Message 159298 - Python tracker (original) (raw)

Unfortunately, from what I can tell, this is OFF by default. I think that is a mistake. The default for something like this is really important because without new users being explicitly told to set it, new users will not. Most new Python users are just going to take the default values and still be confused by not being able to open the console and run python as in the instructions for various new user tutorials (i.e. web frameworks, scientific computing, etc).

To put things in perspective, the default under POSIX ("make install") is to make the installed version the default (by copying it into /usr/bin/python3). To change that behaviour, you have to use "make altinstall" explicitly.