If you're using an account on a hosted server, your ISP may have already installed Python 3. If you’re running Linux at home, you may already have Python 3, too. Most popular GNU/Linux distributions come with Python 2 in the default installation; a small but growing number of distributions also include Python 3. Mac OS X includes a command-line version of Python 2, but as of this writing it does not include Python 3. Microsoft Windows does not come with any version of Python. But don’t despair! You can point-and-click your way through installing Python, regardless of what operating system you have. -
The easiest way to check for Python 3 on your Linux or Mac OS X system is to get to a command line. On Linux, look in your Applications menu for a program called Terminal. (It may be in a submenu like Accessories or System.) On Mac OS X, there is an application called Terminal.app in your /Application/Utilities/ folder.
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The easiest way to check for Python 3 on your Linux or Mac OS X system is to get to a command line. On Linux, look in your Applications menu for a program called Terminal. (It may be in a submenu like Accessories or System.) On Mac OS X, there is an application called Terminal.app in your /Applications/Utilities/ folder. (More command line help is available in the appendix.)
Once you’re at a command line prompt, just type python3 (all lowercase, no spaces) and see what happens. On my home Linux system, Python 3 is already installed, and this command gets me into the Python interactive shell.