Hello! In this short tutorial I write out the steps to install one of the most useful productivity tools I’ve used for Python: virtualenvwrapper.

The What:

Virtual Environment Wrapper, most commonly known as virtualenvwrapper, is a nifty tool that you, as a Python developer, can use to organize your virtual development environments. With this powerful tool, you can create, list, manage and switch between your development environment with ease.

The Why:

While trying to install virtualenvwrapper on my new Kubuntu 18.04LTS distro, I noticed that following the usual instructions on virtualenvwrapper’s Read the Docs page doesn’t exactly prove to be useful in installing virtualenvwrapper. It took me an hour to figure out how to install virtualenvwrapper so that it’s fully functional. Thus this small article was born.

The How:

Without further ado, let’s jump into how I installed virtualenvwrapper on my Kubuntu system running Python 3. Note: The instructions here are for Python 3, but they may work for Python 2 environments as well.

1. Install pip3. To check if you have pip3 installed, open up a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T should do the trick) and type: $ pip3 --version

     $ pip3 --version
   

   You should see something similar to this: pip 9.0.1 from /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages (python 3.6) If pip3 is not installed, you can easily install it by running $ sudo apt-get install python3-pip on your terminal.

2. Install virtualenvwrapper:

   $ pip3 install virtualenvwrapper

3. Add the following lines to your ~/.bashrc file: export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs

   export PROJECT_HOME=$HOME/Devel

   source ~/.local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

   VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3

   PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin

   Once you do that, you should be all set to proceed to the next step.

4. Reload your ~/.bashrc file: $ source ~/.bashrc. Check to see if you’ve got any errors.

5. Make a test virtual environment: $ mkvirtualenv test.

   The output should be similar to this:

   Using base prefix '/usr

   New python executable in ~/.virtualenvs/test/bin/python3

   Also creating executable in ~/.virtualenvs/test/bin/python

   Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.

   (test) user@computer:~$

   Notice the (test) before your username@computer, this indicates the virtualenv you’re in at the moment.

Voila! Now you have a new virtualenv that is a fresh python build system. Hack away!

You can head over to virtualenvwrapper’s documentation for all the helpful commands it offers.