I installed Ubuntu 12.10 in my VirtualBox. Is python installed by default? If not, How can I install python?
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1related: http://askubuntu.com/questions/220308/is-python-available-in-any-ubuntu-installation and http://askubuntu.com/questions/202483/12-10-has-python-3-2-3-default-does-this-impact-existing-python-tools – Takkat Mar 22 '13 at 08:35
5 Answers
Running python --version
in a terminal will show you which version of python is currently installed. Python does come by default on ubuntu 12.10 (version 2.7.3) source
edit: it has come to my attention that not only is python (2.7.3) available, but also python3 (3.2.3)

- 566
Enter this command in a terminal emulator window
python -V
which will provide you complete version detail.

- 17,202
It seems that intent to assign the "python" command to python3 eventually ceased; "python" still means python2 on many systems.
So, issue two commands, python2 --version
and python3 --version
(and also python --version
to be sure).
This won't reveal any private or isolated installations.
How can I install python?
First, decide which version and features you want (plain python, scientific/math, ipython...)

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To test this type python
in a terminal to access python 2.7 and python3
to access python 3. In 12.10 both python 2.7 and python 3 are installed by default.

- 28,662
Yes, it is installed by default. All Linux distros that I am aware of install python as a lot of default scripts are python.
If you want to see if a piece of software is installed and if there are multiple versions of it, what versions you have installed on your system, this is a good way to find them:
aptitude search ^python[0-9] | grep ^i
If you ever find yourself wanting to install python:
aptitude install python
Hope that helps.