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From: Akkana Peck <akkana@shallowsky.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: pip and venvs on Debian (was: Terminal Emulator)
Date: Mon, 20 May 2024 15:48:12 -0600
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Alan Gauld via Python-list writes:
> On 18/05/2024 19:12, Piergiorgio Sartor via Python-list wrote:
> 
> >> So venvs make managing all that pretty convenient. Dunno why everybody's 
> >> so down on venvs...
> 
> Not so much down on them, they are just one extra step that's
> mostly not needed(in my use case)

Years ago, I used to have trouble with pip install --user on Debian -- sometimes things would end up under .local, sometimes in other places that I've forgotten. So I reluctantly started using venvs.

And you know, they work fine. I have one master venv that I created with
python3 -m venv --system-site-packages ~/pythonenv/envname
and I activate that automatically when I log in, so when I need to install anything that Debian doesn't package, I just pip install it (no --user or --break-system-packages needed) and it installs to that venv.

Every so often I need to regenerate it (like when Debian updates the system Python version) but that's easy to do: I don't try to duplicate what's installed there, I just delete the old venv, create a new one and then pip install packages as needed.

I have a few special venvs (without --system-site-packages) for specific purposes, but most of the time I'm just using my default venv and it's all pretty transparent and automatic.

I know this isn't the usual pythonista model of "you should have a zillion different venvs, one for each program you use, and never use system Python packages", but it works well for me: my pip installed packages are all in a predictable place, and I get security updates for all the software Debian *does* package. That's my biggest beef with pip, the lack of an easy way to update everything at once, and it's the reason I prefer Debian packages when available.

        ...Akkana