Step 1 — Install Python 3
To manage software packages for Python, install pip, a tool that will help you manage libraries or modules to use in your projects:
sudo apt install -y python3-pip
Python packages can be installed by typing:
pip3 install package_name
There are a few more packages and development tools to install to ensure that we have a robust set-up for our programming environment:
sudo apt install build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python3-dev
Virtual environments enable you to have an isolated space on your server for Python projects. We’ll use venv, part of the standard Python 3 library, which we can install by typing:
sudo apt install -y python3-venv
python3 -m venv my_env
Activate the environment using the command below, where my_env is the name of your programming environment:
source my_env/bin/activate
Your command prompt will now be prefixed with the name of your environment:
(my_env) ubuntu@ubuntutech:~/environments$
Open the Python interpreter:
(my_env) ubuntu@ubuntutech:~/environments$ python
Note that within the Python 3 virtual environment, you can use the command python instead of python3, and pip instead of pip3.
You’ll know you’re in the interpreter when you receive the following output:
Python 3.8.2 (default, Mar 13 2020, 10:14:16)
[GCC 9.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
Now, use the print() function to create the traditional Hello, World
program:
print("Hello, World!")
Output:
Hello, World!
Quit the Python interpreter: quit()
Then exit the virtual environment:
(my_env) ubuntu@ubuntutech:~/environments$ deactivate
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