- How to update python on linux
- Update Python on Windows
- Updating Python on Linux
- Update with Apt-Get
- Updating Python on MacOs
- Upgrade Python to latest version (3.10) on Ubuntu Linux
- Updating Python to the latest version
- Step 1: Check if Python3.10 is available for install
- Step 2: Install Python 3.10
- Step 3: Set Python 3.10 as default
- Fix pip and disutils errors
- Fix Python3-apt
- Install pip & distutils
- Fix pip-env errors when using venv
- Extra
- How to update python to latest version and set as default
- 2 Answers 2
How to update python on linux
In order to update python version on the terminal, you can use these commands depending on your operating system:
1#Linux 2 sudo apt update 3 sudo apt install python3.11 4 5 #MacOS 6brew install python
Here is a detailed guide about how to update python version in other operating systems. In this article, we are going to focus on how to install it on the terminal.
Update Python on Windows
To update Python on Windows you should download the Python version you want to upgrade to from python.org. In case you already have installed different Python versions and want to update the version of a virtual environment, you can do it by using the following command:
1python -m venv --upgrade VIRTUAL-ENVIRONMENT-PATH-HERE
To select which Python version we want to use, it’s as simple as as writing py -version-you-want-to-use , example:
1 py -3.8 #selects Python version 3.8 2 py -3.11 # Selects Python version 3.11
Updating Python on Linux
Before getting into upgrading Python, we need to know if it’s already installed (no use to upgrade something that doesn’t exist). To check if Python is installed type the following:
If there’s an installed version of Python, the output should show you the installed version like this:
If your computer doesn’t have Python installed, we need first to prepare our system to install Python, so we do the following:
1sudo apt update 2 sudo apt install software-properties-common
Once we have downloaded the necessary files to install Python latest version, we can install it using apt-get (recommended) or using the source code.
Update with Apt-Get
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, Apt-Get it’s a package manager built in Linux that will make our life easier while installing. As a first step, let’s configure the deadsnakes PPA on the system by running the following command:
1sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
1sudo apt update 2 sudo apt install python3.9
Python is now updated, but still is pointing to the previously installed version. We need now to update this:
1 sudo update-alternatives --config python3
A list of options will be displayed and prompt to pick the Python version you want to point to, select it by writing the number corresponding to the version you want to use. To verify this selection, write:
Updating Python on MacOs
Updating Python on MacOs is more straight forward. In MacOs systems you can as well have different Python versions installed at the same time. This makes it simpler to update it by visiting python.org MacOs download page, select the installer to download and run it. If you are more of a Homebrew user, run the following commands:
Once the installation finishes, you’ll have the latest Python version installed which you can verify with the following code:
Upgrade Python to latest version (3.10) on Ubuntu Linux
Linux systems come with Python install by default, but, they are usually not the latest. Python also cannot be updated by a typical apt upgrade command as well.
To check the version of Python installed on your system run
python keyword is used for Python 2.x versions which has been deprecated
- Update Python to the latest version
- Fix pip & other Python related issues
- While doing the above two, ensure your Ubuntu which is heavily dependent on Python does not break
Updating Python to the latest version
Ubuntu’s default repositories do not contain the latest version of Python, but an open source repository named deadsnakes does.
Python3.10 is not officially available on Ubuntu 20.04, ensure you backup your system before upgrading.
Step 1: Check if Python3.10 is available for install
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa sudo apt update
Check if Python 3.10 is available by running
This will produce the below result, if you see python3.10 it means you can install it
Step 2: Install Python 3.10
Now you can install Python 3.10 by running
sudo apt install python3.10
Now though Python 3.10 is installed, if you check the version of your python by running python3 —version you will still see an older version. This is because you have two versions of Python installed and you need to choose Python 3.10 as the default.
Step 3: Set Python 3.10 as default
Steps beyond here are tested on Ubuntu 20.04 in VM & WSL2, but are experimental , proceed at your own risk.
