Getting error when trying to install python

Question

I have downloaded python-3.6.1.tar.xz. then I extracted it. There is a file README.rst. this is the instruction file. and has the instruction how to install.

On Unix, Linux, BSD, macOS, and Cygwin::

./configure
make
make test
sudo make install

Completed 1st two steps i.e. upto make without no error. But when I make test then get these errors.

FAILED (failures=1)
test test_venv failed
1 test failed again:
    test_venv

Total duration: 4 min 13 sec
Tests result: FAILURE
Makefile:1018: recipe for target 'test' failed
make: *** [test] Error 1

I have created a file with the error and shared it Google drive. Click Here for the full stack trace.

The relevant portion of the error is:

**Subprocess Output**
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/kd/Python-3.6.1/Lib/runpy.py", line 193, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", mod_spec)
  File "/home/kd/Python-3.6.1/Lib/runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "/home/kd/Python-3.6.1/Lib/ensurepip/__main__.py", line 4, in <module>
    ensurepip._main()
  File "/home/kd/Python-3.6.1/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 189, in _main
    default_pip=args.default_pip,
  File "/home/kd/Python-3.6.1/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 102, in bootstrap
    _run_pip(args + [p[0] for p in _PROJECTS], additional_paths)
  File "/home/kd/Python-3.6.1/Lib/ensurepip/__init__.py", line 27, in _run_pip
    import pip
zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

Answer 1

zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

You should install zlib1g-dev and change your configure step like this:

./configure --with-zlib=/usr/include

Now, try this:

 make clean
 apt-get install zlib1g-dev
 ./configure --with-zlib=/usr/include
 ...

You can read more in Configure and compile Python with Zlib

Answer 2

When I was trying to install Python 3.7.3 through pyenv, I got this same error. It was solved by ensuring that I had the prerequisites to my operating system, with the following:

sudo apt-get install -y make build-essential libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev \
libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev wget curl llvm libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev \
xz-utils tk-dev libffi-dev liblzma-dev python-openssl git

I found this in pyenv Common build problems, thanks to agibalov.