System Installation

Arch

sudo pacman -Syyu python python-pip python-setuptools
# or, sudo pacman -Syyu python2 python2-pip python2-setuptools

Older versions are available on the AUR as python37, python36, python26, etc.

Debian

sudo apt install python3 python3-virtualenv python3-venv python3-setuptools python3-pip
# or, sudo apt install python python-virtualenv python-venv python-setuptools python-pip

Debian patches out the ensurepip module to enforce apt package control.

Ubuntu

A default version of Python should work out-of-the-box. For alternate versions, use the deadsnakes PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install python#.# 

Environment Setup

Python Path

The python interpretor looks for modules on $PATH, appending its own libraries. Additional appends can be set in $PYTHONPATH.

Python has the ability to import modules from a zip archive, if the file's path is on $PATH.

A startup script can be set with $PYTHONSTARTUP.

Pip

Packages installed globally are found in /usr/lib/python#.#/site-packages; packages installed for a user are found in ~/.local/lib/python#.#/site-packages.

Virtual environments created by pipx are found in ~/.local/pipx; executables are installed to ~/.local/bin. These are configurable by $PIPX_HOME and PIPX_BIN_DIR respectively.

Pip will noisily complain about the format of its output changing years ago. To suppress the complaint, explicitly set the default behavior:

export PIP_FORMAT=columns

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