I have Ubuntu 12.04 and I'm learning via Python 2.7.3 (specifically Pylab - IPython, NumPy, SciPy and Matplotlib). I thought it's better to learn the newest version of Python. Using apt-get tells me that all of the above are the most recent versions. The reasons are explained here: Changing Python default in 12.04 LTS
So I apt-get python3 and ipython3, but how to have the latest Pylab set for my Python3 interpreter?
Ubuntu/Debian treats python and python3, and their associated libraries as different packages (rather than one being an upgraded version of the other), since there are fairly few libraries which have a common codebase executable in both python 2 and 3.
Thus, you want python3-numpy, python3-scipy, python3-matplotlib, etc. Unfortunately, python3-matplotlib is not available in 12.04 (it is available from 13.04). You might be able to find a PPA containing it, but I personally don't know one to recommend.
(Other libraries you might want to consider for a scientific python setup might include sympy, pandas, and the various scikit packages).
Edit: Learning python 3 rather than 2 is a sensible goal, but if you're restricted to 12.04 you're likely to find support lacking in a number of libraries. That being the case, the best course is probably to use python 2 while ensuring you write forward-compatible code - see the official porting guide for suggestions.
