RPi Debian Python3

Installing Python 3.2.3 on Debian Squeeze
This guide is aimed at developers, although it can be used by beginners if they know what they are after. It is provided as it is realised that the latest version of Python (3.2) is not available in Debian Squeeze. Other Linux RPi distributions will in future contain this by default. Note that Raspbian already includes Python 3.

To install the latest version of Python (3.2.3) to Debian: sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev sudo apt-get install libncurses-dev sudo apt-get install libbz2-dev sudo apt-get install libreadline-dev sudo apt-get install sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev sudo apt-get install libssl-dev sudo apt-get install libgdbm-dev sudo apt-get install tk-dev
 * 1) install dependencies

wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.2.3/Python-3.2.3.tar.bz2 tar xvfj Python-3.2.3.tar.bz2 cd Python-3.2.3

./configure
 * 1) (The 'configure' command takes approx 5 mins)

make
 * 1) (The 'make' command takes approx 46 min when you are not running X)

sudo make install
 * 1) (The 'make install' command takes approx 5 mins)

cd ~

IDLE shortcut in LXDE menu
To add an idle icon to the programming menu in LXDE:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/applications sudo nano /usr/local/share/applications/idle.desktop

Enter the following file contents: [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Exec=idle3 %F Type=Application Terminal=false Name=IDLE GenericName=IDLE StartupNotify=false Categories=Development;IDE;

Distribute module
To install most other Python modules, you will probably want to install the 'distribute' module. This is a replacement for the now deprecated 'setuptools':

wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/d/distribute/distribute-0.6.26.tar.gz tar xvfz distribute-0.6.26.tar.gz cd distribute-0.6.26 sudo python3 setup.py install cd ~

Numpy module
This requires a lot of system resources (memory) to build. Run it with nothing else running - do not run inside X! You may need to enable swap space.

N.B. Takes around 1 hr 40 to build

wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/n/numpy/numpy-1.6.1.tar.gz tar xvfz numpy-1.6.1.tar.gz cd numpy-1.6.1 python3 setup.py build sudo python3 setup.py install cd ~

PyGame Module
The latest (stable) release of PyGame does not support Python 3.2 so you have to use the development source. Make sure that you install the numpy module first. Note that sound does not work yet - I'll update this guide with instructions when it has been fixed.

(Takes around 15 minutes to build).

sudo apt-get install mercurial hg clone https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame cd pygame
 * 1) get pygame source code

sudo apt-get install libsdl-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev sudo apt-get install libsmpeg-dev libportmidi-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev
 * 1) install dependencies

python3 setup.py build sudo python3 setup.py install
 * 1) build and install pygame

PySide Module
As an alternative to PyQt you can use the compatible PySide module.

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install python3-pyside
 * 1) update the apt-get repositories
 * 1) get pyside

PyQt Module
Watch this space!

GPIO Module
Note that any programs that access GPIO using this module must be run as root.

wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/R/RPi.GPIO/RPi.GPIO-0.4.1a.tar.gz tar xvfz RPi.GPIO=0.4.1a.tar.gz cd RPi.GPIO-0.4.1a sudo python3 setup.py install cd ~