How to create a virtualenv with Python3.3 in Ubuntu?

Question

I'm running Precise Pangolin amd64. I installed Python 3.3 from ppa:fkrull/deadsnakes.

Now I want to actually use this new Python version in a virtualenv. But How can I do this? I get the following error:

$ virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute -p /usr/bin/python3.3 ~/.virtualenvs/pywork3
Running virtualenv with interpreter /usr/bin/python3.3
The --no-site-packages flag is deprecated; it is now the default behavior.
New python executable in /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/python3.3
Also creating executable in /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/python
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/site.py", line 73, in <module>
    __boot()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/site.py", line 2, in __boot
    import sys, imp, os, os.path   
ImportError: No module named 'imp'
ERROR: The executable /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/python3.3 is not functioning
ERROR: It thinks sys.prefix is '/home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs' (should be '/home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3')
ERROR: virtualenv is not compatible with this system or executable

If instead, I explicitly use python3.3 to call virtualenv, I get this error:

$ python3.3 /usr/bin/virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute -p /usr/bin/python3.3 ~/.virtualenvs/pywork3
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/virtualenv", line 2, in <module>
    import virtualenv
ImportError: No module named 'virtualenv'

I'm stuck. Any help is greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Following the advise by @thefourtheye, I purged my local site-packages directory (effectively only deleting site.py). Now I'm getting a step further, but virtualenv complains about a missing easy_install:

 Error [Errno 2] No such file or directory:   
'/home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/easy_install' while executing command    
/home2/USERNAME/.virt...rk3/bin/easy_install /usr/share/python-virtualenv/pip-1.1.tar.gz

I did install the package python3-setuptools, which installs the Py3 version of easy_install.

EDIT2:

Here's the verbose output, without explicitly passing --distribute and --no-site-packages, as these two switches are default behaviour of my virtualenv:

$ virtualenv --verbose -p /usr/bin/python3.3 ~/.virtualenvs/pywork3
Running virtualenv with interpreter /usr/bin/python3.3
Creating /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3
Symlinking Python bootstrap modules
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/config-3.3m
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/lib-dynload
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/os.py
  Ignoring built-in bootstrap module: posix
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/posixpath.py
  Cannot import bootstrap module: nt
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/ntpath.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/genericpath.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/fnmatch.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/locale.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/encodings
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/codecs.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/stat.py
  Cannot import bootstrap module: UserDict
  Cannot import bootstrap module: copy_reg
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/types.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/re.py
  Cannot import bootstrap module: sre
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/sre_parse.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/sre_constants.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/sre_compile.py
  Ignoring built-in bootstrap module: zlib
  Cannot import bootstrap module: _abcoll
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/warnings.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/linecache.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/abc.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/io.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/_weakrefset.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/copyreg.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/tempfile.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/random.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/__future__.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/collections
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/keyword.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/tarfile.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/shutil.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/struct.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/copy.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/base64.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/bisect.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/_dummy_thread.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/hashlib.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/heapq.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/hmac.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/reprlib.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/rlcompleter.py
  Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/weakref.py
Creating /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/site-packages
Writing /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/site.py
Writing /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/orig-prefix.txt
Writing /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/no-global-site-packages.txt
Creating parent directories for /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/include
Symlinking /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/include/python3.3m
Creating /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin
New python executable in /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/python3.3
Changed mode of /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/python3.3 to 0o755
Also creating executable in /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/python
Changed mode of /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/python to 0o755
Testing executable with /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/python3.3 -c "
import sys
prefix = sys.prefix
if sys.version_info[0] == 3:
    prefix = prefix.encode('utf8')
if hasattr(sys.stdout, 'detach'):
    sys.stdout = sys.stdout.detach()
elif hasattr(sys.stdout, 'buffer'):
    sys.stdout = sys.stdout.buffer
sys.stdout.write(prefix)
"
Got sys.prefix result: '/home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3'
Creating /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/distutils
Writing /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/distutils/__init__.py
Writing /home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/lib/python3.3/distutils/distutils.cfg
Using existing distribute egg: /usr/share/python-virtualenv/distribute-0.6.24.tar.gz
Installing distribute..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................done.
Installing existing pip-1.1.tar.gz distribution: /usr/share/python-virtualenv/pip-1.1.tar.gz
Installing pip...
  Error [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/easy_install' while executing command /home2/USERNAME/.virt...rk3/bin/easy_install /usr/share/python-virtualenv/pip-1.1.tar.gz
...Installing pip...done.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 2283, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 938, in main
    never_download=options.never_download)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 1054, in create_environment
    install_pip(py_executable, search_dirs=search_dirs, never_download=never_download)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 643, in install_pip
    filter_stdout=_filter_setup)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 976, in call_subprocess
    cwd=cwd, env=env)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/subprocess.py", line 818, in __init__
    restore_signals, start_new_session)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/subprocess.py", line 1416, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home2/USERNAME/.virtualenvs/pywork3/bin/easy_install'

score 59 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Python 3.3 has venv built-in.

