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I have recently started learning Python and thus have learned that Ubuntu (10.10) uses Python 2.6. It seems to me that Python 3.X is still rather unpopular in the Linux/Ubuntu community.

Why is that?

Edit April 30, 2012
Python 3.2 is not shipped by default in Ubuntu. There are plans to make Python 3.2 default in 12.10, however, and make it the only version shipped by then. Python 2.7 will then not be on the default ISO anymore. Note: this is only envisaged, not certain yet.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Python/FoundationsQPythonVersions

Ingo
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  • Is 3.2 shipped with 11.10? It still appears to be 2.7, although 3.x is available in the repositories. – James Mar 17 '12 at 20:47
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    As a matter of fact BOTH are shipped. If you want to use python 2.7, just type $ python in your terminal, for using 3.2 do $ python3. – Ingo Mar 18 '12 at 12:01
  • If I type python3 I get The program 'python3' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: sudo apt-get install python3-minimal – James Mar 18 '12 at 17:12
  • Can you try $ python 3.2 then? If that does not work I am mistaken, sorry. But in 12.04 there surely is Pyton 3 inlcuded. – Ingo Mar 19 '12 at 08:28
  • http://www.wefearchange.org/2011/05/python-plans-for-ubuntu-1110-and-1204.html – Ingo Mar 19 '12 at 08:29
  • Same message, not installed. You have probably installed it at one point or another. It's not in by default on 11.10 – James Mar 20 '12 at 01:34
  • There are some news. See my edit. – Ingo Apr 30 '12 at 13:34

3 Answers3

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I don't think Python 3 is less popular, it just haven't been around as long..

For a language to be used adoption time is needed, version 3.* is so much different from 2.* that you can't use the modules/extensions without changing them beforehand. Therefore all modules that the current infrastructure depends on needs to be ported python 3.*

"If you don't know which version to use, start with Python 2.7; more existing third party software is compatible with Python 2 than Python 3 right now." -Python.org download page.

Se also: Python 2 or Python 3 and Wikipedia

LasseLuttermann
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see http://wiki.python.org/moin/Python2orPython3

sdu
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Because Python 3 is still under development and until now a lot of libraries are not ported to Python 3.

burli
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    Python 3 is not under development, it's as released as 2.6 (so is 3.1). The real issue is that a lot of libraries are not ported yet. – Mike Axiak Nov 01 '10 at 16:28
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    Python 3 is under development... that doesn't mean that there can't be releases that can be considered stable. but i wouldn't consider 3.2 alpha 3 stable as you imply. – LasseLuttermann Nov 01 '10 at 16:43