Depending on your operating system, Python may already be installed. Python is very prevalent in the *nix world, though different operating systems use different versions. It is almost guaranteed that Python 2 is installed, and an increasing number of systems have some version of Python 3 installed as well.

It is recommended to go to https://www.python.org and download the latest version of Python. While this book will focus on version 3.6 and later, the majority of the information will apply to older versions of Python 3 as well. Various installers are available for the major operating systems, as well as some specialized and older platforms; installation instructions are provided with the download.