# Python 3.6 and 3.7 with system\_site\_packages enabled fails to activate on xenial

**URL:** <https://travis-ci.community/t/python-3-6-and-3-7-with-system-site-packages-enabled-fails-to-activate-on-xenial/1697>\
**Category:** Python\
**Created:** [January 6, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/python-3-6-and-3-7-with-system-site-packages-enabled-fails-to-activate-on-xenial/1697 "2019-01-06T20:41:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mertyildiran](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/mertyildiran/32/891_2.png) [@mertyildiran](https://travis-ci.community/u/mertyildiran)\
**Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 8:41pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/python-3-6-and-3-7-with-system-site-packages-enabled-fails-to-activate-on-xenial/1697/1 "2019-01-06T20:41:02Z")

</div>

I got

```auto
The command "source ~/virtualenv/python3.6_with_system_site_packages/bin/activate" failed and exited with 1 during .

```

error when I want to test my project against different versions of Python (`3.6` and `3.7`) on `xenial` distro with `system_site_packages: true` enabled like:

```auto
virtualenv:
    system_site_packages: true

```

this is the job log: [https://travis-ci.org/DragonComputer/Dragonfire/jobs/476074315](https://travis-ci.org/DragonComputer/Dragonfire/jobs/476074315)

The problem is; I need the system site packages since my application depends on a lot of libraries installed with `apt-get`. I saw [this answer](https://github.com/travis-ci/travis-ci/issues/2219#issuecomment-41804942) of Donald Stufft but it did not satisfy me.

Is it possible to test my project against all these Python versions with `system_site_packages` enabled? This is my [.travis.yml](https://github.com/DragonComputer/Dragonfire/blob/c61fbe5bd306064fef5840005f490776167ebde2/.travis.yml) file:

```auto
dist: xenial
sudo: required
language: python
virtualenv:
    system_site_packages: true
python:
    - "3.5"
    - "3.6"
    - "3.7"
services:
    - mysql
addons:
    apt:
        packages:
            - xvfb
cache:
    directories:
        - /usr/share/dragonfire
before_install:
    - mysql -u root -e "CREATE DATABASE dragonfire;"
install:
    - sudo ./install-dev.sh --no-model
    - sudo pip3 install pytest-faulthandler
    - export DISPLAY=':99.0'
    - Xvfb :99 -screen 0 1024x768x24 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
before_script:
    # stop the build if there are Python syntax errors or undefined names
    - flake8 . --count --select=E901,E999,F822,F823 --show-source --statistics
    # exit-zero treats all errors as warnings. The GitHub editor is 127 chars wide
    - flake8 . --count --exit-zero --max-complexity=10 --max-line-length=127 --statistics
script:
    - python3 -m pytest --capture=sys
notifications:
    on_success: change
    on_failure: change # `always` will be the setting once code changes slow down

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![native-api](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/native-api/32/430_2.png) [@native-api](https://travis-ci.community/u/native-api)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 12:07am UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/python-3-6-and-3-7-with-system-site-packages-enabled-fails-to-activate-on-xenial/1697/2 "2019-01-07T00:07:12Z")

</div>

> [@mertyildiran](#):
>
> I need the system site packages since my application depends on a lot of libraries installed with `apt-get`.

You don’t. “System `site-packages`” is only a thing for Python versions provided by distro – which for Xenial are [2.7.12](https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial-updates/python) and [3.5.1](https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/python3). Other Python versions are installed manually (into `/opt` as of this writing), and the only global packages there are `pip` and `setuptools` (you can see all this by examining the Python tarball that the build log refers to).

So if you’re using alternative Python versions, you don’t have access to any `apt-get` Python packages anyway.

As such, the most straightforward solution would be to install all Python packages you need with `pip` (or otherwise) into the `virtualenv` – regardless of whether `apt` also provides them for distro-supplied versions – and be done with it.

* * *

The fact that using `system_site_packages: true` limits you to distro-provided Python versions is documented, so it’s not a bug, either:

[Building a Python Project - Travis CI](https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/languages/python/#travis-ci-uses-isolated-virtualenvs) :

> If you decide to use apt anyway, note that for compatibility reasons, you’ll only be able to use the default Python versions that are available in Ubuntu (e.g. for Trusty, this means 2.7.6 and 3.4.3).