youtube-dl: /usr/bin/env: ‘python’: No such file or directory
Checklist
- I’m reporting a broken site support issue
- I’ve verified that I’m running youtube-dl version 2021.06.06
- I’ve checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
- I’ve checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
- I’ve searched the bugtracker for similar bug reports including closed ones
- I’ve read bugs section in FAQ
Verbose log
yoones:~$ whereis youtube-dl
youtube-dl: /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
yoones:~$ youtube-dl
/usr/bin/env: ‘python’: No such file or directory
Description
OS: Debian 11.1
I have the following binaries installed:
- python2.7
- python3
- python3.9
The shebang of youtube-dl (#!/usr/bin/env python) does not work in this context since there is no executable file called python.
Suggested solution:
Have a shell script that acts as a launcher. This script could for instance embed a list of known python interpreters (python, python2.7, python3, …) and use the first of the list that is present on the host.
About this issue
- Original URL
- State: open
- Created 3 years ago
- Comments: 22 (7 by maintainers)
For the moment, install the python-is-python3 package. Or
sudo ln /usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/python.Debian decided that there shouldn’t be a
pythoncommand by default, perhaps to flush out Py 2 dependencies. Apparently the yt-dl Debian 11+ package would be responsible for patching the shebang(s).For the self-extracting version, it would be necessary to identify what approach other distros are taking. Perhaps
/usr/bin/python3should be the new default.For me it worked like this:
sudo ln /usr/bin/python3.8 /usr/local/bin/python.Youtube-dl is a Python program, not a Python2 or Python3 program. When Python2 was more of a thing, and when yt-dl was created, Python2 was Python. My personal memory of Pythons doesn’t go back to Python 1.x, but I gather that regular small changes in language behaviour were typical between 1.x and early 2.x versions, without a big fork as happened with 2->3.
As Python3 became more widespread, compatibility shims were added to yt-dl so that the code now uses a subset of Python3, avoiding incompatible syntax (eg
f'{expression}') and with certain incompatible library calls hidden under aliases that invoke a shim suitable for the actual Python version.Without speaking for Debian, I believe that this was their plan:
pythonexecutable (alias) to flush out programs that don’t mention 2 or 3In this framework, if you as a user or system admin have Python programs that care about the Python version but just ask for
python, you should decide where the majority lies, install the appropriate python-is-… package for those programs, and fix the others. yt-dl won’t care whether you give it 2.7 or 3.9 (eg, but especially as I run those): it’s just caught in the cross-fire.This is just papering over the underlying problem that the Python language was forked incompatibly, like a toy language, but at least GvR did it more or less himself: JavaScript needs an entire standards committee.
Ubuntu 22.04
sudo ln /usr/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/pythonsudo apt install python-is-python3@pablodz, It Works for me!
So either of the proposed solutions should work, assuming that Kubuntu 20.04 still has python-is-python3.
The proposal with the
lncommand is making a link in the/usr/local/bin/directory, which is normally ahead of the main system directories in thePATH, so that typingpythoncausespython3, which is actuallypython3.8, to run.Don’t the original suggestions here help?