ make clean
$ make
$ sudo make install

$ wget http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
$ sudo /usr/local/python27/bin/python distribute_setup.py
$ wget https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py
$ sudo /usr/local/python27/bin/python get-pip.py
$ sudo /usr/local/python27/bin/pip install virtualenv
$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/python27/bin/virtualenv /usr/local/bin/virtualenv-2.7 

$ mkdir virtualenvs
$ cd virtualenvs
$ virtualenv-2.7 --no-site-packages --python=/usr/local/python27/bin/python python27_paul
$ . ~/virtualenvs/python27_paul/bin/activate
(python27)$ deactivate
$ 

$ . ~/virtualenvs/python27/bin/activate
(python27_paul)$ cd /usr/local/src/gdal-1.8.1/
(python27_paul)$ ./configure --prefix=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27_paul
(python27_paul)$ make && make install
(python27_paul)$ pip install --no-install GDAL==1.8.1
(python27_paul)$ vim ~/virtualenvs/python27_paul/build/GDAL/setup.py
#
# replace
#   extra_link_args = []
# with 
#   extra_link_args = ['-Wl,-R/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27_paul/lib']
#
(python27_paul)$ cd virtualenvs/python27_paul/build/GDAL

(python27_paul)$ python setup.py build_ext --gdal-config=gdal-config --library-dirs=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27_paul/lib --include-dirs=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27_paul/include install
#
# confirm linked library is correct
#
$ ldd /home/dev/virtualenvs/python27/lib/python2.7/site-packages/GDAL-1.8.1-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/osgeo/_gdal.so
#
# should be pointing to the correct version of the libs
#
# if you start python in the GDAL dir, and try to import gdal you get an error
#
(python27_paul)$ pwd
/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27_paul/build/GDAL
(python27_paul)$ python 
Python 2.7.3 (default, May  9 2012, 14:28:18) [GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-48)] ...
>>> import gdal
ImportError: No module named _gdal
>>> exit()
#
# therefore do not start python in build/GDAL!
#
(python27_paul)$ cd ~
(python27_paul)$ pwd
/home/dev
(python27_paul)$ python
...
>>> import gdal
>>> exit()
(python27_paul)$ deactivate
$

We win! 
Here's how I got it to work.

Recreated our virtualenv with --no-site-packages just to be clean (I don't think that was necessary, but just in case):
rm -rf ~/virtualenvs/python27
virtualenv-2.6 --no-site-packages --python=/usr/local/python27/bin/python python27 . ~/virtualenvs/python27/bin/activate

As you recall, we installed gdal-1.8.1 in the virtualenv like so:

./configure --prefix=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27 --with-python make && make install

Well, this time I installed it without the --with-python option:
./configure --prefix=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27
make && make install

EDIT: I decided to go back and test after creating a pristine virtualenv, and you don't have to do anything but:
pip-install GDAL==1.8.1

(python27)[dev@easdevweb
 python27]$ python Python 2.7.3 (default, May  9 2012, 14:28:18) [GCC 
4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-48)] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", 
"credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import gdal
>>> 

So,
 I think what happened is that allowing access to the site-packages also
 allowed access to the other rpaths and thus linked against the wrong 
gdal at runtime.

Read on for more interesting info though:

So, how to change the rpath for the python module?

pip install --no-install GDAL==1.8.1
cd build/GDAL/
vim setup.py

Just gotta add some extra_link_args. Here's  a diff, so you can see what I
changed:

(python27)[dev@easdevweb GDAL]$ diff setup.py setup.py.orig
165c165
< extra_link_args = ['-Wl,-R/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27/lib']
---
> extra_link_args = []

python setup.py build_ext --gdal-config=gdal-config --library-dirs=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27/lib
--include-dirs=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27/include

and voila:

(python27)[dev@easdevweb GDAL]$ ldd
build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.7/osgeo/_gdal_array.so                                                      
libgdal.so.1 => /home/dev/virtualenvs/python27/lib/libgdal.so.1
(0x00002ae0b273c000)
        libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00002ae0b329e000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib64/libm.so.6 (0x00002ae0b359e000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib64/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002ae0b3822000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib64/libpthread.so.0 (0x00002ae0b3a30000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00002ae0b3c4b000)
        libgeos_c.so.1 => /usr/local/lib/libgeos_c.so.1 (0x00002ae0b3fa3000)
        libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib64/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00002ae0b41ba000)
        libexpat.so.0 => /lib64/libexpat.so.0 (0x00002ae0b4415000)
        libpq.so.4 => /usr/lib64/libpq.so.4 (0x00002ae0b4638000)
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib64/libz.so.1 (0x00002ae0b485a000)
        librt.so.1 => /lib64/librt.so.1 (0x00002ae0b4a6e000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00002ae0b4c78000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00000039f2e00000)
        libgeos-3.1.1.so => /usr/local/lib/libgeos-3.1.1.so (0x00002ae0b4e7c000)
        libssl.so.6 => /lib64/libssl.so.6 (0x00002ae0b51dd000)
        libcrypto.so.6 => /lib64/libcrypto.so.6 (0x00002ae0b5429000)
        libkrb5.so.3 => /usr/lib64/libkrb5.so.3 (0x00002ae0b577a000)
        libcrypt.so.1 => /lib64/libcrypt.so.1 (0x00002ae0b5a10000)
        libresolv.so.2 => /lib64/libresolv.so.2 (0x00002ae0b5c48000)
        libnsl.so.1 => /lib64/libnsl.so.1 (0x00002ae0b5e5d000)
        libgssapi_krb5.so.2 => /usr/lib64/libgssapi_krb5.so.2 (0x00002ae0b6076000)
        libcom_err.so.2 => /lib64/libcom_err.so.2 (0x00002ae0b62a4000)
        libk5crypto.so.3 => /usr/lib64/libk5crypto.so.3 (0x00002ae0b64a6000)
        libkrb5support.so.0 => /usr/lib64/libkrb5support.so.0 (0x00002ae0b66cc000)
        libkeyutils.so.1 => /lib64/libkeyutils.so.1 (0x00002ae0b68d4000)
        libselinux.so.1 => /lib64/libselinux.so.1 (0x00002ae0b6ad7000)
        libsepol.so.1 => /lib64/libsepol.so.1 (0x00002ae0b6cef000)

python setup.py build_ext --gdal-config=gdal-config --library-dirs=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27/lib --include-dirs=/home/dev/virtualenvs/python27/include install


(python27)[dev@easdevweb
 site-packages]$ python Python 2.7.3 (default, May  9 2012, 14:28:18) 
[GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-48)] on linux2 Type "help", 
"copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import gdal
>>> 

--
Jeff Frost <jeff@pgexperts.com>
CTO, PostgreSQL Experts, Inc.
Phone: 1-888-PG-EXPRT x506
FAX: 415-762-5122
http://www.pgexperts.com/