Why do I have both /usr/lib/python3 and /usr/lib/python3.8?

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 3:36 AM Barry Scott <barry at barrys-emacs.org> wrote:
>
> FYI this is what I have installed (lspy is a personal script):
>
> $ lspy
> /bin/python: 3.9.1 final 0
> /bin/python2: 2.7.18 final 0
> /bin/python2.7: 2.7.18 final 0
> /bin/python3: 3.9.1 final 0
> /bin/python3.10: 3.10.0 alpha 3
> /bin/python3.4: 3.4.10 final 0
> /bin/python3.5: 3.5.10 final 0
> /bin/python3.6: 3.6.12 final 0
> /bin/python3.9: 3.9.1 final 0
> /bin/python34: 3.4.10 final 0
> /bin/python35: 3.5.10 final 0
> /usr/bin/python: 3.9.1 final 0
> /usr/bin/python2: 2.7.18 final 0
> /usr/bin/python2.7: 2.7.18 final 0
> /usr/bin/python3: 3.9.1 final 0
> /usr/bin/python3.10: 3.10.0 alpha 3
> /usr/bin/python3.4: 3.4.10 final 0
> /usr/bin/python3.5: 3.5.10 final 0
> /usr/bin/python3.6: 3.6.12 final 0
> /usr/bin/python3.9: 3.9.1 final 0
> /usr/bin/python34: 3.4.10 final 0
> /usr/bin/python35: 3.5.10 final 0
>

Pretty similar to mine, except that (a) most of the Pythons are in
/usr/local/bin rather than /bin or /usr/bin, and (b) with just a
couple of exceptions, they're all alphas and betas (eg 3.7.0a4+) built
from git. I keep a single 2.7 around (provided by Debian Stable), and
a couple of different 3.x versions are Debian-provided, with all the
rest (from 3.4 to 3.10) hanging around from having been built.

ChrisA