How to upgrade your python version to 3.7 in ubuntu to avoid problems?

I wanted to download a package some days ago which gave an error 'doesn't contain python>=3.7'; which meant that I didn't have python of versions more than or equal to 3.7. So I went ahead and downloaded and faced certain problems. That's why I am writing this article.

One line work:

The only thing you need to do for this is write in bash:

sudo apt update -y
sudo apt install python3.7

Now this part is important. In many tutorials, you may have seen the following line:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python python3 /usr/bin/python3.7 2
sudo update-alternatives --config python3

Now doing this last line, tutorials will tell you to selection 3.7 as the default option. That is where your system may go wrong. I did the same. And then the following three problem came up:

(1) there is a red circle in notification bar with a white dash inside it. This says, some error happened while checking for updates.

(2) You will not be able to access the software center.

(3) Your terminal will not open.

Now at this point, your terminal path is actually broken as well as the software center. What you need to do if you have already done this and facing one of these problems, is that:

Open the terminal from desktop > right click on open space > select open terminal from list opened > write the following line again in terminal

sudo update-alternatives --config python3







Now choose a version of python less than or equal to 3.6 this time. Then restart your pc once. Then see. The notification circle will be gone; your terminal will start and all the things will be fine again.

Important thing is, your default version will still not be 3.7 or more than that. So when you need to download things or use python 3.7 or so on; please create a virtual environment with that specific python version and then use it.

Thanks for reading! comment below to let me know about anything related to this.