How to Install Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04

We’ll show you, How to Install Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04. Python is a high-level, interpreted, interactive and object-oriented scripting language, and it is one of the most popular programming languages in the world. Python is designed to be highly readable and it can be used to build just about anything. It is using English keywords instead of punctuation and  it also has fewer syntactical constructions than other programming languages. Python allows programmers to use different programming styles for creating their programs, get quicker results and write code almost as if speaking in a human language. Some of the most popular systems and applications in the world that have employed Python during development include Google Search, YouTube, Google App Engine, Maya and many more. Installing Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04, is an easy task, just follow the steps below carefully and you should have Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04 installed in few minutes.

Python 2.7 and Python 3.5 are installed on Ubuntu 16.04 by default. In this tutorial we will guide you through steps of installing the latest Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04.

1. Login via SSH and update all installed packages

First of all, login to your Ubuntu 16.04 VPS via SSH as user root

ssh [email protected]_Address -p Port_number

and update all installed packages

2. Check the currently installed version of Python

To check the currently installed version of Python, execute the following command

# python -V
Python 2.7.12

To check the Python 3 version, use the following command

# python3 -V
Python 3.5.2

There are two methods of installing Python 3.6 on an Ubuntu 16.04 VPS, from source and from PPA.

3. Install Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04, from source

In order to install the latest Python 3.6 release for Linux/UNIX, go to their official website and download its source code to your server. At the moment of writing this article it is version 3.6.3

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

and unpack the downloaded archive

tar -xvf Python-3.6.3.tgz

4. Method 1: Run the “configure” script

Change the current working directory and run the ‘configure’ script

cd Python-3.6.3
./configure

If there are no errors, run the following commands to complete the installation process of Python 3.6

make 
make install

If you get the following error message

zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

install the ‘zlib1g-dev’ package

apt-get install zlib1g-dev

are run ‘make’ and ‘make install’ again.

That’s all. Python 3.6 should be successfully installed at this point. You can check this with the following command

# python3.6 -V
Python 3.6.3

5. Method 2: Install Python 3.6 from PPA

You can also install Python 3.6 from J Fernyhough’s Personal Package Archive (PPA).
Install the following requirements

apt-get install software-properties-common python-software-properties

Run the following command to add the PPA

# add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/python-3.6
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it

and press enter to continue.

6. Update the repositories

update the repositories

apt-get update

7. Install Python version 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04

and finally install Python version 3.6

apt-get install python3.6

7. Verify Python 3.6.3 installation on Ubuntu 16.04

Once it is installed, you can verify the installed version by executing the following command

# python3.6 -V
Python 3.6.3

To learn more about Python version 3.6 check their official release notes.

See also – How to Install Python 3.6.4 on CentOS 7

Of course you don’t have to Install Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04, if you use one of our Python VPS hosting services, in which case you can contact us and ask our expert Linux admins to Install Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04 for you. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.

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