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To program in Python, you need a Python interpreter to run your code—we will discuss interpreters later. If it's not already installed, or if the version you are using is obsolete, you will need to obtain and install Python using the methods below. The current Python versions are 3.x; versions 2.x are discontinued and no longer maintained.

Installing Python in Windows

Go to the Python Homepage and get the proper version for your platform. Download it, read the instructions and get it installed.

To run Python from the command line, you will need to have the python directory in your PATH. You can instruct the Python installer to add Python to the path, but if you do not do that, you can add it manually. The PATH variable can be modified from the Window's System control panel. To expand the PATH in Windows 7:

Go to Start.
Right click on computer.
Click on properties.
Click on 'Advanced System Settings'
Click on 'Environmental Variables'.
In the system variables select Path and edit it, by appending a ';' (without quote) and adding 'C:\python27'(without quote).

If you prefer having a temporary environment, you can create a new command prompt short-cut that automatically executes the following statement:

PATH %PATH%;c:\python27

If you downloaded a different version (such as Python 3.1), change the "27" for the version of Python you have (27 is 2.7.x, the current version of Python 2.)

Cygwin

By default, the Cygwin installer for Windows does not include Python in the downloads. However, it can be selected from the list of packages.

Installing Python on Mac

Users on Mac OS X will find that it already ships with Python 2.3 (OS X 10.4 Tiger) or Python 2.6.1 (OS X Snow Leopard), but if you want the more recent version head to Python Download Page follow the instruction on the page and in the installers. As a bonus you will also install the Python IDE.

Installing Python on Unix environments

Python is available as a package for most Linux distributions. In some cases, the distribution CD will contain the python package for installation, while other distributions require downloading the source code and using the compilation scripts.

Gentoo Linux

Gentoo includes Python by default—the package management system Portage depends on Python.

Ubuntu Linux

Users of Ubuntu will notice that Python comes installed by default, only it sometimes is not the latest version. To check which version of Python is installed, type

python -V

into the terminal.

Arch Linux

Arch Linux does not come with Python pre-installed by default, but it is easily available for installation through the package manager to pacman. As root (or using sudo if you've installed and configured it), type:

pacman -S python

This will be update package databases and install Python 3. Python 2 can be installed with:

pacman -S python2

Other versions can be built from source from the Arch User Repository.

Source code installations

Some platforms do not have a version of Python installed, and do not have pre-compiled binaries. In these cases, you will need to download the source code from the official site. Once the download is complete, you will need to unpack the compressed archive into a folder.

To build Python, simply run the configure script (requires the Bash shell) and compile using make.

Other Distributions

Python, also referred to as CPython to avoid confusion, is written in the C programming language, and is the official reference implementation. CPython can run on various platforms due to its portability.

Apart from CPython there are also other implementations that run on top of a virtual machine. For example, on Java's JRE (Java Runtime Environment) or Microsoft's .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime). Both can access and use the libraries available on their platform. Specifically, they make use of reflection that allows complete inspection and use of all classes and objects for their very technology.

Python Implementations (Platforms)

Environment	Description	Get From
Jython	Java Version of Python	Jython
IronPython	C# Version of Python	IronPython

Integrated Development Environments (IDE)

It's common to use a simple text editor for writing Python code, but you may feel the need to upgrade to a more advanced IDE. CPython ships with IDLE; however, IDLE is not considered user-friendly.^[1] For Linux, KDevelop and Spyder are popular. For Windows, PyScripter is free, quick to install, and comes included with PortablePython.

Some Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) for Python

Environment	Description	Get From
ActivePython	Highly flexible, Pythonwin IDE	ActivePython
Anjuta	IDE Linux/Unix	Anjuta
Eclipse (PyDev plugin)	Open-source IDE	Eclipse
Eric	Open-source Linux/Windows IDE.	Eric
KDevelop	Cross-language IDE for KDE	KDevelop
Ninja-IDE	Cross-platform open-source IDE.	Nina-IDE
PyScripter	Free Windows IDE (portable)	PyScripter
Pythonwin	Windows-oriented environment	Pythonwin
Spyder	Free cross-platform IDE (math-oriented)	Spyder
VisualWx	Free GUI Builder	VisualWx

The Python official wiki has a complete list of IDEs.

There are several commercial IDEs such as Komodo, BlackAdder, Code Crusader, Code Forge, and PyCharm. However, for beginners learning to program, purchasing a commercial IDE is unnecessary.

Trying Python online

You can try Python online, thereby avoiding the need to install. The online Python shell at Python's official site provides a web Python REPL (read–eval–print loop).

Keeping Up to Date

Python has a very active community and the language itself is evolving continuously. Make sure to check python.org for recent releases and relevant tools. The website is an invaluable asset.

Public Python-related mailing lists are hosted at mail.python.org. Two examples of such mailing lists are the Python-announce-list to keep up with newly released third party-modules or software for Python and the general discussion list Python-list. These lists are mirrored to the Usenet newsgroups comp.lang.python.announce & comp.lang.python.