How to completely uninstall python 2.7.13 on Ubuntu 16.04

I installed Python 2.7.13 on Ubuntu 16.04 according to this guide, and it became the default version as an alternative to the version 2.7.12. But, I wanted to completely remove Python 2.7.13 and return back to the version 2.7.12 as the default version since the pip command does not work with the following error.

bash: /usr/local/bin/pip: /usr/bin/python: bad interpreter: No such file or directory 

Could you please help me how to completely remove Python 2.7.13 from Ubuntu 16.04? Otherwise, could you please suggest how to fix the above error?

6 Answers

How I do:

# Remove python2 sudo apt purge -y python2.7-minimal # You already have Python3 but # don't care about the version sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python # Same for pip sudo apt install -y python3-pip sudo ln -s /usr/bin/pip3 /usr/bin/pip # Confirm the new version of Python: 3 python --version 

caution : It is not recommended to remove the default Python from Ubuntu, it may cause GDM(Graphical Display Manager, that provide graphical login capabilities) failed.

To completely uninstall Python2.x.x and everything depends on it. use this command:

sudo apt purge python2.x-minimal 

As there are still a lot of packages that depend on Python2.x.x. So you should have a close look at the packages that apt wants to remove before you let it proceed.

Thanks, I hope it will be helpful for you.

try following to see all instances of python

whereis python which python 

Then remove all instances using:

sudo apt autoremove python 

repeat sudo apt autoremove python(for all versions) that should do it, then install Anaconda and manage Pythons however you like if you need to reinstall it.

sudo apt purge python2.7-minimal 

Sometimes you need to first update the apt repo list.

sudo apt-get update sudo apt purge python2.7-minimal 

This is what I have after doing purge of all the python versions and reinstalling only 3.6.

root@esp32:/# python Python 3.6.0b2 (default, Oct 11 2016, 05:27:10) [GCC 6.2.0 20161005] on linux Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> root@esp32:/# python3 Python 3.8.0 (default, Dec 15 2019, 14:19:02) [GCC 6.2.0 20161005] on linux Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. 

Also the pip and pip3 commands are totally f up:

root@esp32:/# pip Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 7, in <module> from pip._internal.cli.main import main File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pip/_internal/cli/main.py", line 60 sys.stderr.write(f"ERROR: {exc}") ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax root@esp32:/# pip3 Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/bin/pip3", line 7, in <module> from pip._internal.cli.main import main File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/pip/_internal/cli/main.py", line 60 sys.stderr.write(f"ERROR: {exc}") ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax 

I am totally noob at Linux, I just wanted to update Python from 2.x to 3.x so that Platformio could upgrade and now I messed up everything it seems.