Technology Tales

Controlling the version of Python used in the Positron console with virtual environments

Published on 21^st October 2025 Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

Because I have Homebrew installed on my Linux system for getting Hugo and LanguageTool on there, I also have a later version of Python than is available from the Linux Mint repositories. Both 3.12 and 3.13 are on my machine as a consequence. Here is the line in my .bashrc file that makes that happen:

eval "$(/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

The result is when I issue the command which python3, this is what I get:

/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/python3

However, Positron looks to /usr/bin/python3 by default. Since this can get confusing, setting a virtual environment has its uses as long as you create it with the intended Python version. This is how you can do it, even if I needed to use sudo mode for some reason:

python3 -m venv .venv

When working solely on the command line, activating it becomes a necessity, adding another manual step to a mind that had resisted all this until recently:

source .venv/bin/activate

Thankfully, just issuing the deactivate command will do the eponymous action. Even better, just opening a folder with a venv in Positron saves you from issuing the extra commands and grants you the desired Python version in the console that it opens. Having run into some clashes between package versions, I am beginning to appreciate having a dedicated environment for a set of Python scripts, especially when an IDE makes it easy to work with such an arrangement.