ImportError: No module named bottle

What ended up working for me was:

chmod -R 775 /usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/ 

It is recommended that you use a virtualenv with python in general but I'd say especially with web development.

What happens when you use a virtualenv?

$ sudo pip install virtualenv virtualenvwrapper
$ sudo cat >> ~/.bashrc << EOF
# virtualenvwrapper setup
export WORKON_HOME=~/.virtualenvs
export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_VIRTUALENV_ARGS='--no-site-packages --python=python2.6'
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
EOF
$ source ~/.bashrc
$ mkvirtualenv test
$ pip install bottle
$ python
>>> import bottle

Because I get this:

$ python 
Python 2.7.1+ (r271:86832, Apr 11 2011, 18:05:24) 
[GCC 4.5.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import bottle
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named bottle
>>> 

$ mkvirtualenv test
Running virtualenv with interpreter /usr/bin/python2.6
New python executable in test/bin/python2.6
Also creating executable in test/bin/python
Please make sure you remove any previous custom paths from your /home/hughdbrown/.pydistutils.cfg file.
Installing setuptools.............................done.
Installing pip...............done.
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/hughdbrown/.virtualenvs/test/bin/predeactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/hughdbrown/.virtualenvs/test/bin/postdeactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/hughdbrown/.virtualenvs/test/bin/preactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/hughdbrown/.virtualenvs/test/bin/postactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /home/hughdbrown/.virtualenvs/test/bin/get_env_details

$ pip install bottle
Downloading/unpacking bottle
  Downloading bottle-0.10.7.tar.gz (55Kb): 55Kb downloaded
  Running setup.py egg_info for package bottle
Installing collected packages: bottle
  Running setup.py install for bottle
    changing mode of build/scripts-2.6/bottle.py from 644 to 755
    changing mode of /home/hughdbrown/.virtualenvs/test/bin/bottle.py to 755
Successfully installed bottle
Cleaning up...

$ python
Python 2.6.6 (r266:84292, Mar 25 2011, 19:24:58) 
[GCC 4.5.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import bottle
>>>