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How to Upgrade to Python 3.7 on Ubuntu 18.04/18.10

Serhat Teker on September 14, 2019

Dev.to version of this article may not be the up-to-date one. You can visit originally published resource: tech.serhatteker.com to see the most rec...

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scottanderson42 • May 26 '20

This breaks apt-get upgrade (and other things) because Ubuntu 18.04 wants Python 3.6 to be the system python. Have you come across this problem?

Serhat Teker • Jan 11 '21

Sorry to hear that. This was an outdated version of this article. I updated this one as well now.

Also as I mentioned now in the beginning of article you can follow up-to-date version of this article on: tech.serhatteker.com.

Abubakr Abduvakhidov • Jul 30 '20

yes, how did you solve, could you share because i have problems with apt_

scottanderson42 • Sep 4 '20

I upgraded to Ubuntu 20.04. :-P

slitherin • Mar 25 '21

update-alternatives --set python3 /usr/bin/python3.6

Carlos H Brandt • Apr 9 '21

You forgot a second step -- maybe related to some crashes from some comments.
Notice that you have python*-config files in there too:

$ ls -lh /usr/bin/python*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    9 Apr 16  2018 /usr/bin/python -> python2.7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    9 Apr 16  2018 /usr/bin/python2 -> python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3.5M Feb 27 16:10 /usr/bin/python2.7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    9 May 28  2019 /usr/bin/python3 -> python3.6
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.4M Jan 26 16:33 /usr/bin/python3.6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   33 Jan 26 16:33 /usr/bin/python3.6-config -> x86_64-linux-gnu-python3.6-config
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.4M Jan 26 16:33 /usr/bin/python3.6m
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   34 Jan 26 16:33 /usr/bin/python3.6m-config -> x86_64-linux-gnu-python3.6m-config
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5.0M Feb 25 23:10 /usr/bin/python3.8
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   33 Feb 25 23:10 /usr/bin/python3.8-config -> x86_64-linux-gnu-python3.8-config
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   16 Oct 25  2018 /usr/bin/python3-config -> python3.6-config

. AFAIU one should also apply a switch to python3-config.

In Step-2, I would recommend also doing:

$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3-config python3-config /usr/bin/python3.6-config 1
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3-config python3-config /usr/bin/python3.8-config 2

, and set accordingly (as explained in the article), but now for python3-config:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config python3-config

Hope that is right and to complement the nice article.
/.\

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Thanks!

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Thank you.

Amit Patel • Feb 11 '21

It works! Thanks!

akhil • Jul 29 '20

This works, however, after I close the terminal, I can't open it again.
To get it back I have to do:
sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/python3.6 /usr/bin/python3
in the xterm terminal.

Serhat Teker • Jan 11 '21

Thank you!

spiritupbro • Jun 16 '21

thanks man

wdrfree • Aug 21 '21

Not work for me!!!

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Rogerio Inacio • Feb 23 '21

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