Install pyenv on Ubuntu and Debian

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