Can't find Python executable “python”

Question

When i install iconv with npm got the following error:

iconv@2.1.0 install /root/Dropbox/nodeApps/nodeApp/node_modules/iconv

Answer 1

For anyone encountering this issue on Ubuntu 16.04...
node-gyp can't use Python 3.5.X which seems to the be the default that ships with 16.04. I read somewhere that 16.04 was supposed to ship with Python2 as well but I can't find it on my install.

I fixed the above issue by:

apt-get update     
apt-get install python2.7    
ln -s /usr/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/python 

Now when node-gyp goes looking for python it will hit your Python2.7 install and load correctly.