Upgrading Python

Question

According to the official Python website, the current version of Python 2 is 2.7.10.

On my computer, I have 2.7.6:

$ python
Python 2.7.6 (default, Jun 22 2015, 18:00:18) 
[GCC 4.8.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> exit()

I figured I'd update to 2.7.10 using apt-get. However, this doesn't work:

$ sudo apt-get install python2.7
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
python2.7 is already the newest version.

apt-get is telling me that I already have the newest version.

What gives?

Whatever you do, do not delete or modify the default python. The system relies on that version to do many things. Or you may have to totally reinstall if you remove python. — oldfred, Oct 07 '15 at 20:20
@EliahKagan that question is newer than this one . . . sigh — abcd, Nov 17 '17 at 15:25
Reviewers: See comments on the other question discussing whether closing this one is appropriate. — Eliah Kagan, Nov 17 '17 at 16:14

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 07 '15 at 19:24

The python package isn't constantly updated in Ubuntu like other applications such as firefox or chromium-browser. This isn't to say that the package will not get security updates; but I imagine that there probably aren't any major security issues if 14.04 LTS is still running 2.7.6 vs 2.7.10.

If you run apt-cache showpkg python2.7 or apt-get changelog python2.7 you can get more info.

Basically, you'll need to source install python (which is pretty easy). I did also find the following PPA: ppa:fkrull/deadsnakes but I cannot vouch for it.

Upgrading Python

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