Problem with Creating Python 3.6 Virtual Environment on Ubuntu 20.04

Ubuntu 20.04 has Python 3.6 and Python 3.8 support. Command python3 -m venv my_venv creates virtual environment with python 3.8 and it works as expected.

However, trying python3.6 -m venv my_venv3.6 does not work. The response I get is /usr/bin/python3.6: No module named venv.

I tried using virtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3.6 my_venv3.6, which results in:

RuntimeError: failed to query /usr/bin/python3.6 with code 1 err: ...

I also tried installing sudo apt install python3.6-venv which results in:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package python3.6-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 'python3.6-venv' has no installation candidate

Note that running python3.6 starts interactive python prompt with Python 3.6.9. I can also run scripts this way, so it seems that Python 3.6 is indeed usable on my system.

How can I start Python 3.6 virtual environment on Ubuntu 20.04?

2

2 Answers

Ubuntu 20.04 ships with default Python 3.8. So first you will need to install Python 3.6.

  1. Install python 3.6:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install python3.6
    
  2. If the virtualenv package is not installed, run:

    apt-get update
    apt-get install python3-virtualenv
    
  3. Create a virtual environment:

    virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3.6 venv
    
5

You can also do:

curl  | bash
pyenv install 3.6.13
pyenv global 3.6.13
pyenv local 3.6.13
pip install virtualenv
virtualenv venv_ok

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David Miller

David Miller

Executive Financial & Market Analyst

David Miller brings 15 years of experience in global economics, personal finance strategy, and market dynamics. He specializes in turning complex economic trends into actionable insights for everyday readers.

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