Tag Archives: configuration

How to install a new version of python in RHEL 6

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So, if you have RHEL 6, you might be stuck with Python 2.6.  But, not really.  Even though you might not be able to install a new version of python using yum, you can still download a new version of python and install it in your environment.  Now, you can install it and replace the current version or you can install another version and have two python in your system.

  1. Install GCC by typing 
    sudo yum install gcc
  2. Go to 
    cd /usr/src/

  3. Now, let’s download a release from python.org. In this example we will be using Python 3.5.0.

    sudo wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.5.0/Python-3.5.0.tar.xz sudo tar xf Python-3.5.0.tar.xz sudo cd Python-3.5.0
  4. Let’s compile 
    sudo ./configure
  5. Let’s build the package 
    sudo make
  6. Now, to install it you have two options.  You can either overwrite the python executable or you can install as concurrent instance.
    1. If you want to overwrite the OS python executable 
       sudo make install
    2. If you want to install concurrent (not overwritting the OS executable) 
       sudo make altinstall
  7. Now let’s link it so others could use it 
     sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/python3.5 /usr/bin/python3.5
  8. Now test it by invoking the following command 
    python3.5 -V

    You should have the following result

    "Python 3.5.0"
  9. If you get that result let’s continue, otherwise look back and see what step you missed.
  10. Now that you have python 3.5 install along with 2.7, you might want to install pip to handle package installations.
  11. In order to do that, let’s first download pip. 
    cd ~/Downloads
wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
  12. Now, let’s install it 
     sudo python3.5 get-pip.py

    If setuptools is not installed, get-pip.py will automatically install setuptools.

  13. To check pip if installed successfully 
     pip3.5 -V

    You should have the following result

     "pip 7.1.2 from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages (python 3.5)"
  14. If you want others to use pip with sudo command, you probably want to do this
  15. sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/pip3.5 /usr/bin/pip3.5
  16. And there you go!  Now you have two python versions and two pip versions running concurrently on your OS.

Sources

https://www.python.org/

https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8087184/installing-python3-on-rhel

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6587507/how-to-install-pip-with-python-3