run_tests.sh hangs while trying to install distribute using pip

Hi,

I'm new to this project. Trying to follow the instructions on how to run unit tests, I came across the following problem:

when running ./run_tests.sh the first time, and installing a virtual environment, the script hangs on "pip install distribute".
However, running "python tools/install_venv.py" works fine.
Digging deeper, the root cause for this problem seems to be this line in run_tests.sh:
export PIP_USE_MIRRORS=true
A simple workaround for this - changing it to "PIP_USE_MIRRORS=false" (or deleting it altogether) - fixes the problem.

So, we're left with a pip bug when using mirroring. Searched a bit for an open bug regarding this, but did not find anything.
A couple of open questions here:
1. Is it happening only to me, or can someone else reproduce this?
2. (assuming the answer to (1) is that it's not only me) how do we want to handle this? for example, looking at Nova's code, there's no use of PIP_USE_MIRRORS there, so that's one possibility.

Tested this on two environments - both running Ubuntu-12.04 (64 bit) - a physical host running Ubuntu, and a VM (running on VMWare player within Windows 7)

Thanks,
Ophir