Thursday, May 26, 2016

Installing Python 3.5.1 on Linux


Perl has been my go-to interpreted language for over 20 years now, but in the last few years I've been learning (and liking) python.  Python 2.7 is a standard part of of Linux distributions, and while many recent distributions include Python 3.4, Python 3.5.1 is not so common.  I'm working on some code that will use the new async and await primitives, which are new in Python 3.5.  I've searched Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux and other repositories for Python 3.5 binaries, but the latest I can find is 3.4.  That means I have to build it from source.

While the installation process isn't very complicated, it does require installing gcc and associated build tools first.  Since I'm installing it on a couple servers (devel and prod), I wrote a short (10-line) install script for rpm-based Linux distributions.  Download the script, then run "sh py35.sh".  The python3.5 binary will be installed in /usr/local/bin/.

When installing pip packages for python3, use "pip3", while "pip" will install python2 packages.  And speaking of pip, you may want to update it to the latest version:
sudo /usr/local/bin/pip3 install --upgrade pip