Re: Terminal Emulator (Posting On Python-List Prohibited)

On 2024-05-18, Mats Wichmann via Python-list <python-list@python.org> wrote:

Distros have do offer a good selection of packaged Python bits, yes, but
only for the version of Python that's "native" to that distro release.
If you need to test other versions of Python, you're mostly on your own.

For a few years I needed both 2.x and 3.x installed, but my distro
(Gentoo) handled that fine (I think most others do also). Gentoo also
allows multiple minor versions to be installed (currently I have 3.11
and 3.12 on this machine).

But, since Gentoo is a source-based meta-distro, when I install a
Python package, the package manager knows how to install it for all
installed Python versions that are supported by the package.

I can't think of why I would need a venv unless I needed to test
something with a Python version that isn't available for Gentoo. That
said, there are currently 7 versions available (2.7.18, 3.8.19,
3.9.19, 3.10.14, 3.11.9, 3.12.3, 3.13.0).

3.13 isn't marked stable yet in the Gentoo package database, and I
apparently have some Python app/package installed that doesn't yet
support 3.12, so I've currently got both 3.12 and 3.11.