virtualenv fails with long paths

[Michael Williamson]

Trying to run virtualenv inside a directory with a long path causes virtualenv to fail to install pip:

~/a1234567890/b1234567890/c1234567890/d1234567890/e1234567890/f1234567890/g1234567890/h1234567890$ virtualenv _virtualenv
New python executable in _virtualenv/bin/python
Installing distribute.............................................................................................................................................................................................done.
Installing pip...
  Error [Errno 13] Permission denied while executing command /home/mwilliamson/a1...env/bin/easy_install /usr/share/python-virtualenv/pip-1.1.tar.gz
...Installing pip...done.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/virtualenv", line 3, in <module>
    virtualenv.main()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 938, in main
    never_download=options.never_download)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 1054, in create_environment
    install_pip(py_executable, search_dirs=search_dirs, never_download=never_download)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 643, in install_pip
    filter_stdout=_filter_setup)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 976, in call_subprocess
    cwd=cwd, env=env)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1249, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Leo Arias (elopio)]

I copied this to the developers issue queue: https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/343#issuecomment-9698450

Their answer:
I can confirm that this is broken in the Debian/Ubuntu package, and that it works with the development version.

[Stefano Rivera (stefanor)]

Can't reproduce with 1.11.6+ds-1.