Changing default python to another version

Question

Currently when I use "python" command, it points to python2.6. I have installed python3.1 and I want the "python" command point to python3.1. How it is possible?

mahmood@mpc:~$ which python 
/usr/bin/python
mahmood@mpc:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/python
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-11-24 16:14 /usr/bin/python -> python2.6
mahmood@mpc:~$ uname -a
Linux orca 2.6.32-24-server #39-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 28 06:21:40 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Answer 1

Since you have Linux, and if you want to simply type "python" instead of "python3" in order to run Python programs, a solution is simply to define an alias in you shell configuration file (.bashrc, etc.). For Bourne shells, it should be something like

alias python=python3

(or whatever your Python 3 name is).

This way, you do not have to change anything on your system, so this solution should quite innocuous and it should not break your system.