Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Will Try To Be Python-3-Only, No Python 2 By Default

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Will Try To Be Python-3-Only, No Python 2 By Default

For years Ubuntu developers have been working on moving from Python 2 to Python 3 and for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS next April that goal will hopefully be finally realized...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-16.04-Python-3-Hopes

[dungeon]

So like Catalyst Control Center, Ubuntu Software Center will be dropped in favor of Gnome Software without Center...

Centers are not popular anymore it seems

[armetuz]

Right move Ubuntu.

For everyone else - python2 still be available in repos and easily installable. But developers need to use /usr/bin/python2 or /usr/bin/python3 to specify what exactly python version it needs.

If you are a python developer please !!!!! use proper versioned shebang #!/usr/bin/pythonX

[leio]

If you are a python developer please !!!!! use proper versioned shebang #!/usr/bin/pythonX

No, please use better shebang, like #!/usr/bin/env python2 - so you don't force me to use the wrong interpreter path in my virtualenv. And then you hit that old ubuntu distribution user that didn't have those major version symlinks yet.

[ElectricPrism]

Ubuntu? Yeah I think i've heard of that somewhere, can't remember - oh well.

[piotrek]

* Python 3 only on INSTALLATION MEDIA, this is a HUGE difference, python2.7 will still be available (for next 10 years or so)
* Python 3 cannot be default because there's no Python default interpreter on Debian (and Ubuntu uses what Debian has) - Python 2.x and Python 3.X are two different languages in these distributions so one cannot replace another (to make it even clearer: /usr/bin/python WILL NEVER POINT TO Python 3.X on Debian/Ubuntu)

[Rexilion]

Your article says 'Defaukt' which should be 'Default'.

[piotrek]

"defaukt" is more accurate in this case

[SystemCrasher]

They also finally plan to nuke SoftwareCenter in 16.04, replacing it with Gnome Software.

Whatever, software center is a python bloatware crap which is so slow and resource hog it is really unusable on weak PCs, netbooks, etc and it what leaves poor impression about Ubuntu. So, good riddance.

[chithanh]

/usr/bin/python WILL NEVER POINT TO Python 3.X on Debian/Ubuntu)

Python project makes this clear how they view the issue: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0394/

• If your software requires a certain version of python, your shebang needs to be of the #!/usr/bin/pythonX (or #!/usr/bin/env pythonX) form.
• Currently, /usr/bin/python should point to python2 in order to ensure backwards compatibility with legacy software that does not yet follow PEP-0394 recommendations, but that is not a hard requirement and not true for all distros/configurations (Arch and Gentoo point to python3 by default)
• PEP-0394 makes provisions for eventually switching the recommendation for "python" to become "python3"
• Once that happens, it is likely that the majority of distributions will switch python to mean python3, leaving Debian-based ones as the only ones where this is different.