On a fresh install of ActivePython-2.6, pip is giving an import error

I installed Cent OS on a virtual machine, and it comes with Python 2.4 out of the box. I needed to install Python 2.6, so I installed a separat开发者_运维知识库e python binary from ActivePython which installed itself in a different directory. When I run pip (/opt/ActivePython-2.6/bin/pip) I get this error:

# pip
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/bin/pip", line 9, in <module>
    load_entry_point('pip==0.8.1', 'console_scripts', 'pip')()
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 305, in load_entry_point
    return get_distribution(dist).load_entry_point(group, name)
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 2244, in load_entry_point
    return ep.load()
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pkg_resources.py", line 1954, in load
    entry = __import__(self.module_name, globals(),globals(), ['__name__'])
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pip/__init__.py", line 10, in <module>
    from pip.basecommand import command_dict, load_command, load_all_commands, command_names
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pip/basecommand.py", line 11, in <module>
    import urllib2
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/lib/python2.6/urllib2.py", line 93, in <module>
        import hashlib
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/lib/python2.6/hashlib.py", line 136, in <module>
    md5 = __get_builtin_constructor('md5')
  File "/opt/ActivePython-2.6/lib/python2.6/hashlib.py", line 63, in __get_builtin_constructor
    import _md5
ImportError: No module named _md5

I've never seen this error before, and I don't understand why it would try calling _md5 when the library is just 'md5'. When I attempted symlinking _md5.py to md5.py I get the same error but with ImportError: No module named _md5.

Find _md5.so in /opt/ActivePython-2.6 and run ldd on it. Yeah.

Install EPEL, install python26 via yum, have fun.