Changing the default alternatives for Python will break your Gnome terminal. To avoid this, you need to edit the gnome-terminal configuration file.
Open the terminal and run:
sudo nano /usr/bin/gnome-terminal
In first line, change #!/usr/bin/python3 to #!/usr/bin/python3.8 . Press Ctrl +X followed by enter to save and exit.
Then save and close the file.
Next, update the default Python by adding both versions to an alternatives by running the below
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.9 Now run
sudo update-alternatives --config python3
Choose the selection corresponding to Python3.10 (if not selected by default).
Now run python3 —version again and you should see the latest Python as the output.
Fix pip and disutils errors
Installing the new version of Python will break pip as the distutils for Python3.10 is not installed yet.
Fix Python3-apt
Running pip in terminal will not work, as the current pip is not compatible with Python3.10 and python3-apt will be broken, that will generate an error like
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/command-not-found", line 28, in <module> from CommandNotFound import CommandNotFound File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/CommandNotFound/CommandNotFound.py", line 19, in <module> from CommandNotFound.db.db import SqliteDatabase File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/CommandNotFound/db/db.py", line 5, in <module> import apt_pkg ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'apt_pkg'
To fix this first remove the current version of python3-apt by running
sudo apt remove --purge python3-apt
DO NOT RUN sudo apt autoremove as it will remove several packages that are required. This may break your system if you’re using GUI, if you’re on WSL2 you can proceed.
Finally, reinstall python3-apt by running
sudo apt install python3-apt
Install pip & distutils
Running pip will still throw an error pip: command not found . We need to install the latest version of pip compatible with Python 3.10.
Also, if try to manually install the latest version of pip, it will throw an error like
ImportError: cannot import name 'sysconfig' from 'distutils' (/usr/lib/python3.10/distutils/__init__.py)
Or you might also see an error stating No module named ‘distutils.util’ . This is because the distutils module is not installed yet, to install run the below command
sudo apt install python3.10-distutils
Now you can install pip by running
curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py sudo python3.10 get-pip.py
If you get an error like bash: curl: command not found then you need to install curl first by running sudo apt install curl
Now you can run pip and you should see the output of pip —version
Fix pip-env errors when using venv
When you try to create a new virtual environment using python -m venv env , you may into the following error.
Error: Command -Imensurepip--upgrade--default-pipYou can fix this by reinstalling venv by running
sudo apt install python3.10-venv
All should be done now. It is complicated, but this is how you update Python to latest version.
Extra
If you have oh-my-zsh installed, you can avoid typing out python3 by running
Now you can run your files with py or python .
How to update python to latest version and set as default
I am currently on ubuntu 18.04. My default python version is Python 3.7.9 I wanted to upgrade it to Python 3.9.2 and set it as default python version How do I do that ?
if you don’t have it in apt then you can add special repo for Ubuntu deadsnakes Python repo for Ubuntu . And after adding repo you should have all versions in apt
2 Answers 2
Install Python normally with the deadsnake PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa sudo apt update sudo apt install python3.9
Check if you can access Python:
If so, create a symlink to set it as «default»:
sudo mv /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/python3.7 sudo ln -s $(which python3.9) /usr/bin/python
This is the error I am getting E: Unable to locate package python3.9 E: Couldn’t find any package by glob ‘python3.9’
If you don’t have it in apt then you can add special repo deadsnakes Python repo for Ubuntu.
And after adding repo you should have all versions in apt form 2.3 to 3.10
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt install python3.9
And later you can find path to actuall version
and replace is with python3.9 which you can also find with
But sometimes it is not good idea to replace it because system may need older version and it will not work with newer one. I prefer to use python3.9 when I need 3.9 and python3.7 when I really need 3.7 .
After adding this repo it will also inform you when there will be newer version 3.9.x
This repo works also in Linux Mint which is based on Ubuntu.