http://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html#module-venv

Simply run

pyvenv-3.3 /path/to/environment

And then to activate it

source /path/to/environment/bin/activate

This built-in version of virtualenv is much more flexible than what you're probably used to. For example, you can extend EnvBuilder to do pretty much whatever you want. You can copy an example implementation of EnvBuilder from the link below and play around with it: http://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html#an-example-of-extending-envbuilder

That script above likely does most of what we expect to get out of virtualenv. So if you just need a virtualenv with easy_install and pip, you should be good to go.

See @MarkOfSine's edits below for clarification on how to get running if you're still confused.

To add to the above, and as per docs:
For example, after executing: pyvenv-3.3 /path/to/my_project/venv
You can run distribute_setup.py, which seems to do various things, but essentially you end up with easy_install in your ./my_project/venv/bin directory.
This can then be used to install pip and the like.

It does not say where you should get distribute_setup.py from, so I downloaded from:

http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py

and using the activated environment:

cd /path/to/my_project
source venv/bin/activate

ran :

python distribute_setup.py

and

easy_install pip

Which then completed the setup of the virtual environment more inline with virtualenv on python 2.x

score 50 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 29 '13 at 16:07

50

It is easier than as it seems:

virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3 yourenv
source yourenv/bin/activate
pip install package-name

really works :)

answered Nov 29 '13 at 16:07

Cem Yildiz

601

score 25 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Take backup of site-packages.

cp -r /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ /tmp/site-packages
Truncate that directory

rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/
Now try the same

virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute -p /usr/bin/python3.3 ~/.virtualenvs/pywork3
To install without pip

virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute -p /usr/bin/python3.3 ~/.virtualenvs/pywork3 --no-pip

EDIT: Looks like the version of virtualenv (1.7.1.2) and python3.3 are not compatible. So, please try this

Uninstall python-virtualenv using sudo apt-get remove python-virtualenv
wget http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py; sudo python ez_setup.py This will install latest easy_install.
sudo easy_install pip
sudo pip install virtualenv
virtualenv --no-site-packages --distribute -p /usr/bin/python3.3 ~/.virtualenvs/pywork3

txomon · Answer 4 · 2016-07-29T08:08:10.343

11

You are doing this far too complicated. If it's included in python3, just create it with :

python3 -m venv

You can even create an alias if you wish to

alias virtualenv3='python3 -m venv'

Depending on the machine, you might need to specify the interpreter:

alias virtualenv3='python3 -m venv -p python3'

edited Jul 29 '16 at 08:08

answered Jul 29 '15 at 10:40

txomon

331

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 19 '15 at 11:46

The steps that worked for me: On MAC OSX 10.9.5

Download and install Python-3.4.3 manually.

P3PATH=/Users/$USER/Python3
mkdir -p $P3PATH
cd $P3PATH
tar -zxvf Python-3.4.3.tgz
./configure --prefix=$P3PATH/Python-3.4.3
make; make install

Create a virtualenv.

$P3PATH/Python-3.4.3/bin/pyvenv py3env
source py3env/bin/activate

Note:
virtualenv -p <path to python3> py3env did not work:

Error due to zlib

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 05 '15 at 15:03

1

On Ubuntu 14.04 

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

sudo pip install virtualenv

virtualenv-3.4 --no-site-packages venv

answered Nov 05 '15 at 15:03

L3nn

11

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 02 '22 at 16:37

0

just be sure that you installed pip and venv:

sudo apt install python3-pip
sudo apt install python3-venv

Then you can use it like this:

python3 -m venv ~/env-sample
. ~/env-sample/bin/activate

answered Feb 02 '22 at 16:37

Teocci

5,025

How to create a virtualenv with Python3.3 in Ubuntu?

7 Answers7

Linked