pyversions

pyversions [options]

pyversions is a Debian-specific helper that reports information about Python 2 interpreter versions available on the system. It lists installed versions, the default version, the versions supported by the current Debian release, and the versions a source package requests via its X-Python-Version field in debian/control. It is used by Debian's Python packaging infrastructure (debhelper, dh_python2) to drive build-time decisions.The Python 3 counterpart is py3versions, which is the tool you should use today; pyversions itself was retired together with Python 2 in Debian 11 (bullseye) and removed from later releases.

-i, --installed

List installed Python versions.

List Python versions currently supported by the running Debian release.

Print the default Python version (target of /usr/bin/python).

Print the Python versions requested by a package source (defaults to the debian/control in the current directory).

Combined with one of the above, also print the corresponding interpreter path.

Debian/Ubuntu specific and Python-2 only. The package providing it (python) was dropped in Debian 11+ and Ubuntu 20.04+. On modern systems, use py3versions instead.

pyversions shipped as part of Debian's python-minimal / python package and was the canonical way to query Python 2 versions in Debian packaging. After Python 2 reached end-of-life on 2020-01-01, the tool was deprecated alongside the language and removed from current Debian/Ubuntu releases.

python(1), py3versions(1), update-alternatives(1)