Install pyenv on Ubuntu and Debian

Last Updated on 28/12/2023

This tutorial will show how to install pyenv on Ubuntu and other Debian distributions, so you can quickly switch between Python versions.

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get install -y make build-essential libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev \
libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev wget curl llvm libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev \
xz-utils tk-dev libffi-dev liblzma-dev

Install pyenv

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pyenv/pyenv-installer/master/bin/pyenv-installer | bash

Validate installation

The command below should print the installed version:

pyenv -v

which in my case printed:

pyenv 2.1.0

If it doesn’t, then add the following lines at the end of your:

• .bashrc if you use bash
• .zshrc if you use zsh

export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"
export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"
if command -v pyenv 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then
 eval "$(pyenv init --path)"
fi
eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"

Then reload your shell and it should work.

Installing Python versions

Run the command below to list the available Python versions to be installed:

pyenv install --list

Which should yield something like:

Available versions:
  2.1.3
  2.2.3
  ...
  3.10.0
  3.10-dev
  3.11.0a1
  3.11-dev

Then, pick a version of your choice and install it running the following command:

pyenv install 3.10.0

Finally, set the installed version as the default local (to this terminal session) or global (entire system):

pyenv local 3.10.0

References

• pyenv – Common build problems