how to install virtualenv on Ubuntu 20.04 GCP instance?

Question

I am trying to install python3 virtualenv. I get the following message when I try to run virtualenv.

virtualenv
Command 'virtualenv' not found, but can be installed with:
apt install python3-virtualenv

but if I run install command, I get the following error.

apt install python3-virtualenv
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package python3-virtualenv

For python3 -m venv, I get message to install using apt-get install python3-venv but when I try it, I get the same message.

sudo apt-get install python3-venv
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package python3-venv is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package 'python3-venv' has no installation candidate

I am running this as root. wget also works.

Answer 1

AFAIU the latest versions of Ubuntu removed Python2 altogether so Python3 is now just the Python. Try:

apt-get update
apt-get install python3-virtualenv

Answer 2

try type in terminal:

sudo apt-get install python3.8-venv

and then try again install virtualenv

Answer 3

The below is very similar to the answer by phd, but my freshly installed Ubuntu 20.04 still requires the python version number:

apt-get update
apt-get install python3-virtualenv

Answer 4

This will definitely work:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install python3-virtualenv

Answer 5

I was getting the error E: Unable to locate package python3-virtualenv because I had to run apt-get update first. This was my brand new GCP instance.

Reference: first comment of the first answer in this thread. Unable to locate package virtualenv in ubuntu-13 on a virtual-machine

Thank you all.

Answer 6

sudo apt install python3-virtualenv