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

[Barry Scott]

> On 1 Jan 2021, at 16:42, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 3:36 AM Barry Scott <barry at barrys-emacs.org <mailto: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.

In my case they are all installed from Fedora officially built and maintained RPMs.

Barry