(SOLVED) ImportError: No module named site

[martingerdes]

I wanted to play around with Ren'Py some. So I downloaded version 7.1.0 for Linux (https://www.renpy.org/dl/7.1.0/renpy-7.1.0-sdk.tar.bz2), extracted it, and started renpy.sh

I get:
renpy-7.1.0-sdk$ ./renpy.sh
ImportError: No module named site

According to the quickstart guide: "On Linux, unpack the tarball, change into the renpy-<version> directory, and then run renpy.sh."
So I should not have to do anything else, right?

I have tried downloading a current Ren'Py game, and that runs. So presumably I am still missing some requirement which is not included in the base install of renpy?

My testcase that renpy games work on my computer:
snippet from log:
Sun Oct 7 11:36:43 2018
Linux-4.15.0-36-generic-x86_64-with-debian-buster-sid
Ren'Py 6.17.3.327
Refinery 1.00

Google has not been helpful, so I registered to hopefully get help here.
(The search results I am getting are for Windows, and are talking about making sure python is actually found. Since I am under Linux, and other Ren'Py games run, I am not sure how applicable that is.)

[PyTom]

This should just work. I'd check that it downloaded correctly, and that the checksums match.

[martingerdes]

I have verified the checksum, it matched. Redownloaded it anyway, just in case.
md5sum renpy-7.1.0-sdk.tar.bz2
1ceef674247f4aef1ee7e37e0960cd3f renpy-7.1.0-sdk.tar.bz2
that is the same md5sum listed in https://www.renpy.org/dl/7.1.0/checksums.txt for that file

This time extracted the newly redownloaded file with command line tools, just in case the GUI made an error, and to make this easier verifiable.
bzip2 -d renpy-7.1.0-sdk.tar.bz2
tar -xf renpy-7.1.0-sdk.tar
cd renpy-7.1.0-sdk

renpy-7.1.0-sdk$ ls -l
total 164
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 2700 Sep 11 02:00 doc
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 32 Jan 24 2018 gui
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 126 Aug 12 07:34 launcher
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 118 Sep 11 01:49 lib
-rw-r--r-- 1 martin users 50985 Mai 29 16:07 LICENSE.txt
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 828 Aug 13 01:53 module
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 1978 Okt 7 22:15 renpy
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 16 Sep 11 02:01 renpy.app
-rw-r--r-- 1 martin users 102400 Jan 29 2015 renpy.exe
-rw-r--r-- 1 martin users 6376 Mär 3 2018 renpy.py
-rwxr-xr-x 1 martin users 2084 Jun 22 2017 renpy.sh
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 174 Jul 27 05:42 the_question
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 32 Jul 11 06:49 tutorial
drwxr-sr-x 1 martin users 24 Sep 11 02:02 update

renpy-7.1.0-sdk$ du -s .
220604 .

renpy-7.1.0-sdk$ ./renpy.sh
ImportError: No module named site

nope - still the same result.

python --version
Python 2.7.15rc1

Please let me know if I can provide any other information about my environment. I am confident this is something pretty basic. But since the instructions for installation where so short and simple, without any kind of "what do do if you get errors" section, and since google does not seem to point me in the right direction, I am kind of stumped. I am no python programmer (yet) ...

[martingerdes]

Aaaand, found it.
The parent folder hat a colon ":" in the name. After I removed that symbol, it started right up.
Spaces are ok, but a colon is not, definitely now what I would have expected...
(I started by moving the extracted folder to another file system, which worked, and then narrowed it down.)