This is a distillation of the instructions at The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python, mostly for my own future benefit when I inevitably forget how to do it:

1. Install Python, if you haven’t already
2. Install distribute by running the distribute_setup.py script:
   1. wget http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
   2. python distribute_setup.py
3. Use easy_install to install PIP. PIP is actively maintained, and supports package removal (unlike easy_install)
   1. easy_install pip

This took a grand total of about 60 seconds to complete.