How To Install Python 3.9 on Debian 11

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Python 3.9 on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, Python is a free, open-source programming language for a wide range of software projects. This programming language comes with clear syntax and good readability. Debian provides the latest stable Python 3 release. it also provides the latest stable Python 2 release, but Python 2 is unsupported by the Python Foundation since 2020-01-01 and is being removed as of Debian 11 (Bullseye).

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of Python Programming Language on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 11 (Bullseye).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Python 3.9 on Debian 11 Bullseye

Step 1. Before we install any software, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install wget build-essential libreadline-dev libncursesw5-dev libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev tk-dev libgdbm-dev libc6-dev libbz2-dev libffi-dev zlib1g-dev

Step 2. Installing Python 3.9 on Debian 11.

Now we download the latest version of the Python 3.9 source archive from its official page:

https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.7/Python-3.9.7.tgz

Next, extract the downloaded file also change it to the extracted directory:

tar xzf Python-3.9.7.tgz
cd Python-3.9.7

Finally, run the configuration command and complete the Python installation:

./configure --enable-optimizations
make altinstall

Step 3. Check Python Installed Versions.

Once the installation is completed you can check what are the versions installed exactly for Python 3 using the below given command:

python3 --version

Output:

root@idroot.us:~# python3 --version
Python 3.9.7

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Python. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the latest version of Python 3.9 on Debian 11 Bullseye. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Python website.