Tkinter: "Python may not be configured for Tk"

Question

Today I wanted to start working with Tkinter, but I have some problems.

Python 3.2 (r32:88445, Mar 28 2011, 04:14:07) 
[GCC 4.4.5] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from tkinter import *
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "/usr/local/lib/python3.2/tkinter/__init__.py", line 39, in <module>
import _tkinter # If this fails your Python may not be configured for Tk
ImportError: No module named _tkinter

So how can I configure my Python 3.2 to work with Tkinter?

Although this doesn't directly answer your question, if you're looking to use the latest Python on Linux, using pre-compiled binaries (such as ActivePython - which includes Tkinter) would save a lot of time. — Sridhar Ratnakumar, Mar 28 '11 at 16:46
Every Linux distribution ever has an official python package. Unless you need something specific, using 3rd party binaries is actually discouraged. That said, you are probably one or two commands from having Tk support in python, but I need to know what flavor of Linux you are running. — Mad Wombat, Jan 12 '16 at 15:48
I think the most complete answer to this is here: [How to get tkinter working with Ubuntu's default Python 2.7 install?](http://stackoverflow.com/a/11799470/5402386) — mjp, Sep 09 '16 at 20:10

score 130 · Answer 1 · edited May 24 '22 at 23:50

130

Solution for Linux, Windows (WSL/Ubuntu) and MacOS

After trying a bunch of things, this is how it finally worked:

$ brew install python-tk

edited May 24 '22 at 23:50

rainabba

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answered May 10 '21 at 06:27

subtleseeker

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The brew install worked for me on Catalina – Pranab May 18 '21 at 07:01
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The pip3 package `tk` is TensorKit, see [here](https://pypi.org/project/tk/). I don't think this helps. – Patrick Aug 04 '21 at 12:43
1

brew install from my macOS terminal did the work, once I got back to Pycharm the 'no module' error was gone. – brunoazev Sep 22 '21 at 00:24
Good lord, thanks. I was trying a lot of things and finally, this made it work. – Naseem Ahamed Jan 21 '22 at 20:59
3

Brew isn't a "MacOS" thing. It's supported by Linux (including in WSL/Windows 10) as well as MacOS. In fact, the Linuxbrew project has been merged entirely into HomeBrew, so yeah; definately not a "MacOS" thing. – rainabba May 24 '22 at 23:48
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@rainabba but no self respecting linux user would use brew when there's asdf or the package manager available for the OS.... i mean you can't even pin a package to a version with brew.... – airtonix Apr 10 '23 at 07:23
every time I use brew install I want to get a hammer and disassemble the laptop. I can't believe that it always downloads 300 other things along the way, and `pouring` forever :rofl: I mean, why in heavens name would it download `php` if you want to get python-tk??? – Jun 09 '23 at 04:52

score 121 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 27 '16 at 21:27

121

Under Arch/Manjaro just install the package tk:

sudo pacman -S tk

answered Apr 27 '16 at 21:27

Jabba

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score 58 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 28 '11 at 13:14

58

Install tk-devel (or a similarly-named package) before building Python.

answered Mar 28 '11 at 13:14

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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On Ubuntu run 'sudo apt-get install tk-dev', and then re-run make – pycoder112358 Jan 16 '12 at 22:01
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@pycoder112358: I did it but it's still telling me `ImportError: No module named _tkinter` when I try to import tkinter. I use python3.4.0 compiled from source on ubuntu 13.10. – ARF Apr 04 '14 at 22:02
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What's `tk-devel` ? You should give at least a minimal explanation of why it should be useful in this case. – nbro Aug 08 '15 at 09:20
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As a comment to others, the "before building Python" is important here. When you install the module you need to rebuild python before it'll find the module. – mjp Sep 09 '16 at 20:09
This is the correct solution when installing Python from source on a Linux system. – filip Jul 19 '23 at 07:43

PaulMest · Answer 4 · 2019-10-09T17:14:13.820

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To get this to work with pyenv on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04, I had to:

$ sudo apt-get install python-tk python3-tk tk-dev

Then install the version of Python I wanted:

$ pyenv install 3.6.2

Then I could import tkinter just fine:

import tkinter

edited Oct 09 '19 at 17:14

answered Aug 10 '17 at 19:42

PaulMest

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And for MacOS X all you need is `brew install python-tk`. – yannis May 08 '21 at 18:25
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Intuitively I'd think that you would only need to install the `tk-dev` package for this to work, but I haven't tested it so I'm not sure. – Avi Nerenberg Jan 10 '23 at 21:21

score 37 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 28 '11 at 13:15

37

According to http://wiki.python.org/moin/TkInter :

