Build a Ubuntu docker with Python3 and pip support.

I am using the official Ubuntu docker. The following is a minimum Dockerfile:

FROM ubuntu:18.04

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y software-properties-common gcc && \
    add-apt-repository -y ppa:deadsnakes/ppa

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y python3.6 python3-distutils python3-pip python3-apt

In order to install the more recent version of Python3, we use ppa from deadnakes. It has various Python versions from 3.1 to 3.10 for your need.

The command add-apt-repository is provided by package software-properties-common. It can be used to add a custom package repository. The -y option for add-apt-repository will say yes to all the prompts, like what -y for apt-getdoes.

We need to install gcc because some python packages requires building when installing via pip.

After adding the ppa:deadsnakes/ppa repo, pip3 is not included by default. Initially, I tried to install pip via get-pip.py manually, and I get the error that No module named ‘distutils.util’. We need to install python3-pip, python3-distutils and python3-apt to install pip3. This is the easiest way I found.

Ref:

• https://phoenixnap.com/kb/how-to-install-python-3-ubuntu