For building Python-based web applications, it is imperative to use the Flask backend framework. Flask is a compact framework with integrated debugging capabilities and a development server. In this article, we will discuss how to install Flask in Arch Linux.
Overview
Flask is one of the many Python web frameworks available out there. It is not a full-stack web framework, and even though Flask is a microframework, it may be improved with a variety of libraries and tools to make it suitable for more challenging projects.
A built-in development server, unit testing support, full Unicode support, RESTful request dispatching, and WSGI compliance are all features of this microframework for Python based on Werkzeug.
Recent developments in computing have sparked user interest in Linux-based systems.
You may want to use a virtual environment to handle the dependencies for your project in both development and production.
What do you need a virtual environment for? You may need to deal with multiple versions of Python libraries or even Python itself, the more Python projects you have. A project’s interoperability with newer versions of libraries used by another project may be broken.
With each project, having its own virtual environment, which is an independent collection of Python libraries. The operating system’s packages and other projects won’t be impacted by the installation of packages for one project.
In this article, we will be utilizing the venv module for creating virtual environments. The Venv module already comes bundled with Python, so there is no need to install it separately.
Prerequisites
Install Python 3 or Higher
Before continuing, you must have Python installed on your Arch Linux machine. Python may be installed using the given command below (if you have not installed it yet). But before we try to install Python, you should check first if any versions of Python are already installed. Use the command below to confirm the Python version you already have.
Syntax:
$ sudo pacman -S python
You will need to install Python version 3 or a newer version, at the very least, for this activity.
Syntax:
$ python –version
Install Python Virtual Environment in Arch Linux
Once confirmed that you have the correct version installed, you must install the python virtual environment module to create and utilize the python virtual environment. To achieve this, use the command below.
Syntax:
$ sudo pacman -S python-virtualenv
Install Python pip
Additionally, you will also need to run the following command to install pip next.
Syntax:
$ sudo pacman -S python-pip
Upon entering the command above, you will get a prompt on whether you want to proceed with the installation. As you can notice, the letter Y is in upper case, meaning it is the current default value. The installation should proceed by pressing enter without typing in anything.
In this screenshot, you can see that python-pip has been installed successfully.
How to Install Flask in Arch Linux
This section includes a list of all the steps required to install Flask.
Create a Directory for a Flask Project
The first step is to create a new directory in which the virtual environment will be constructed. The second step would be to change the directory to the newly created folder, which for our example, would be “flaskproject”.
Syntax:
$ sudo mkdir flaskproject&
$ cd flaskproject
Create a Virtual Environment Using venv in Arch Linux
Use the python command below and the venv module to create a virtual environment. In this example, we will create the “flaskvirtualenv” virtual environment in the “flaskproject” directory.
Syntax:
$ sudo python -m venv flaskvirtualenv&
$ ls
You may verify the creation by running the ls command, and you’ll notice that the “flaskvirtualenv” has been created.
Activate Virtual Environment
The next step you need to do is to activate the virtual environment, which we named “flaskvirtualenv”. Use the command below to do it.
Syntax:
$ source flaskvirtualenv/bin/activate
The output in the screenshot above indicates that you are now in the “flaskvirtualenv” virtual environment.
Install Flask in Virtual Environment in Arch Linux
To install Flask inside the virtual environment “flaskvirtualenv” that we’ve just created, use the command displayed below.
Syntax:
$ sudo pip install flask
Upon running the command above, it should prompt you for your sudo privileged user account password. Enter your password to proceed with the installation.
Here you can see that the flask has been installed successfully. It also shows you the latest version available for pip.
Check for Flask Version in Arch Linux
The command described below may be used to check the version to confirm if flask has been installed successfully or not.
Syntax:
$ flask --version
In this screenshot, you can see that the output includes a print of the Flask version “2.2.2” along with the Python version “3.10.8” as well. With this, we have confirmed that Flask has been installed successfully.
Update pip in Arch Linux
You may also want to install the latest version of pip, which will manage the packages for each of your virtual environments. You can use the commands below to check the version or install the latest version of pip.
Syntax:
$ pip --version&
$ sudo pip install –upgrade pipAs you can see in these screenshots, the pip version currently installed for our example is 22.2.2, and the latest version, as of this writing, is 22.3, as shown in the screenshot above.
You will need sudo privileges to install the latest version of pip. In the screenshot below, you can see the kind of error you may encounter if you try to install pip without root or sudo privileges.
In this screenshot, you can see that pip has been updated or upgraded successfully. You can see in this screenshot that the old version, 22.2.2, has been uninstalled, and the latest version, 22.3, has been installed as its replacement.
At this point, we can say that you are now prepared! Applications for the web can now be developed in Python.
Deactivate Virtual Environment
Additionally, to leave the virtual environment, just type in “deactivate” and then press enter.
Syntax:
$ deactivate
The command was successfully carried out, as can be seen in the output, and the session for the virtual environment known as “flaskvirtualenv” will cease as a result.
In this article, you have learned that Flask can be installed inside of a Python environment to work on the back-end coding of web applications. This article also demonstrated how to install the Flask framework on Arch Linux. And to use the flask environment on Arch Linux, you also learned how to set up and activate a virtual environment.
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