Python packages

Where does Python install its packages?

So I installed oh-my-zsh on my laptop, and for some reason my Python scripts that were installed with pip stopped working. This includes modules such as tldr, tqdm, tabview etc.

Not only that, but pip itself wasn’t working unless it was issued as

python3 -m pip install module

I have completely restarted my Linux experience on this laptop after upgrading to WSL 2 and installing the Windows terminal. So, first I had to install pip with

sudo apt install python3-pip

Now, when I install the above modules, I can see that they install under

/home/azizcodes/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages

and I am able to import them using the import command from within Python. However, I still couldn’t run the scripts. I thought of, maybe reinstall it?

pip3 uninstall tldr
Found existing installation: tldr 1.2.0
Uninstalling tldr-1.2.0:
  Would remove:
    /home/azizcodes/.local/bin/tldr
    /home/azizcodes/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/tldr-1.2.0.dist-info/*
    /home/azizcodes/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/tldr.py
Proceed (y/n)?

That’s a place I didn’t look in, /home/azizcodes/.local/bin/tldr. Turns out this is the location Python has been downloading the scripts to, but it is not in the path of either of my bash or zsh. Going to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc and adding the following

export PATH=$PATH:/home/azizcodes/.local/bin

fixes the issue.

Note: This is is a common problem when installing different versions from the same program. When in doubt, uninstall completely and reinstall will save you a lot of time.