Ubuntu-16-04-Upgrade Python version to 3-6

Preface

There's no way around it—the Unity desktop is just too good. While having Unity installed on Ubuntu 18.04 works, it's not entirely seamless. So yesterday, I decided to downgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 to enjoy the native Unity desktop experience.

Everything is working smoothly, but the default Python version is a bit outdated. Therefore, I need to upgrade it using the trusty PPA repository.

Operations

Installing Python 3.6

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/python-3.6
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3.6

Switching Python Versions: Warning! After a period of testing, it's best not to switch the Python3 version here; just keep version 3.5. Many Ubuntu system software depend on Python, and I've personally experienced that upgrading to 3.6 causes many programs to malfunction!

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.5 2
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.6 2
sudo update-alternatives --config python3

Verification

python3 -V

Result:

OK!

Installing pip3

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | sudo python3.6

Terminal Won't Open Issue

After upgrading to Python 3.6, if the built-in terminal fails to open, you can press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to the command line and execute the following commands:

cd /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi/
sudo cp _gi.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so _gi.cpython-36m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
sudo cp _gi_cairo.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so _gi_cairo.cpython-36m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so

After that, press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to switch back to the graphical interface, and everything should be back to normal～

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