If it fails with "No module named _tkinter", your Python configuration needs to be modified to include this module (which is an extension module implemented in C). Do not edit Modules/Setup (it is out of date). You may have to install Tcl and Tk (when using RPM, install the -devel RPMs as well) and/or edit the setup.py script to point to the right locations where Tcl/Tk is installed. If you install Tcl/Tk in the default locations, simply rerunning "make" should build the _tkinter extension.

answered Mar 28 '11 at 13:15

Sandro Munda

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How do you edit the setup.py script? How do you rerun make? I'm trying to do this on a mac and I'm finding that I should just return the mac and get a windows machine. – Drew Rush Feb 16 '14 at 09:04
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In my case this was caused by an upgrade of `tk`. It was only used by `matplotlib`, and that can be circumnavigated: http://stackoverflow.com/a/4935945/1959808 – 0 _ Nov 18 '15 at 06:31
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the setup.py is located in source code directory of python – dasons Sep 08 '17 at 13:47
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I have roughly 50 setup.py files in my computer, which is the right one? – logic1976 Oct 19 '19 at 02:36
Simply installing the `tk` package fixed the problem for me. – n-anselm Feb 05 '22 at 16:50

score 8 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 10 '20 at 06:23

8

So appearantly many seems to have had this issue (me including) and I found the fault to be that Tkinter wasn't installed on my system when python was compiled.

This post describes how to solve the problem by:

Removing the virtual environment/python distribution
install Tkinter with sudo apt-get install tk-dev (for deb) or sudo pacman -S tk (for arch/manjaro)
Then proceed to compile python again.

This worked wonders for me.

answered Mar 10 '20 at 06:23

Jakob Guldberg Aaes

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This is the right solution, thanks! I still don't know why the most upvoted answers make you go through a lot of hoops without explaining how to do it even and a simple command line is buried at the bottom... – tralph3 Sep 25 '20 at 18:42
Thank you for your kind words. Hope that someone else might find this more useful than all the guesswork that has been done is this thread :/ – Jakob Guldberg Aaes Sep 28 '20 at 07:38

score 6 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 11 '22 at 10:24

6

since I can not comment yet, here's my answer to another post:

since I'm still using python 3.9, this code works for me:

brew install python-tk@3.9

if using brew install python-tk brew will install python-tk@3.10 which is key-only

answered Sep 11 '22 at 10:24

Ann

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this finally worked! – JonnySins666 Sep 14 '22 at 04:09

score 5 · Answer 8 · answered May 10 '21 at 15:51

5

I also faced similar problem. I resolved it by installing python-tk in my system.

Command for mac : brew install python-tk.

answered May 10 '21 at 15:51

Vikas Gupta

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score 4 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 12 '16 at 15:39

Had the same issue on Fedora with Python 2.7. Turns out some extra packages are required:

sudo dnf install tk-devel tkinter

After installing the packages, this hello-world example seems to be working fine on Python 2.7:

$ cat hello.py
from Tkinter import *
root = Tk()
w = Label(root, text="Hello, world!")
w.pack()
root.mainloop()
$ python --version
Python 2.7.8
$ python hello.py

And through X11 forwarding, it looks like this:

Note that in Python 3, the module name is lowercase, and other packages are probably required...

from tkinter import *

sudo: dnf: command not found (I'm ubuntu, is this the difference?) — mjp, Apr 27 '16 at 23:48

score 4 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 22 '17 at 00:42

Oh I just have followed the solution Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams has suggest which is install tk-dev before building the python. (Building the Python-3.6.1 from source on Ubuntu 16.04.)

There was pre-compiled objects and binaries I have had build yesterday though, I didn't clean up the objects and just build again on the same build path. And it works beautifully.

sudo apt install tk-dev
(On the python build path)
(No need to conduct 'make clean')
./configure
make
sudo make install

That's it!

score 3 · Answer 11 · edited Jul 23 '17 at 14:37

3

sudo apt-get install python3-tk

edited Jul 23 '17 at 14:37

stelioslogothetis

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answered Jul 23 '17 at 09:32

Rafal

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score 3 · Answer 12 · answered Sep 26 '21 at 11:42

3

Installing Tkinter

python -m pip install tk-tools

or

sudo apt install python3-tk

Code

from tkinter import *

root = Tk()
root.title('My App')
# Code
root.mainloop()

answered Sep 26 '21 at 11:42

Mr.Programmer nope

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score 3 · Answer 13 · answered Apr 10 '23 at 22:37

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if you're managing python with https://asdf-vm.com/ on linux, then :

Fedora

$ asdf uninstall python 3.10.10
$ sudo dnf install tk-devel
$ asdf install  python 3.10.10

