Changing the Python version on Google Colab

If you log in to Colab (as of the date of writing this article), the Python version we get is 3.10. However, we may require a different version of Python to reproduce the results of a paper because of the dependency of a library. Let’s see how we can do that in some simple steps.

#Step 1: Update Apt Packages

!apt-get update -y

#Step 2: Install Python Version

Suppose we want to install Python-3.8

!apt-get install python3.8 python3.8-distutils

#Step 3: Configure Update-Alternatives

!update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/python3 python3 /usr/bin/python3.8 1

#Step 4: Verify Python Version

!update-alternatives --config python3

#Step 5: Install and Upgrade Pip

!apt-get install python3-pip
!python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip --user

Now you are good to go!

If we don't install python3.8-distutils, then we will get the error shown below when upgrading pip.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘distutils.cmd’

Originally published on Medium.