Updating Python

After I bought myself my Raspberry Pi, I soon figured out that the only version of Python available on the Debian package repositories was 3.7.2, but as of when I wrote this it is already on 3.9.7. So, I was forced to compile from source.

The process to do this is very time consuming, so I made a shell script to do it automatically, as per the instructions on the Python website.

Here’s the script: update-python.sh

Save it in someplace convenient (like ~/.local/bin/update-python.sh). Then, run the following in your terminal to add the file as a command:

chmod +x ~/.local/bin/update-python.sh #make it executable
echo 'alias update-python=". ~/.local/bin/update-python.sh"' >> ~/.bashrc #let your shell find it
. ~/.bashrc #re-initialize the shell

The first argument to the script is the version of Python you want to install, such as 3.9.7:

update-python 3.9.7

This will install Python 3.9.7 as python3.

EDIT: If you want OpenSSL, Tkinter, etc. you will need to install some additional packages with apt:

sudo apt install libncurses-dev libgdbm-dev libz-dev tk-dev libsqlite3-dev libreadline-dev liblzma-dev libffi-dev libssl-dev