Download and Install Python without sudo privileges

install_python.md

Install Python

Builds python from source and installs to ~/.local/share/python/python-version without requiring sudo privileges.

Quick Start

Specify python version when calling the script and it will download, build and install the specified python version from python.org

sh ./install_python.sh 3.8.1

Check installation of Python in a new terminal with

python3.8 --version

Note: Make sure you have ~/.local/bin added to you PATH. If not, add export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" to .bashrc

Options

Argument	Required	Type	Default	Description
version	required	string (version number)	null	Version Number. Example: 3.8.10
install_path	optional	string (path, will be created if it does not exist)	$HOME/.local/share/python/$PYTHON_VERSION	Path will be created if it does not exist
--symlink	optional	null	null	Symlink will be created at $HOME/.local/bin

If you would like to access directly using python3 or python, you can add symlinks as shown below:

cd ~/.local/bin/
ln -s python3.8 python3
ln -s python3 python
cd -

python --version

install_python.sh

set -e

if [ -z $1 ] || [ $1 = "--help" ] || [ $1 = "help" ]; then
    echo usage: $0 version [install_path] [--symlink]
    exit
fi

PYTHON_VERSION=$1
PYTHON_MAJOR_VERSION=${PYTHON_VERSION%.*}

LOCAL_BIN_DIR=$HOME/.local/bin
PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR=$HOME/.local/share/python/$PYTHON_VERSION

if [ "$2" ]; then
    PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR=$2
fi

mkdir -p $PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR $LOCAL_BIN_DIR
curl -k -O https://www.python.org/ftp/python/$PYTHON_VERSION/Python-$PYTHON_VERSION.tgz
tar zxfv Python-$PYTHON_VERSION.tgz
cd Python-$PYTHON_VERSION
./configure --prefix=$PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR
make
make install

cd -
rm Python-$PYTHON_VERSION.tgz
rm -rf Python-$PYTHON_VERSION

if [ $3 = "symlink" ]; then
    ln -s $PYTHON_INSTALL_DIR/bin/python$PYTHON_MAJOR_VERSION $LOCAL_BIN_DIR/python$PYTHON_MAJOR_VERSION
fi