Installing Vyper

By default, Ubuntu Xenial has Python 3.5 installed. Vyper needs Python 3.6 software, and so you will need to install Python 3.6 first if you want to use Ubuntu Xenial. A newer version of Ubuntu, such as Bionic Beaver, will have Python 3.6 installed already.

So, if you don't have Python 3.6 software installed, you must install it first using the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update 
$ sudo apt-get install python3.6 python3.6-dev

It’s not just Python 3.6 that is required by Vyper; you need to install the development files python3.6-dev as well. Then you can create a virtual environment for Python 3.6 by going through the following steps:

1. First, you must install the virtualenv tool using the following code:

$ sudo apt-get install virtualenv

1. Then, create a virtual environment for Python 3.6 using the following code:

$ virtualenv -p python3.6 vyper-venv

1. Now, execute the virtual environment script as follows:

$ source vyper-venv/bin/activate

1. Next, install Vyper using pip as follows:

(vyper-venv) $ pip install vyper

1. If you don’t have any errors here, you are set to go. You can test the Vyper compiler as follows:

(vyper-venv) $ vyper --version
0.1.0b6

Then you are ready to embark on the next step of your journey.