Install Python 3.9.5 from source – Work related

Run it as root

Install software requirements

yum install gcc openssl-devel bzip2-devel libffi-devel -y

Download Python 3.9.2 and extract files

mkdir downloads
cd downloads
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.5/Python-3.9.5.tgz
tar -xzf Python-3.9.5.tgz 
cd Python-3.9.5/

Compile and Install

Note: If you don’t have sudo permissions don’t use –enable-shared and change the –prefix to –prefix=/home/username/python3 (where python3 is the folder where you want the new Python to be installed.

./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-ipv6 --enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions --enable-optimizations --enable-shared
make altinstall

or this if you don't want enable-shared

./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-optimizations
make altinstall

With –eanabled-shared you will get the following eror

which python3
python3.9: error while loading shared libraries: libpython3.9.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The fix

ldconfig /usr/local/lib

Or even better, create a python3.conf file and run ldconfig after that

cd /etc/ld.so.conf.d/
touch python3.conf
Add the following in python3.com
/usr/local/lib
Then run ldconfig

Create shortcut

ln -s /usr/local/bin/python3.9 /usr/bin/python3

Check again

which python3
/usr/bin/python3