Python and its Packages Version Management

2 min readAug 28, 2021

Overview

This story is about how to easily manage multiple versions of python on the system level. Secondly, how to install package versions globally and locally(on virtual environments)

There is a solution already available named pyenv to manage the versions. But I want to access the python version on system-level and don’t want to switch between different environments.

Assumptions

I am assuming that a python version already exists on your system and using yum as your package manager.

Pre-Requisites

Virtual environment

Guidelines

Install all the dependencies that are required by python3.

$ sudo yum -y install gcc zlib-devel bzip2 bzip2-devel readline-devel sqlite sqlite-devel openssl-devel xz xz-devel libffi-devel

2. Use this link to download the source.

3. Untar and build it

$ tar xJf <file-name>.tar.xz 
$ cd <file-name>.tar.xz
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make altinstall # if a version is already installed other remove the "alt" and just run install

4. Check it is available or not.

$ python3 -version

5. If it is not available check this directory /usr/local/bin. If it exists in the /usr/local/bin then move it to /usr/bin. Because I want it to be accessible across all system users. Move these files

pythonX.X
pythonX.Xm
pythonX.Xm-config

6. It should be accessible now.

7. To install a package for a specific version of python use this command:

sudo python<version> -m pip install <package-name>

It stores installed packages on this path

/usr/local/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages

8. There are multiple ways to create a virtual environment via virtualenv and venv. To create a virtual environment for different projects using the command given below:

Using venv

# To create a virtual environment using venv
$ python3 -m venv ENV_NAME# To activate it
$ source ENV_NAME/bin/activate# To deactivate it
$ deactivate

Using virtualenv

# To install virtualenv
$ sudo pip3 install virtualenv# if it is not available on cli check if it exists in /usr/bin. If not check the /usr/local/bin directory and move it to /usr/bin.# To create a virtual environment using virtualenv
$ python3 -m venv ENV_NAME# To activate it
$ source ENV_NAME/bin/activate# To deactivate it
$ deactivate

9. Install Ipython, to use python on the shell interactively:

$ pythonX -m IPython

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this story. Please share your feedback about anything that can be improved or I missed. Thank you.