Installing python-igraph 0.7 (when cannot compile against libxml2.a)

Scientific Linux 6.5 (SL6.5), trying to install python-igraph, but getting error documented here:
https://github.com/igraph/igraph/issues/640. When trying to pip install python-igraph, version 0.7 yields the following error:

/usr/lib64/gcc/x86_64-suse-linux/4.3/../../../../x86_64-suse-linux/bin/ld: /usr/lib64/libxml2.a(entities.o): relocation R_X86_64_32 against `.text' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC

/usr/lib64/libxml2.a: could not read symbols: Bad value

collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

The server is not mine, so I am not a sudoer or anything.

The solution is mentioned in the github issue:

I modified the setup.py as follows:

I changed the line

variants = ["lib{0}.a", "{0}.a", "{0}.lib", "lib{0}.lib"]

to

variants = ["lib{0}.so", "{0}.so"]

I downloaded Python 2.7.9's source code and compiled it on a local directory. I then added it to my PATH so that my newly compiled version would be the one I use by default. I logged out, logged in, downloaded the python-igraph source code, and modified the variants in the setup.py and used Python to install igraph:

python setup.py install

I then tried to import igraph from Python, but got an ImportError:

ImportError: libigraph.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

So I looked it up and found that in the igraph source code directory (where it was built) and found the libigraph.so.0 file. On the GitHub link, they say you should copy it to the /lib folder under your Python installation. That did not work for me (maybe because I don't use Anaconda like they do, but who knows). So I added that

setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH ${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:/path/to/build/source/of/python-igraph-0.7/igraphcore/lib

and now igraph could be imported from my own Python installation.


I am writing this post because:

1. I almost resorted to using the crappy C API of igraph; such desperation is surely worth of a post.
2. The answer supplied by the igraph team here: http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/igraph-help/2014-09/msg00041.html
   is misleading and did not help me, so I thought it'd be worth to upvote the GitHub issue answer by a link.

That's it.