Re: /usr/bin/python3 deprecation and enforcing /usr/bin/python

Alexandru Mihail <[email protected]> Fri, 14 Nov 2025 19:11:28 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.python
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Exactly what I was saying before in this thread as well. The amount of scripts with the #!/usr/bin/python3 shebang in the wild is staggering. I'm not saying
that it's good practice but it must be considered.
Maybe we could do a very gradual change, warning users in apt changes
for several versions of python before pulling the rug maybe in Debian 


14. Users often mentally prepare for a release upgrade to entail such
manual interventions.

On my pretty minimal trixie arm64 system:

worker@debian:/bin$ grep -r "bin/python3"
autopkgtest-build-qemu:#!/usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-lxd:#!/usr/bin/python3
py3compile:#! /usr/bin/python3
moggsplit:#!/usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-build-docker:#!/usr/bin/python3
suspicious-source:#! /usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-qemu:#!/usr/bin/python3
conch3:#! /usr/bin/python3
tqdm:#! /usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-build-lxd:#!/usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-null:#!/usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-ssh:#!/usr/bin/python3
pyproject-build:#! /usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-docker:#!/usr/bin/python3
mutagen-pony:#!/usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-buildvm-ubuntu-cloud:#!/usr/bin/python3
numpy-config:#!/usr/bin/python3
trial3:#! /usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest:#!/usr/bin/python3 -u
py.test:#!/usr/bin/python3
normalizer:#! /usr/bin/python3
mako-render:#!/usr/bin/python3
orca:#! /usr/bin/python3
pygmentize:#!/usr/bin/python3
automat-visualize3:#! /usr/bin/python3
mid3v2:#!/usr/bin/python3
debdiff-apply:#! /usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-chroot:#!/usr/bin/python3
zim:#!/usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-lxc:#!/usr/bin/python3
spd-conf:#! /usr/bin/python3
mid3iconv:#!/usr/bin/python3
wrap-and-sort:#! /usr/bin/python3
deluge:#! /usr/bin/python3
querybts:#! /usr/bin/python3
f2py3.13:if [ -x /usr/bin/python3.13 ]; then
f2py3.13:    exec /usr/bin/python3.13 /usr/bin/f2py "$@"
python3-unidiff:#!/usr/bin/python3
ckeygen3:#! /usr/bin/python3
twistd3:#! /usr/bin/python3
cftp3:#! /usr/bin/python3
deb-check-file-conflicts:#! /usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-unshare:#!/usr/bin/python3
mutagen-inspect:#!/usr/bin/python3
pygettext3.13:#! /usr/bin/python3.13
debftbfs:#! /usr/bin/python3
mailmail3:#! /usr/bin/python3
pydoc3.13:#! /usr/bin/python3.13
apt-listchanges:#!/usr/bin/python3
mid3cp:#!/usr/bin/python3
yt-dlp:#! /usr/bin/python3
py3clean:#! /usr/bin/python3
reportbug:#! /usr/bin/python3
f2py3:#!/usr/bin/python3
debianbts:#!/usr/bin/python3
pyhtmlizer3:#! /usr/bin/python3
deb-janitor:#! /usr/bin/python3
tkconch3:#! /usr/bin/python3
debootsnap:#! /usr/bin/python3
debbisect:#! /usr/bin/python3
f2py:#!/usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-virt-schroot:#!/usr/bin/python3
psrecord:#! /usr/bin/python3
sadt:#! /usr/bin/python3
deluge-gtk:#! /usr/bin/python3
isympy:#!/usr/bin/python3
pytest:#!/usr/bin/python3
twist3:#! /usr/bin/python3
websockets:#!/usr/bin/python3
meld:#!/usr/bin/python3
chardetect:#!/usr/bin/python3
reproducible-check:#! /usr/bin/python3
gitdiff:#!/usr/bin/python3
rrsync:#!/usr/bin/python3
autopkgtest-build-lxc:#!/usr/bin/python3

> Hi all,
> 
> On 12.11.25 16:49, Antoine Beaupré wrote:
> > I've been wondering whether it's time we finally make this
> > change. Concretely, I think it means:
> > 
> >   1. deprecating /usr/bin/python3
> >   2. shipping Python 3 as /usr/bin/python directly
> 
> What would be a motivation to warrant such a breaking change?
> Every script / program for Python3 I know uses
> #!/usr/bin/env python3
> (acknowledging virtualenv usage) or
> #!/usr/bin/python3
> 
> So this would be a very bad move for what gain exactly?
> 
> All the best
> Michael
> 
> Just a Debian and Python3 user
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