Install Python on Ubuntu and set up a Programming Environment

Step 1 – Verifying Python version

Ubuntu should have Python 3.x already installed. However, we will verify this with the command below:

python3 -V

Output:

If you get an error: bash: python3: command not found you can download python using apt 

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3.8

Next we will install pip. A tool that will install and manage programming packages for python.

sudo apt install -y python3-pip

Now we can install python packages with the command:

pip3 install “package_name”

Replace “package_name” with the package you want to install

Lets install some development tools!

sudo apt install -y build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python3-dev

Step 2 – Configuring your Environment

Configuring a virtual environment will keep your python projects isolated from other projects. To do this we will be installing the venv module:

sudo apt install -y python3-venv

Next, lets make a directory for our environment and change to that path.

mkdir Myenvironment
cd Myenvironment

Now we can create our python environment

python3 -m venv my_env

Lets verify that the environment was created with the ls command

ls my_env

Output:

In order to use the environment we created we need to activate it

source my_env/bin/activate

You should now see your environment activated with (my_env) to the left of your terminal

Step 3 Create your first program

Use your favorite command line text editor, in my case I'm using nano, and create a file named hello.py

nano hello.py

Add the following line in your text editor

print(“Hello, World!”)

Once saved, you can execute hello.py

python hello.py

Output:

You have now installed a python programming environment and created your first program.  Have fun!