no datalad/packages - using python venv on RHEL

[samanthareisman]

I am using a remote Linux desktop (RHEL) and my organization's documentation requires that we use python venv to install python packages. I am trying to install datalad & git-annex and running into many issues.
I have tried to install git-annex a number of ways, including using the datalad-installer (which is where I run into the above issue). I can pip install datalad and pip install datalad-installer successfully, but this does not install a datalad/packages dir. I cannot install git-annex using sudo apt get because this is a shared cluster, and I don't have sudo permissions. When I did this in a conda env, I was able to successfully install everything using the relevant conda commands on the same Linux. Unfortunately, I can no longer use conda and have to make the switch to the python venv.

Error message below:
2024-04-26T16:43:36-0400 [INFO ] datalad_installer: Writing environment modifications to /tmp/dl-env-7fxs3xkp.sh Traceback (most recent call last): File "/oscar/home/sreisman/fmriproj/bin/datalad-installer", line 8, in <module> sys.exit(main()) File "/oscar/home/sreisman/fmriproj/lib64/python3.9/site-packages/datalad_installer.py", line 3096, in main return manager.main(argv) File "/oscar/home/sreisman/fmriproj/lib64/python3.9/site-packages/datalad_installer.py", line 746, in main self.addcomponent(name=cr.name, **cr.kwargs) File "/oscar/home/sreisman/fmriproj/lib64/python3.9/site-packages/datalad_installer.py", line 785, in addcomponent component(self).provide(**kwargs) File "/oscar/home/sreisman/fmriproj/lib64/python3.9/site-packages/datalad_installer.py", line 1343, in provide bins = self.get_installer(method).install(self.NAME, **kwargs) File "/oscar/home/sreisman/fmriproj/lib64/python3.9/site-packages/datalad_installer.py", line 1468, in install self.assert_supported_system(**kwargs) File "/oscar/home/sreisman/fmriproj/lib64/python3.9/site-packages/datalad_installer.py", line 2233, in assert_supported_system raise MethodNotSupportedError( datalad_installer.MethodNotSupportedError: Non-dpkg-based systems not supported unless --install-dir is given