# Setup Python3 in Ubuntu
In Ubuntu 16.04, Python 3.5.2 came preinstalled.
# Python3 pip Package Manager
Further setup is still required to manage/install Python packages (think npm). The package manager for Python is pip3, and can be installed with the following:
sudo apt-get install python3-pip
# Python3 Virtual Environment
To initialize a project, a ‘virtual environment’ needs to be created — which is a self-contained project space with its own set of dependencies & package installations that is separate from the global python environment. (Note that the venv command is built-in with Python 3.5 or later.)
To do this:
cd python_projects
python3 -m venv my_env
The above command will create a my_env directory within python_projects. To begin using the virtual environment:
source my_env/bin/activate
You should see a (my_env) prefix on the console. Any packages installed with this environment activated will be contained within this environment only and isolated from the global python installation. For example, we could install a package requests with the following:
pip3 install requests
To get out of the environment, simply enter deactivate