How to install pip for Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.10?

I'd like to start by pointing out that this question may seem like a duplicate, but it isn't. All the questions I saw here were regarding pip for Python 3 and I'm talking about Python 3.6. The steps used back then don't work for Python 3.6.

1. I got a clear Ubuntu 16.10 image from the official docker store.
2. Run apt-get update
3. Run apt-get install python3.6
4. Run apt-get install python3-pip
5. Run pip3 install requests bs4
6. Run python3.6 script.py

Got ModuleNotFoundError below:

 Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "script.py", line 6, in <module>
     import requests
 ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'requests'

Python's and pip's I have in the machine:

python3
python3.5
python3.5m
python3.6
python3m
python3-config
python3.5-config
python3.5m-config
python3.6m
python3m-config  

pip
pip3
pip3.5

Let's suppose that you have a system running Ubuntu 16.04, 16.10, or 17.04, and you want Python 3.6 to be the default Python.

If you're using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, you'll need to use a PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/python-3.6  # (only for 16.04 LTS)

Then, run the following (this works out-of-the-box on 16.10 and 17.04):

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3.6
sudo apt install python3.6-dev
sudo apt install python3.6-venv
wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
sudo python3.6 get-pip.py
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3.6 /usr/local/bin/python3
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/pip /usr/local/bin/pip3

# Do this only if you want python3 to be the default Python
# instead of python2 (may be dangerous, esp. before 2020):
# sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3.6 /usr/local/bin/python

When you have completed all of the above, each of the following shell commands should indicate Python 3.6.1 (or a more recent version of Python 3.6):

python --version   # (this will reflect your choice, see above)
python3 --version
$(head -1 `which pip` | tail -c +3) --version
$(head -1 `which pip3` | tail -c +3) --version

In at least in ubuntu 16.10, the default python3 is python3.5. As such, all of the python3-X packages will be installed for python3.5 and not for python3.6.

You can verify this by checking the shebang of pip3:

$ head -n1 $(which pip3)
#!/usr/bin/python3

Fortunately, the pip installed by the python3-pip package is installed into the "shared" /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages such that python3.6 can also take advantage of it.

You can install packages for python3.6 by doing:

python3.6 -m pip install ...

For example:

$ python3.6 -m pip install requests
$ python3.6 -c 'import requests; print(requests.__file__)'
/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/requests/__init__.py

This answer assumes that you have python3.6 installed. For python3.7, replace 3.6 with 3.7. For python3.8, replace 3.6 with 3.8, but it may also first require the python3.8-distutils package.

Installation with sudo

With regard to installing pip, using curl (instead of wget) avoids writing the file to disk.

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | sudo -H python3.6

The -H flag is evidently necessary with sudo in order to prevent errors such as the following when installing pip for an updated python interpreter:

> The directory '/home/someuser/.cache/pip/http' or its parent directory > is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. > Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing > pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag. > > The directory > '/home/someuser/.cache/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the > current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the > permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, > you may want sudo's -H flag.

Installation without sudo

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python3.6 - --user

This may sometimes give a warning such as:

> WARNING: The script wheel is installed in '/home/ubuntu/.local/bin' > which is not on PATH. Consider adding this directory to PATH or, if > you prefer to suppress this warning, use --no-warn-script-location.

Verification

After this, pip, pip3, and pip3.6 can all be expected to point to the same target:

$ (pip -V && pip3 -V && pip3.6 -V) | uniq
pip 18.0 from /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages (python 3.6)

Of course you can alternatively use python3.6 -m pip as well.

$ python3.6 -m pip -V
pip 18.0 from /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages (python 3.6)

This website contains a much cleaner solution, it leaves pip intact as-well and one can easily switch between 3.5 and 3.6 and then whenever 3.7 is released.

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2017/07/install-python-3-6-1-in-ubuntu-16-04-lts/

A short summary:

sudo apt-get install python python-pip python3 python3-pip
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/python-3.6
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3.6
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.5 1
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.6 2

Then

$ pip -V
pip 8.1.1 from /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (python 2.7)
$ pip3 -V
pip 8.1.1 from /usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages (python 3.5)

Then to select python 3.6 run

sudo update-alternatives --config python3

and select '2'. Then

$ pip3 -V
pip 8.1.1 from /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages (python 3.6)

To update pip select the desired version and

pip3 install --upgrade pip

$ pip3 -V
pip 9.0.1 from /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages (python 3.6)

Tested on Ubuntu 16.04.

Some of the solutions above using the script get-pip.py worked until a couple of weeks ago.

The latest version of this script now requires python3.7 throwing the following error

ERROR: This script does not work on Python 3.6 
The minimun supported Python version is 3.7. 
Please use https://bootstrap.pypa.io/pip/3.6/get-pip.py instead.

So making the corresponding change works now.

wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/pip/3.6/get-pip.py
sudo python3.6 get-pip.py