Ubuntu 20.04 is removing Python 2

Python’s developers have announced that Python 2 will stop maintenance after January 1, 2020, and Ubuntu 20.04, which is scheduled for release next April, will be the next long-term support release, so an important goal of Ubuntu 20.04 is to remove Python 2. According to the Ubuntu development team, there are still many Python 2-dependent packages that remain in the Debian beta and Ubuntu’s “Focal Fossa”.

Matthias Klose, a developer of the Ubuntu/Debian project, is responsible for removing Python 2 for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and has done a lot of work. Recently, he has updated some progress on the mailing list and said that there are still about 3300 errors related to Python 2 packages in Debian, of which about 1500 errors have been closed. In addition, approximately 350 packages are only available in Ubuntu’s Focal repository and are not available in upstream Debian.

So Matthias believes that the current goal is to convert as many packages as possible from Python 2 to Python 3, but this can be a problem for many packages that are no longer maintained. For most software that is not compatible with Python 3, if no one does the necessary porting, it will be removed from the archive. Finally, there is a more special case of software that is very important in Ubuntu/Debian but only supports Python 2. How to deal with them? Matthias said that it is still undetermined, but the goal is to remove Python 2 before the release of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS in April.