Software – Python Virtual Environments

Python is available across all systems, We have both Python 2.7 and Python3.

This enables you to build your python environment without root access, as well as making it much more portable across systems, plus it’s really simple to do.

Python Versions

Version	Notes
Python 2.7	Default on CentOS 7 python2.7 on Fedora
Python 3.6	python3 on CentOS 7 python3.6 on Fedora
Python 3.8	source /opt/rh/rh-python3.8/enable on CentOS7 unavailable on Fedora
Python 3.9	Default on Fedora

Create Environment

Python 2.7

To create a Python2 virtual environment (CentOS 7 Only)

python2 -m virtualenv <environment_name>

Python 2.7 has been deprecated and no longer receives official support, you should migrate your code-base to python3 for continued working support. We cannot guarantee that python2 will continue to be available.

If you need to run a python2 virtual environment on the Fedora Desktops, then first create the Environment on a CentOS 7 based system and activate it on Fedora. However, we cannot recommend this work-around.

Python 3

To create a Python3 virtual environment

python3 -m virtualenv <environment_name>

or if that doesn’t work

python3 -m venv <environment_name>

Use the Environment

source <environment_name>/bin/activate

then you can run pip/pip3 etc as you wish.

Leave the Environment

deactivate

Known Issues with Virtual Environments

People with large 1GB+ environments especially when it’s lots of little files sometimes find that the activation can take a long time.