Installing Python3.6 in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Instance Server

Posted on May 23, 2018 in tutorial

Here is the step by step guide to install Python 3.6.3 in your AWS EC2's Ubuntu 16.04 server instance or in your local machine with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop or in Linux Mint.

Note: If you are using Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, then it ships with Python 3.6.3 by default.

Check which Python version is pre-installed in the system by typing $ python3 -V in the terminal. Generally it is Python 3.5.2 for Ubtuntu 16.04 LTS.

Pre-requisites

  1. First you need to upgrade and update your system.

    $ sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade

  2. Then you need to install zlib1g-dev package because of this issue.

    $ sudo apt -y install zlib1g-dev To make sure it is installed correctly, type $ cat /usr/include/zlib.h. It'll show you the source of zlib header file.

  3. Because of this issue, you also have to install another package called libreadline-dev

    $ sudo apt install libreadline-dev

  4. Now, install build-essential and other bunch of stuffs which is required by Python 3.6.3 afterwards.

    $ sudo apt install build-essential checkinstall libreadline-gplv2-dev libncursesw5-dev libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev tk-dev libgdbm-dev libc6-dev libbz2-dev

    These packages are needed for setting up SSL for downloading packages over PIP, for setting up sqlite, g++ and so on.

  5. Export LD_LIBRARY_PATH for secure SSL connection.

    $ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/ssl/lib/

Begin installation of Python 3.6.3

  1. First, download tar zipped file from Python FTP server.

    wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.6.3/Python-3.6.3.tgz

  2. Extract the zipped file:

    $ tar zxvf Python-3.6.3.tgz

  3. Move Python3.6.3 directory to /opt/ directory and cd into it.

    $ sudo mv Python-3.6.3 /opt/

    $ cd /opt/Python-3.6.3/

  4. Configure Python directory.

    $./configure --enable-optimizations

  5. Make it:

    $ make

  6. Test the Make if you want (this is optional)

    $ make test

  7. Install it via Make:

    sudo make install

  8. Verify that Python 3.6.3 is installed in your system by typing

    $ python3

    If it again shows Python 3.5.2 then type $ python3.6. To make things easier, set up an alias. To set up alias do the following:

    Edit .bashrc file located in your home directory.

    $ nano ~/.bashrc

    Add following line at the end

    alias python3=/usr/local/bin/python3.6

At this point, Python 3.6.3 is correctly installed in your system

Further steps:

  1. Make sure yout PIP is correct. In Python2 is pip and in Python3 its pip3

    $ pip3 -V shows you which Python it is pointing to.

  2. If you are using pyodbc then you need to install unixodbc-dev

    $ sudo apt -f install unixodbc-dev

    Then you can insall pyodbc with:

    $ pip3 install pyodbc

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