On Tue, Sep 5, 2023 at 8:09 PM George N. White III <gnwiii@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Sep 5, 2023 at 5:55 AM Michael Hannon <jmhannon.ucdavis@gmail.com> wrote:
I think that the suggestions offered so far (environments, etc.) are all very good, but another approach is to use the Anaconda distribution of Python:


I use this distribution precisely to avoid any mixups with the Python files that come with the OS distribution.  Note that the use of the Anaconda version of Python doesn't preclude the use of pip, Python environments, etc.

Another advantage is that Anaconda provides consistency across multiple linux distros, macOS, and Windows.
 
And a disadvantage to anaconda from my view is it's package management is hard to navigate and poorly documented, at least in the limited time I spent trying to grok it.  Maybe mamba will improve things.