building Python from source with zlib support

Question

When building Python 3.2.3 from source on Ubuntu 12.04, the zlib module is not available.

I downloaded the official source distribution from python.org, and attempte

Answer 1

The only solution that helped me with installing python 3.5.1 was to apt-get zlib1g-dev (and other packages such as python-setuptools and python-pip) and then rebuild python 3.5.1 from source.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev python-setuptools python-pip python-smbus
sudo apt-get install build-essential libncursesw5-dev libgdbm-dev libc6-dev
sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev libsqlite3-dev tk-dev
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev openssl
cd ~
mkdir build
cd build
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.5.1/Python-3.5.1.tgz
tar -zxvf Python-3.5.1.tgz
cd Python-3.5.1
./configure
make
sudo make install

Taken from: https://github.com/MrYsLab/xideco/wiki/Installing-Python-3.5

As I undestand new build of python is made with inclusion of previously apt-getted related packages. So when you browse the content of new Python-3.5.1/lib/site-packages there will be pip and setuptools. More importantly, they will be copied to any virtualenv you make using Python-3.5.1 AND this virtualenv will use THEM insted of system-default. This is very, very important to rememmber when installing new python version. Otherwise one might get into a black hole of errors such as:

• zlib not installed;
• "pip install ..." executed from virtualenv that installs package to system-default python instead of virtualenv.