How to Install Pip on Ubuntu 18.04 System

PIP is a package management system used for installation and management of software packages in Python. PIP stands for Python Package Index (PyPI). Installation of PIP is pretty straightforward. In this tutorial, described how to install PIP on Ubuntu 18.04 system.

Prerequisites#

Before you start installation of PIP, you should logged in as non-root user with sudo privileges.

Install PIP for Python 3#

By default, Python 3 is pre-installed with Ubuntu 18.04. Follow the below steps to install PIP for Python 3.

At first, you should update the package list using below command:

sudo apt update

Next, execute below command to install pip:

sudo apt install python3-pip

Once the installation is finished you can verify installation by typing:

pip3 --version

Version number of PIP may change with time. It will show output as below:

Output
pip 9.0.1 from /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages (python 3.6)

Installing pip for Python 2#

First of all you need to update the package manager index by issue below command:

sudo apt update

After that you need to install Python 2 as it’s not pre-installed. So run following command to install Python 2 and PIP for it:

sudo apt install python-pip

Again, confirm the version of pip by typing:

pip --version

Output should as:

Output
pip 9.0.1 from /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (python 2.7)

Use of PIP for Python 3#

Here, we will see some useful basic pip commands. First of all to get the list of all the commands in PIP issue below command:

pip3 --help

If you want to get information for particular command then issue command as below:

pip install --help

Above command will give details about install command.

To search package using PIP just type as below:

pip3 search PACKAGE_NAME

You should replace PACKAGE_NAME with the name of package which you want to search.

Install Package Using Pip#

Below is the syntax to install package with PIP:

pip3 install PACKAGE_NAME

Same as search replace the PACKAGE_NAME with package name.

Install Packages Using Requirements File#

You can install packages using requirements file. requirement.txt is a text file that contains a list of pip packages with their versions which are required to run a specific Python project. Use below command to install a list of requirements specified in a file:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Upgrade a Package With Pip#

You can upgrade already installed packages to latest version using below command:

pip3 install --upgrade PACKAGE_NAME

Uninstalling Packages With Pip#

To uninstall package with pip issue command:

pip3 uninstall PACKAGE_NAME

Note : If you are using Python 2 then replace pip3 with pip when issuing commands.

Conclusion#

You have learned how to install PIP on Ubuntu 18.04 for Python 3 and Python 2. Also you learnt how to manage Python packages using pip. You can get more details about pip from this guide.

If you have any question or suggestion leave a comment below.