> On 4 Aug 2024, at 03:31, o1bigtenor via Dng <dng@???> wrote:
>
> 
> Greetings
>
> Looking at ESP8266 and wanting to program it using micropython (really don't want to have to learn C++ (not enough hours in the day as it is!!)).
>
> One of the tools I need to be able to use is esptools - - well in the debian world you need to run that on either Devaun 3 or 5 - - - its just not available on devuan 4.
>
> Tried installing all the tools I need using downloads and .deb installs but then I need to have python3.12 and that's also not part of Devuan4.
>
> Not versed enough to set up a good venv (if that's possible) so that I could work in that specific venv and have my cake (and get to eat it too (grin!).
>
> Suggestions - - - ideas - - - please?
>
> TIA

There’s a few ways you could do this. My recommendation would be to install pyenv and use that to manage various python version installs on your local system.

https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv

Pyenv can also easily manage your virtual environments (venv) so you can install packages in an isolated environment and not worry about it interfering with the local system python.

The problem you encountered trying to use pip is due to https://peps.python.org/pep-0668/ PEP 668, which prevents pip from interacting with the OS installed python. This change has been done in red hat and other distros too so it’s not specific to Debian or Devuan. The system python install from apt/deb package will now only be usable with python packages provided and installed via Debian/devuan apt repositories.

You will need to install python with pyenv and use pyenv to activate a virtual environment to be able to use pip successfully in any recent Linux OS release.

Tom