Python Installation

Check if already installed?

Open a terminal window and type “python” to find out if it is already installed and which version is installed.

python –version

Download Python

The most up-to-date and current source code, binaries, documentation, news, etc., is available on the official website of Python:

Python Official Website : http://www.python.org/

You can download Python documentation from the following site. The documentation is available in HTML, PDF and PostScript formats.

Python Documentation Website : www.python.org/doc/

How to install python?

As python is available for a wide variety of platforms, So you have different different way to install python.

Python Installation for Linux/Unix:

Here are the simple steps to install Python on Unix/Linux machine.

• Open a Web browser and go to http://www.python.org/download/
• Follow the link to download zipped source code available for Unix/Linux.
• Download and extract files.
• Editing the Modules/Setup file if you want to customize some options.
• run ./configure script
• make
• make install

This install python in a standard location /usr/local/bin and its libraries at/usr/local/lib/pythonXX where XX is the version of Python that you are using.

Other ways

Red Hat/ RHEL / CentOS Linux user

Type the following command:

$ sudo yum install python

OR

# yum install python

Debian / Ubuntu Linux user

Use the following command to search for available versions of Python under Debian and Ubuntu Linux:
$ apt-cache search python | egrep "^python2.[0-9] " --color

Type the following command to install python version 2.x:

$ sudo apt-get install python2.6

Type the following command to install python version 3.x:

$ sudo apt-get install python3.1

Windows Installation

Here are the steps to install Python on Windows machine.

• Open a Web browser and go to http://www.python.org/download/
• Follow the link for the Windows installer python-XYZ.msi file where XYZ is the version you need to install.
• To use this installer python-XYZ.msi, the Windows system must support Microsoft Installer 2.0. Just save the installer file to your local machine and then run it to find out if your machine supports MSI.
• Run the downloaded file. This brings up the Python install wizard, which is really easy to use. Just accept the default settings, wait until the install is finished, and you are done.

Macintosh Installation

Recent Macs come with Python installed, but it may be several years out of date. See http://www.python.org/download/mac/ for instructions on getting the current version along with extra tools to support development on the Mac. For older Mac OS’s before Mac OS X 10.3 (released in 2003), MacPython is available.”

Posts to Review:

Python : Installation on Windows and Simple Example