How to Install Python 3.7 on Amazon Linux

Python is a powerful programming language. It is very friendly and easy to learn. At the writing time of this article Python 3.7.9 (in Python 3.7 series) latest stable version is available to download and install. This tutorial will help you to install Python 3.7.9 on Amazon Linux systems.

Step 1 – Prerequisites

This Python installation required the GCC compiler on your system. Login to your server using ssh or shell access. Now, use the following command to install prerequisites for Python before installing it.

yum install gcc openssl-devel bzip2-devel libffi-devel

• Read: How to Use SSH to Connect Remote Linux Server

Step 2 – Download Python 3.7

Download Python using the following command from the Python official site. You can also download the latest version in place of specified below.

cd /opt
sudo wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.9/Python-3.7.9.tgz

Now extract the downloaded package.

sudo tar xzf Python-3.7.9.tgz

Step 3 – Install Python 3.7

Use below set of commands to compile Python source code on your system using altinstall.

cd Python-3.7.9
sudo ./configure --enable-optimizations
sudo make altinstall

make altinstall is used to prevent replacing the default python binary file /usr/bin/python.

Now remove downloaded source archive file from your system

sudo rm /usr/src/Python-3.7.9.tgz

Step 4 – Check Python Version

Check the latest version installed of python. Use command python3.7 instead of python. The new binary will be installed at /usr/local/bin/python3.7 location:

python3.7 -V

Python 3.7.9