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pythonlocal

Create a link in /usr/bin for python?

We have a large number of scripts on an old CentOS system that begin with #!/usr/local/bin/python2.7. We are setting up a new host with RH EL7 and noticed that Python 2.7.5 is installed at /usr/bin/python2.7 instead of /user/local/bin/python2.7. This means that the old scripts won't be able to find python on the new RH system.

To avoid editing all the scripts, would simply adding at link at /usr/local/bin/python2.7 pointing to /usr/bin/python2.7 work? Is there a downfall to this approach?

Thank you!

Solution

  • On almost any modern distro, python points to python3 which in turn points to python3.7. So no, there's no down side to symlinking like this.

    Just know what you're doing and why you're doing it.

    enter image description here

    Removed my comment and added it as an answer, since the question doesn't appear to be closing and others were posting information on the topic as answers.