Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Moves Ahead With Python 2 Removal - But Sticks Around For Derivatives

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Moves Ahead With Python 2 Removal - But Sticks Around For Derivatives

With Python 2 having been end-of-life since the start of the year and Ubuntu 20.04 being a long-term support release, Ubuntu developers are working hard to ensure Python 2 isn't shipped as part of this next Ubuntu LTS release...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-20.04-Clear-Python2

[perpetually high]

Is the package python-pointing-topython2 still being worked on as well? Or is python-is-python2-but-deprecated the new name for it?

Running 20.04 for a few days now and the upgrade from 19.10 wasn't too painful. Had to pip3 install some things, re-installed some libs that were auto-removed during the upgrade, lazy updated the shebangs at the top of a couple scripts (youtube-dl for example, which mpv depends on) from /usr/bin/env python to /usr/bin/env python3.

I would definitely hold off if things are well for you on 19.10. Don't get me wrong I'm happy with 20.04 but it would be disingenuous to recommend a mid-February upgrade to it. I'm personally waiting for the new GNOME 3.36 to roll out and couldn't wait (though it is currently on 3.34.3). It might be in focal-proposed, not sure.

edit: PS - subtle brag , but as of yesterday my 2010 MBP with an i5-520M has the fastest multi-core score in the world, according to Geekbench4. =)

#1 for multi-core - https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu...ulticore_score
#5 for single core - https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu...20M&sort=score

For Geekbench5,

#3 for single core: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu...20M&sort=score
#4 for multi-core: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu...utlicore_score

The i5-520M is a good reference since there's no tweaking the hardware, what you see is what you get.

And on my Haswell i5-4670K (though I run daily at 4.3GHz now, these tests below were at 4.6GHz)

Geekbench4:

#3 - multi core: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu...ulticore_score
#5 - single core: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu...70k&sort=score

Geekbench5:

#4 - single core: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu...70k&sort=score
#7 - multi core: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu...ulticore_score

TL;DR perpetually high's tweak game is not to be f'd with. (shout out to Michael Larabel)

[bachchain]

Is the package python-pointing-topython2 still being worked on as well? Or is python-is-python2-but-deprecated the new name for it?

Maybe we can get a python-pointing-topython2-pointing-to-python-is-python2-but-deprecated package

[ThiagoCMC]

So, then, Python 2 will still be supported for the whole 20.04 cycle at the end of the day?

[skeevy420]

working to add a python-is-python2-but-deprecated package that will symlink /usr/bin/python to python2 for any hold-outs, and related work

And here I was thinking that my comment in the LLVM Go page was the most retarded thing I was going to read this week...

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Last time I checked kodi package from 20.04 repo wasn't installable due to python2 dependency.

[CommunityMember]

So, then, Python 2 will still be supported for the whole 20.04 cycle at the end of the day?

I would use the word tolerated rather than supported, and tolerated mostly for pragmatic reasons as some application developers for packages considered important, even with years of advanced notice, simply never did the work to convert to python3 (the same old argument of prioritizing the itch for a new features or bug fixes over working in the background on replacing code that worked with new code that did the same thing). So if something absolutely positively needs python2 it will be possible to use it, but you may need to jump through additional hoops as many python2 packages will not longer be directly available in 20.04 (local installs may be necessary - pip install is your new best friend). And note that toleration may not include any security fixes (without upstream support the bug may not be practically patchable).

As an example of pragmatism in another distro, there was a recent (a day or two ago) phoronix article that Fedora FESCO approved GNU Mailman to continue using python2 (for their web application, as I recall, as while the base package was python3 compliant, the web app was not yet ready).

One thing that gets a bit complicated is that there are some packages which themselves are python3 ready, but some of their community of plug-in writers have not yet converted those plugins to python3, resulting in impacts to the entire application experience. I seem to recall seeing that Kodi is (was?) in that boat.

[TemplarGR]

It is 2020 and we are still making a big fuss about finally not distributing python 2 by default.... Unbelievable.

[jabl]

So, then, Python 2 will still be supported for the whole 20.04 cycle at the end of the day?

Confused by this as well. Is python2 in the main repo, that is, will be supported by Canonical with security updates for the life of 20.04, or is it demoted to the universe repo?

[schmidtbag]

It hardly matters. Python2 is EOL, so there's hardly anything for Canonical to maintain. It isn't Canonical's problem if people continue to use something that will no longer be maintained.