Can pip install packages for all users (on a Linux system)?

[John Ladasky]

I've been using "sudo pip3 install" to add packages from the PyPI repository.  I have multiple user accounts on the computer in question.  My goal is to install packages that are accessible to all user accounts.  I know that using the Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu will install for all users, but not every Python package is included in the Canonical repository.

I hadn't noticed any discrepancies until recently.  I upgraded from Ubuntu 17.10 to 18.04.  In parallel, I upgraded tensorflow-gpu 1.4.0 to 1.8.0.  Everything worked on my main account.  However, attempting to import tensorflow from Python on a secondary account failed.  Eventually I checked the pip lists in each account, and I found a reference to the old tensorflow 1.4 on the secondary account.  Uninstalling that, and reinstalling tensorflow-gpu 1.8 on the secondary account fixed the problem.

I believe that I now have tensorflow 1.8 installed twice on my system, once for each user.  If anyone can share how to convince pip to behave like Synaptic, I would appreciate it.  Thanks.