How to Install Python 3.7 on Ubuntu, Debian and Linux Mint

At writing time of this article Python 3.7.3 latest stable version of 3.7 series is available to install. This article will help you to install Python 3.7.3 on Ubuntu and Linux Mint operating system. You can visit here to read more about Python releases.

Step 1 – Prerequisites

Use the following command to install prerequisites for Python before installing it.

sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall
sudo apt-get install libreadline-gplv2-dev libncursesw5-dev libssl-dev \
    libsqlite3-dev tk-dev libgdbm-dev libc6-dev libbz2-dev libffi-dev zlib1g-dev

Step 2 – Download Python 3.7

Download Python using the following command from python official site. You can also download the latest version in place of specified below.

cd /usr/src
sudo wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.3/Python-3.7.3.tgz

Now extract the downloaded package.

sudo tar xzf Python-3.7.3.tgz

Step 3 – Compile Python Source

Use the below set of commands to compile Python source code on your system using altinstall.

cd Python-3.7.3
sudo ./configure --enable-optimizations
sudo make altinstall

make altinstall is used to prevent replacing the default python binary file /usr/bin/python.

Step 4 – Check Python Version

Check the latest version installed of python using below command

python3.7 -V

Python-3.7.3