How to uninstall python in ubuntu completely and reinstalling it?

Question

The default python version was 2.7.12 in ubuntu. I installed python2.7.13 using the below commands.

Then download using the following command:

version=2.7.13
cd ~/Downloads/
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/$version/Python-$version.tgz

Extract and go to the directory:

tar -xvf Python-$version.tgz
cd Python-$version

Now, install using the command you just tried, using checkinstall instead to make it easier to uninstall if needed:

./configure
sudo make install

Now there is some issue in pandas(giving no module named pandas when I try to import but if we try to install it shows required already satisfied) so I want to completely remove python 2.7.13 and reinstall python 2.7.12. How can I achieve this?

Don't try to uninstall default python otherwise chances are many of your components of your ubuntu stop working. Just use virtual environments if you want to use different pythons. — Arpit Solanki, Feb 21 '18 at 06:44
https://tecadmin.net/install-python-2-7-on-ubuntu-and-linuxmint/ — Psytho, Feb 21 '18 at 09:11
There is some problem in pandas package in python 2.7.14 on ubuntu — Prajna Hegde, Feb 21 '18 at 09:33

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered May 16 '18 at 09:45

My python was corrupted due to some module. So I planned to re-installed or remove the python completely from my Ubuntu 16.04 machine. But sudo apt-get install --reinstall python2.7 command was also failing and was throwing same error. So I finally Did few hacks and cracks. Here are the steps -

Removing all python version manually

 - sudo rm -rf /usr/bin/python2.x as well as python3.x
 - sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/python2.x as well as python3.x
 - sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/python2.x as well as python 3.x

Updating Ubuntu

 - sudo apt-get update

In Between if you get this error The package needs to be reinstalled ubuntu Then Run following command

sudo vi /var/lib/dpkg/status

And delete all the lines from above file for the package which was expecting re-install and run sudo apt-get update again.

Now download a python tgz file from https://www.python.org/downloads/ and unzip it and CD into it

./configure
make test
sudo make install

Python should be installed now. Check by running python

What is the result of 'which python' and 'python --version' after install? You deleted python from /usr/bin but after re-install it would be in /usr/local/bin/. I don't think these are same. — keyur, Jan 07 '21 at 03:31

How to uninstall python in ubuntu completely and reinstalling it?

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