'Operation Not Permitted' on Mac Terminal when trying to install python packages

Question

I'm trying to install a package on python with the following lines of code:

git clone https://github.com/dartoon/decomprofile
cd decomprofile
python setup.py develop

It goes well until the last step, which returns the error message:

error: can't create or remove files in install directory

The following error occurred while trying to add or remove files in the
installation directory:

    [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/test-easy-install-53720.write-test'

The installation directory you specified (via --install-dir, --prefix, or
the distutils default setting) was:

    /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/

Perhaps your account does not have write access to this directory?  If the
installation directory is a system-owned directory, you may need to sign in
as the administrator or "root" account.  If you do not have administrative
access to this machine, you may wish to choose a different installation
directory, preferably one that is listed in your PYTHONPATH environment
variable.

For information on other options, you may wish to consult the
documentation at:

  https://setuptools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/easy_install.html

Please make the appropriate changes for your system and try again.

I'm administrator on my computer, so I don't know why I would not have permission to change the files. I've made sure that I have Full Disk Access, as well. I have tried the command

sudo easy_install

but that is also not working. I am on Mac OS Catalina working in Terminal app. I recently updated to anaconda3 and use Python 3.8, so I am unsure why the directory says 2.7-- can I delete this directory?

Answer 1

By default, macOS comes with python2.7 preinstalled. Catalina also comes with preinstalled python3.7. Try using python3 command instead of python.

You can't remove python 2.7 because it is system dependency.