Reinstall python 2.7.12 and python 3.5.2

Question

Good evening,

today i messed up my laptop trying to install some packages for python 3.5.2. I tried to install the correct pip version but i missed something and now i can't install any package in both versions and i can't solve the problem. Is it possible to unistall the 2 versions (including all packages) and reinstall everything? I don't use Python 2.7.12 (but i'l like to have a clean version of it), i need python 3.5.2 with the correct pip version to install, for example, the packages NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib etc.

Thanks in advance,

J

Answer 1

I'd highly recommend using virtualenv, and never modifying the system python, except to install pip and virtualenv if necessary.

As was alluded to above, many OSes count on having a working python2 in order to function.

So...

[UPDATE: this worked in 2017, and may not work well in later years!]

apt-get remove python3
apt-get install python3
pip3 install virtualenv
virtualenv -p python3 venv
. venv/bin/activate
# now you are in a nice python3 world, completely isolated from system python
# remember to say . venv/bin/python every time you do anything
# or you can even add it to your .bashrc