How to manage python's version?

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1

I’m currently using Fedora 39.
The first installation of Fedora was F36, then I upgraded to F37, then F38 then F39.

On my system, I have 3 versions of python:

/usr/bin/python
/usr/bin/python3
/usr/bin/python3.12

and (for pip)
/usr/bin/pip
/usr/bin/pip3
/usr/bin/pip-3
/usr/bin/pip3.12
/usr/bin/pip-3.12

Since I haven’t installed python manually, why are there so many versions installed?

Can I clean it all up and keep only the latest one?
How do you uninstall older versions?
What are the consequences?

I do this request because when I retrieve third-party tools or make updates, I never know which version of pip Ihave to use. I’m also having problems with version conflicts and dependencies (especially with the latest version of openIA whisper).

Thanks à lot in advance for you help.
Regards

2

Those are all the same, more correctly: they point to the same version. You can check e.g. with python --version.
They are there so that you can address a specific version (in your scripts) if you need to, but can use convenient shortcuts when you want or if yoy do not care about the specific version in your script.

1 Like
3

thanks for your quick answer.

> python --version
Python 3.12.0

and pip

>pip --version
pip 23.2.1 from /usr/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip (python 3.12)

so, my problem with openIA whisper’s dependencies must have antohers causes

thank again for your help

4

The cause is here

 # ls -l /usr/bin/pip*
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   221 Aug  3 19:00 /usr/bin/pip
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root    10 Aug  3 19:00 /usr/bin/pip-3 -> ./pip-3.12
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   221 Aug  3 19:00 /usr/bin/pip3
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root     9 Aug  3 19:00 /usr/bin/pip-3.12 -> ./pip3.12
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   221 Aug  3 19:00 /usr/bin/pip3.12

 # ls -l /usr/bin/python*
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root     9 Oct  1 19:00 /usr/bin/python -> ./python3
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root    10 Oct  1 19:00 /usr/bin/python3 -> python3.12
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 16192 Oct  1 19:00 /usr/bin/python3.12
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root    62 Oct  1 19:00 /usr/bin/python3.12-config
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  3079 Oct  1 19:00 /usr/bin/python3.12-x86_64-config
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root    17 Oct  1 19:00 /usr/bin/python3-config -> python3.12-config
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   980 Jul 20 19:00 /usr/bin/python3-html2text
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root     3 Jul 21 19:00 /usr/bin/python3-sip -> sip

There are several different links created so the upgrade actually allows scripts to function without breaking due to the version change.

5

what is that about? What python version is required. If python3.12 is not supported, you should use a virtual environment.

6

I’ve been wondering about the number of different versions of python for a while, and I didn’t really understand how it worked. I understand better now.

Concerning Whisper, I’m having problems with conflicts when updating or reinstalling. But these don’t seem to come from python. OpenIA provides a link but I don’t understand (English is not my native tongue, and Idont understand explanations).

The conflict is caused by:
    openai-whisper 20231106 depends on triton==2.0.0
    openai-whisper 20231105 depends on triton==2.0.0
    openai-whisper 20230918 depends on triton==2.0.0
    openai-whisper 20230314 depends on triton==2.0.0
    openai-whisper 20230308 depends on triton==2.0.0
    openai-whisper 20230307 depends on triton==2.0.0
    openai-whisper 20230306 depends on triton>=2.0.0.dev20221202
    openai-whisper 20230124 depends on torch
    openai-whisper 20230117 depends on torch

To fix this you could try to:
1. loosen the range of package versions you've specified
2. remove package versions to allow pip attempt to solve the dependency conflict

ERROR: ResolutionImpossible: for help visit https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/topics/dependency-resolution/#dealing-with-dependency-conflicts

'm not sure that using a virtual environment will solve the problem (and I wouldn’t know how to do it anyway).

7

This looks like you’re trying to install openai-whisper with pip?

If the package is indeed not compatible with Python 3.12, you can initialize and use a Python 3.11 virtualenv like this:

sudo dnf install python3.11
python3.11 -m venv venv-3.11
source venv-3.11/bin/activate
pip install openai-whisper

If Python 3.12 is not the actual problem, you could try a clean Python 3.12 environment like this:

python3 -m venv venv-3.12
source venv-3.12/bin/activate
pip install openai-whisper

If this succeeds, then there’s likely something wrong with the Python packages that you installed locally / globally for your account (which is why virtualenvs are a good idea).

3 Likes
8

it properly works with Python 3.11 virtualenv.

I found some documentation about virtualenv. I have a better understanding of how these virtualenvs work and how to manage them.

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to this non-Fedora related topic.

9

Thanks, this got whisper working for me.

10

Python and venv are very much a fedora related topic. fedora 39 contained python 3.11 while fedora 40 upgraded to python 3.12. The changes and the use of a venv to use different versions of python are very much related to fedora directly.