title: Unable to Import Google Protobuf Python Module
body: <p>I am working with an Ubuntu 14.04 machine, trying to import the google.protobuf module into python 2.7.</p>
  
  <p>I have tried </p>
  
  <pre><code>apt-get python-protobuf 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and </p>
  
  <pre><code>pip install protobuf 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>without success.</p>
  
  <p>Inside python, I get an error saying:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>"ImportError: No module named google.protobuf"</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p><strong>Edit 1:</strong></p>
  
  <p>Sorry and thank you to everyone who commented. I'm still new to Ubuntu and StackOverflow.</p>
  
  <p>Specifically, I type in to command line</p>
  
  <pre><code>python
  import google.protobuf
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and get the feedback</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Traceback (most recent call last):</p>
    
    <p>File "&lt;stdin>", line 1, in &lt;module></p>
    
    <p>ImportError: No module named google.protobuf</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I then type</p>
  
  <pre><code>exit()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I tried inputting</p>
  
  <pre><code>sudo apt-get install python-protobuf
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which responds with </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree<br>
    Reading state information... Done
    python-protobuf is already the newest version.
    0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 283 not upgraded.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Then I go back into python and try</p>
  
  <pre><code>import google.protobuf
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>again, but I get exactly the same error as before.</p>
  
  <p>Finally, I tried</p>
  
  <pre><code>pip install protobuf
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which responded with</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Requirement already satisfied: protobuf in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages</p>
    
    <p>Requirement already satisfied: six>=1.9 in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from protobuf)</p>
    
    <p>Requirement already satisfied: setuptools in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from protobuf)</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I tried</p>
  
  <pre><code>python
  import google.protobuf
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and got exactly the same error. Putting</p>
  
  <pre><code>import protobuf
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>into python also gets the same error.</p>
  
  <p>Some related information: I have tried doing multiple uninstalls/reinstalls with both apt-get and pip to fix th error, with no change. Also, one of the first things I did after getting Ubuntu was to download python 2.7 from the website and install it, not realizing python came with Ubuntu.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks again.</p>