Ubuntu

$ asdf uninstall python 3.10.10
$ sudo apt-get install tk-dev
$ asdf install  python 3.10.10

https://github.com/asdf-community/asdf-python/issues/121#issuecomment-1279537646

answered Apr 10 '23 at 22:37

airtonix

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This is what worked for me on macOS as I was also managing my pythons via asdf. Thank you! – Karthic Raghupathi Jul 29 '23 at 02:49
This is what fixed my issue on Ubuntu. Thank you. – Martin Héroux Aug 19 '23 at 05:37

score 2 · Answer 14 · edited May 22 '18 at 06:07

2

I encountered this issue on python 2.7.9.
To fix it, I installed tk and tcl, and then rebuild python code and reinstall, and during configure, I set the path for tk and tcl explicitly, by:

./configure --with-tcltk-includes="-I/usr/include" --with-tcltk-libs="-L/usr/lib64 -ltcl8.5 -L/usr/lib64 -ltk8.5"

Also, a whole article for python install process: Building Python from Source

edited May 22 '18 at 06:07

Billal Begueradj

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answered Sep 08 '17 at 14:00

dasons

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score 2 · Answer 15 · answered Dec 14 '21 at 01:03

2

now i figured out what's going on ubuntu,

Follow these step to solve the issue

check your python version python3 --version
Lets Imagine you have python 3.10
Then Install Python-tk for the python version by using bellow command
sudo apt install python3.10-tk

simple if you have python3.8 then sudo apt install python{"use your python version here"}-tk

answered Dec 14 '21 at 01:03

Anshu Meena

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`apt install python3.7-tk` Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package python3.7-tk E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'python3.7-tk' E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'python3.7-tk' – Cedric Martens May 09 '23 at 18:29

score 1 · Answer 16 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

I think the most complete answer to this is the accepted answer found here:

How to get tkinter working with Ubuntu's default Python 2.7 install?

I figured it out after way too much time spent on this problem, so hopefully I can save someone else the hassle.

I found this old bug report deemed invalid that mentioned the exact problem I was having, I had Tkinter.py, but it couldn't find the module _tkinter: http://bugs.python.org/issue8555

I installed the tk-dev package with apt-get, and rebuilt Python using ./configure, make, and make install in the Python2.7.3 directory. And now my Python2.7 can import Tkinter, yay!

I'm a little miffed that the tk-dev package isn't mentioned at all in the Python installation documentation.... below is another helpful resource on missing modules in Python if, like me, someone should discover they are missing more than _tkinter.

score 1 · Answer 17 · answered May 22 '18 at 05:47

To anyone using Windows and Windows Subsystem for Linux, make sure that when you run the python command from the command line, it's not accidentally running the python installation from WSL! This gave me quite a headache just now. A quick check you can do for this is just
which <python command you're using>
If that prints something like /usr/bin/python2 even though you're in powershell, that's probably what's going on.

score 1 · Answer 18 · answered Nov 14 '18 at 04:52

1

If you're running on an AWS instance that is running Amazon Linux OS, the magic command to fix this for me was

sudo yum install tkinter

If you want to determine your Linux build, try cat /etc/*release

answered Nov 14 '18 at 04:52

StackG

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score 1 · Answer 19 · answered Oct 12 '22 at 08:01

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If you are using Manjaro(Arch Linux) run below command in your terminal

sudo pacman -S tk

answered Oct 12 '22 at 08:01

Bushra Mustofa

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score 0 · Answer 20 · answered Jun 13 '17 at 00:50

This symptom can also occur when a later version of python (2.7.13, for example) has been installed in /usr/local/bin "alongside of" the release python version, and then a subsequent operating system upgrade (say, Ubuntu 12.04 --> Ubuntu 14.04) fails to remove the updated python there.

To fix that imcompatibility, one must

a) remove the updated version of python in /usr/local/bin;

b) uninstall python-idle2.7; and

c) reinstall python-idle2.7.

score 0 · Answer 21 · answered Sep 25 '20 at 12:47

Even after installing python-tk, python3-tk I was getting error your python is not configured for Tk.

So I additionally installed tk8.6-dev Then I build my Python again, run following again: make, make install.

When I did this I saw messages on screen that it is building _tkinter and related modules. Once that is done, I tried 'import tkinter" and it worked.

score 0 · Answer 22 · answered Mar 28 '23 at 10:43

0

In my case, pyenv was installed but I was not aware of it. I needed to uninstall and reinstall the python version via pyenv to fix the tkinter configuration after installing the right version of python3.x-tk.

answered Mar 28 '23 at 10:43

Christoph Thiede

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Tkinter: "Python may not be configured for Tk"

22 Answers22

Solution for Linux, Windows (WSL/Ubuntu) and MacOS

Installing Tkinter

or

Code

Linked