If you already have all the required modules installed you probably need to import the setuptools module in your setup.py file. So just add the following line at the leading of setup.py file.

import setuptools
from distutils.core import setup
# other imports and setups

This is also mentioned in wheel's documentation. https://wheel.readthedocs.io/en/stable/#usage

This error is weird as many proposed answers and got mixed solutions. I tried them, add them. It was only when I added pip install --upgrade pip finally removed the error for me. But I have no time to isolate which is which,so this is just fyi.

Had to install the wheel package. Everything was up to date but still giving the error.

pip install wheel

then

python setup.py bdist_wheel 

worked without issues.

This problem is due to:

• an old version of pip (6.1.1) being installed for Python 2.7
• multiple copies of Python 2.7 installed on the Trusty Beta image
• a different location for Python 2.7 being used for sudo

It's all a bit complicated and better explained here https://github.com/travis-ci/travis-ci/issues/4989.

My solution was to install with user travis instead of sudo:

- pip2.7 install --upgrade --user travis pip setuptools wheel virtualenv

If you're using setup.cfg files, add this before the install_require part:

setup_requires =
    wheel

Example of setup.cfg project :

# setup.py
from setuptools import setup

setup()

# setup.cfg
[metadata]
name = name
version = 0.0.1
description = desc
long_description = file: README.md
long_description_content_type = text/markdown
url = url
author = author
classifiers =
    Programming Language :: Python
    Programming Language :: Python :: 3

[options]
include_package_data = true
packages = find:
setup_requires =
    wheel
install_requires =
    packages
    packages
    packages

in my case, the version of wheel/pip/setuptools created by venv is too old. this works:

venv/bin/pip  install --upgrade pip wheel setuptools

On a AWS Ubuntu 18.04 new machine, below installations are required:

sudo apt-get install gcc libpq-dev -y
sudo apt-get install python-dev  python-pip -y
sudo apt-get install python3-dev python3-pip python3-venv python3-wheel -y
pip3 install wheel

Especially the last line is a must.
However before 3 lines might be required as prerequisites.

In your setup.py, if you have:

from distutils.core import setup

Then, change it to

from setuptools import setup

Then re-create your virtualenv and re-run the command, and it should work.

I did apt-get install python3-dev in my Ubuntu and added setup_requires=["wheel"] in setup.py

Not related to Travis CI but I ran into similar problem trying to install jupyter on my Mac OSX 10.8.5, and none of the other answers was of help. The problem was caused by building the "wheel" for the package called pyzmq, with error messages filling hundreds of pages.

The solution I found was to directly install an older version of that package:

python -m pip install pyzmq==17 --user

After that, the installation of jupyter succeded without errors.

It helped me to follow instructions in here:

https://packaging.python.org/guides/installing-using-linux-tools/

Debian/Ubuntu

Python 2:

sudo apt install python-pip

Python 3:

sudo apt install python3-venv python3-pip

Using Ubuntu 18.04 this problem can be resolved by installing the python3-wheelpackage.

Usually this is installed as a dependency on any Python package. But especially when building container images you often work with --no-install-recommends and therefore it is often missing and has to be installed manually first.

Try modifying the setup.py file by importing setup from setuptools instead of distutils.core

My fix was apt install python3-dev