Have the "Install Python" command from the walkthrough open and fill in the suggested command

[brettcannon]

For instance, on macOS we currently suggest folks install via Homebrew using a command. We could update the walkthrough to have a permanent link to download Python that's in the text and then have the "Install Python" command open the terminal and send the command. We would probably want to have custom text for the button like "Install Python via Homebrew".

[karrtikr]

How to decide choose between what commands to run for linux:

Approach 1: Identify whether it's a Fedora or Debian distribution

1. /etc/os-release seems to be the standard for all newer distributions: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Admin/release-files.html
2. lsb-release command is not available everywhere, not in default Fedora: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/37065/533483
3. The following bash scripts seems comprehensive enough to identify the distribution:
   • https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/6348/533483
   • https://superuser.com/a/1156824

Approach 2: Check if dnf is available directly

1. which dnf will probably work, however:
   • Is which command guaranteed to be available? Doesn't seem to be listed in https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/37064/which-are-the-standard-commands-available-in-every-linux-based-distribution
   • Do not have a Fedora system to verify if it works
2. Cannot find a npm package of which command equivalent
3. Look into each entry in PATH for a dnf file

cc/ @karthiknadig

Approach 1.3 seems like a viable option.

[brettcannon]

https://www.npmjs.com/package/which should take care of approach 2.2. I personally prefer approach 2 as it's feature detection instead of distro detection.

It's also simple enough to implement ourselves.

import * as fs from "node:fs";
import * as path from "node:path";
import * as process from "node:process";

// Static since it won't change for the life of this process.
const path = process.env.PATH?.split(":");

function binExists(name: string): boolean {
    return path.some(dir => fs.existsSync(path.join(dir, name)));
}

[karrtikr]

Verification steps:

Have no Python installed. Run the Python: Select command and choose "Python is not installed" item to open the install tile:

• For Fedora based linux distribution, verify the following is sent when "Install Python via Terminal" button clicked:

sudo dnf install python3

• For Debian based linux distribution, verify the following is sent when "Install Python via Terminal" button clicked:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3 python3-venv python3-pip

[rzhao271]

This leaves out CentOS 7, which uses yum, and also any other distribution that uses neither dnf nor apt. I think I'd rather have the editor admit that it doesn't know which command to use rather than for it to suggest I use apt.

Ref https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-python/pull/19487/files#diff-4964e93c7c78a768a22c36637cf2103a709769bac23d7e424c0633036294ec99R74

[karrtikr]

For distributions that uses neither dnf nor apt, it's probably simplest to point to the python.org install page in the walkthrough description. For purposes of this issue, I see a couple options:

• I would have the button send no commands to terminal in those cases.
• It opens the python.org download page and we rename the button text from "Install Python via Terminal" to just "Install Python".

Any suggestions?

[rzhao271]

I would assume that Python is available in the package manager. Downloading from a website seems tedious in comparison.
But, even in the first case, if the install button isn't actually doing anything, that's also confusing.
Maybe the install button can print a message telling the user they need to manually install the package using their package manager once it realizes neither dnf nor apt exist.

[karrtikr]

I would assume that Python is available in the package manager. Downloading from a website seems tedious in comparison.

It is, but not sure if users would know the command to install python, pip etc. from it.

Maybe the install button can print a message telling the user they need to manually install the package using their package manager once it realizes neither dnf nor apt exist.

+1. Here I could also point out python.org if they aren't aware of their package manager.

Regardless, most latest distros today come with some kind of Python installed, so we should not hit this case much.

[karrtikr]

Fix should be out in the pre-release version of the extension in a few minutes, use the following to try it out:

[rzhao271]

I'm unable to get my CentOS 7 and Debian 9 VMs to the state where there's absolutely no Python installed.
Verified by code review

[rzhao271]

Moved the executables out of the way and that worked.
Verified on CentOS 7