Building Python 3.6 on Raspberry Pi 3 from sources (clean Debian)

Building Python 3.6 on Raspberry Pi 3 from sources (clean Debian)

 

1. Problem

By default clean Debian installation contains Python version 2.7.9 on my Debian (Raspbian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)"). But we want more! We need Python 3.X, this tutorial shows you how to install Python version 3.6.0 .

Warning! Newer versions of Debian for Raspbery Pi have SSH disabled, so you need enable it by creating empty file with name ssh (Yes, just three letters. Yes, without extension) in /boot section of SD-card. This section also visible under Windows, so you will have no problems to do this.

Note: This is updated version of my previous tutorial Building Python 3.5 on Raspberry Pi 2 (Raspbian) which fixes issues with TLS/SSL support of compiled Python.

2. Info

You can check Python version in any moment using command

$ python --version

> Python 2.7.9

you can get you OS kernel version using command 

$ uname --all
> Linux raspberrypi 4.4.34-v7+ #930 SMP Wed Nov 23 15:20:41 GMT 2016 armv7l GNU/Linux

also, you can get your Debian version using:

$ cat /etc/os-release
> PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)"
> NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
> VERSION_ID="8"
> VERSION="8 (jessie)"
> ID=raspbian
> ID_LIKE=debian
> HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
> SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
> BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

you can get Debian version using lsb-release utility, to use it you need install it:
$ sudo apt-get install lsb-release

After this you can use it by:
$ lsb_release -a 
> No LSB modules are available.
> Distributor ID: Raspbian
> Description:    Raspbian GNU/Linux 8.0 (jessie)
> Release:        8.0
> Codename:       jessie

to get SD card free space you can run this:
$ df -H

this command will show you free space of your SD card in human readable format

3. Installation sequence

3.1 Updating system

According to my post Raspbian: Script For Synchronizing Date & Time And Updating All Packages (for beginners) we can use this sequence:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y upgrade
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Note: all these operations can take a lot of time. Please, be patient.

Also, you may expand your fs to all free space of SD card using raspi-config utility:

$ sudo raspi-config

Then in UI you need select Expand file system, then you will be notified that reboot required. When you will quit raspi-config you will be asked to perform reboot wright now.

If you want to reboot manually you can do it using:

$ sudo reboot

After these operations we will have all packages updated and can start installation sequence.

3.2 Installing Python manually

Installing dependencies (up to 3-5 minutes of execution):
$ sudo apt-get -y install libbz2-dev liblzma-dev libsqlite3-dev libncurses5-dev libgdbm-dev zlib1g-dev libreadline-dev libssl-dev tk-dev build-essential libncursesw5-dev libc6-dev openssl

Info: -y switch will disable all confirmation requests.

Going home:

$ cd ~

Downloading needful version (execution time depends of channel bandwidth):
$ wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.6.0/Python-3.6.0.tgz

Unpacking archive:
$ tar -zxvf Python-3.6.0.tgz

Going to new directory:
$ cd Python-3.6.0

Configuring (takes few minutes: 3-4 minutes on RPi 3):
$ ./configure

Building (takes a lot of time, approx. 15 minutes on RPi 3):
$ make

Installing our own-built-python-release (few minutes for this operation, approx 3 minutes on RPi 3):
$ sudo make install

3.3 Verifying installation

Now we can check Python version using:

$ python3.6 --version

In case of success you will get something like this:

Python 3.6.0

Congratulations, now you have installed Python 3.6.

3.4 Installing pip

WARN! By default this Python installation already installs pip. So you can skip this chapter.

In case you want install it manually you need follow this steps.

Going home:

$ cd ~

Downloading needful script:

$ wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py

Running this script using our new Python 3.6: 
$ sudo python3.6 get-pip.py

3.5 Testing installed pip

Let's test just installed pip:

$ pip3.6 --version

We will get something like this:
> pip 9.0.1 from /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages (python 3.6

Also, you can download some package to test pip functionality:

$ sudo pip3.6 install python-dateutil

This will download to your RPi perfect library to manipulate datetime objects.

3.6 Cleaning up

You can remove Python sources and script for pip installation by these steps:

Removing Python sources:

$ rm -rf ~/Python-3.6.0

Removing get-pip.py:

$ rm ~/get-pip.py

4. Installing different versions of Python

You may note that this post contains few fixes for my previous post Building Python 3.5 on Raspberry Pi 2 (Raspbian) main differences is:

1. other version of Python in link and folder names;
2. different packages list when installing dependencies.

So, you can try (I can't guarantee anything) to install different versions of Python just using this list of dependencies and changing Python version in link and folder name

Hope you like it!

Enjoy!