For whatever reason you may want to upgrade your version of Python that came with your Ubuntu distro. However, completely relacing the system version is not recommended. Here is how to install Python for the local user.
Python 2.7.10
$ mkdir ~/local/python-2.7.10
$ cd ~/Downloads
$ wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.10/Python-2.7.10.tgz
$ tar -zxvf Python-2.7.10.tgz
$ cd Python-2.7.10
$ ./configure --prefix=/home/<user>/local/python-2.7.10
$ make
$ make install
$ ~/local/python-2.7.10/bin/python --versionReferences
- http://askubuntu.com/questions/572973/how-to-update-python-version-on-ubuntu-14-10
- http://stackoverflow.com/q/1534210/391924
$ cd ~/Downloads
$ wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
$ ~/local/python-2.7.10/bin/python get-pip.py
$ ~/local/python-2.7.10/bin/pip --versionReferences
$ ~/local/python-2.7.10/bin/pip install virtualenvReferences