Message12740

I tested this with 2.7.2b2 and can reproduce it.

It actually happens because attempting to import the ssl module fails, and this happens because there is no module called encodings. And it's right: Lib/encodings is not present in my Linux installation if I choose "minimal".

When I make a standard installation (interactively), pip and setuptools are installed for me, successfully. And encodings is present too.

This may be an attempt to save you disk footprint, but it seems misplaced given this consequence. The easy work-around is to make a standard installation.