Install pypy3 on raspberry pi

Question

I have a python3 script which I need to run faster, so I'm trying to install pypy3 on my raspberry pi which is running raspbian stretch 4.14.

It looks like pypy came pre-installed, but it's version 2.7.12 and it's not working with my python3 code.

I googled a lot, and can't find instructions for installing pypy3 which work for me, a lot of people suggest building from the binaries, but I'm not sure what that means either....or where to find the correct ARM architecture binary.

Please help!

Answer 1

Okay, thanks a lot to Peter Wood for linking me to the right version of pypy. Here's what I did to get it up and running on my pi (noob friendly guide :p):

Step 1: Download .tar.bz2 file using:

wget https://bitbucket.org/pypy/pypy/downloads/pypy3-v6.0.0-linux-armhf-raspbian.tar.bz2

Step 2: Extract the .tar.bz2 file:

tar xf pypy3-v6.0.0-linux-armhf-raspbian.tar.bz2

Step 3: cd into the newly extracted directory:

cd pypy3-v6.0.0-linux-armhf-raspbian.tar.bz2

Step 4: cd into the bin directory and check if the pypy3 executable works:

cd bin
./pypy3  # This should start the pypy interpreter for you

If the last command does not work, make sure pypy3 has execute permissions! (it should be green when you view it with ls). You can give it execute permissions using:

sudo chmod +x pypy3 # But you have to be in the /bin directory!

You may also get a libffi.so.5: No such file or directory error, to fix that I used:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libffi.so.6 /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libffi.so.5

Now we want to set this up so that simply typing pypy3 from anywhere will invoke this interpreter. Here's how we can do that.

Step 5: Move the folder to /opt/

sudo mv /home/pi/pypy3-v6.0.0-linux-armhf-raspbian/ /opt/

Step 6: Add symbolic link to /usr/bin/ by running:

sudo ln -s /opt/pypy3-v6.0.0-linux-armhf-raspbian/bin/pypy3 /usr/bin/pypy3

Okay, now cd out of there and run pypy3 from any location, it should invoke the pypy interpreter! Hope this helps :)