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

In your bash session where you're able to just type python and get a valid response, type in which python and note the full path location of the python binary. Take that location and put that into your PYTHONPATH and PATH environment variables, except without the python at the end.

For example, which python gives me:

/usr/local/bin/python

so I would write:

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/usr/local/bin
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin

in my ~/.bashrc.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

Just delete node_modules folder and run npm install or yarn install again.

Answer 4

the problem was because of ~/.bashrc was not loaded on ssh login. I put PATH vars to ~/.bash_profile and it's ok