How Do I Pyenv?

A how-to guide for using pyenv, a program to help you install and manage multipe versions of Python side-by-side in an easy and pain-free way!

HTML pages for this tutorial (you are here): https://pages.charlesreid1.com/how-do-i-pyenv

Source code for this tutorial: https://git.charlesreid1.com/charlesreid1/how-do-i-pyenv

Mirror on Github: https://github.com/charlesreid1/how-do-i-pyenv

Installing pyenv

Start by running the pyenv installer (see pyenv-installer):

# Install pyenv
curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pyenv/pyenv-installer/master/bin/pyenv-installer | bash

This will install all pyenv-related things to ~/.pyenv.

Next, add pyenv's bin directory to $PATH (should already be in ~/.bash_profile but just in case):

echo 'export PATH="~/.pyenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Now you can log out and log back in, or do source ~/.bash_profile, and check that the following command returns the location of pyenv:

$ which pyenv

Installing conda

Now we set the version of python we wish to install. We will install miniconda 4.3.30 for python 3:

CONDA="miniconda3-4.3.30"

First tell pyenv to install this version of conda (this will download and build it):

pyenv install $CONDA

Next, tell pyenv that you want this to be the default version of pyenv Python:

pyenv global $CONDA

Finally, if you want to put this verison of Python on your path, you should run:

eval "$(pyenv init -)"

Now you can check to make sure you have the pyenv-installed version of conda:

which conda
conda --version
python --version

If you want to make this version of Python the one on your path, and you want that to happen always, you can add the above line to your ~/.bash_profile:

echo 'eval "$(pyenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile