Python has a standard installer for Windows users. You will need to go to http://www.python.org/download/ and download the latest version of Python. Next, double-click the .exe file and follow the installation instructions. The graphical installer will guide you through the installation process and create shortcuts to Python executables in the Start menu.

Once the installation has been done, we need to add the Python directory to the system path so that we can access Python while using the command prompt. To do this, open the Control Panel, double-click on the System icon, go to the Advanced tab, and click the Environment Variables button. A new dialog box will open. Select the variable Path from the System variable section, and append the path where you have installed Python. (The default path is usually c:\PythonXX, where XX is your Python version. So if you have Python 2.5, you should append c:\Python25.) Don't forget to separate the new path from the one before it with a semicolon.

If you want to test your installation, open the Run dialog, type python, and hit Enter. The Python interactive shell should open.

If you are using Linux or UNIX, the chances are that you already have Python installed. To check, open a terminal, type python and hit Enter. If you see the Python interactive shell, then you already have Python installed:

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, May 2 2007, 16:56:35)
[GCC 4.1.2 (Ubuntu 4.1.2-0ubuntu4)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

The first line of the output indicates the version installed on your system (2.5.1 here).

If you receive an error message instead of seeing the output, or have an old version of Python, you should read on.

UNIX and Linux users are recommended to install and update Python through the system package manager. Although the actual details vary from system to system, it won't be any different from installing any other package.

For APT-based Linux distributions (such as Debian and Ubuntu), open a terminal and type:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install python

Or if you have the Synaptic Package Manager, simply search for Python, mark its package for installation, and click on Apply.

Users of other Linux distributions are recommended to check their system documentation for information on how to use the package manager to install packages.

Mac OS X comes pre-installed with Python. However, due to Apple's release cycle, it's often an old version. If you start the Python interactive shell and find a version older than 2.3, you should visit this URL: http://www.python.org/download/mac/ and download the most recent installer for your version of Mac OS X.

Now that Python is up and running, we are almost ready. Next, we will install Django and make sure that we have a database system.

After you download the Django archive, extract it to the C drive and open a command prompt (by clicking on Start, and then Accessories). Change the current directory to where you extracted Django by issuing the following command, where x.xx is your Django version:

c:\>cd c:\Django-x.xx

Next, install Django by running the following command (for which you will need administrative privileges):

c:\Django-x.xx>python setup.py install

If these instructions do not work, you can manually copy the django folder in the archive to the Lib | site-packages folder located in the Python installation directory. This will do the job of running the setup.py install command.

The last step is copying the django-admin.py file from Django-x.xx | django | bin to somewhere in your system path, such as c:\windows or the folder where you installed Python.

Once this has been done, you can safely remove the c:\Django-x.xx folder, because it is no longer needed.

That's it. To test your installation, open a command prompt and type the following command:

c:\>django-admin.py --version

If you see the current version of Django printed on screen, then everything is set.

Installation instructions for all UNIX and Linux systems are the same. You need to run the following commands in the directory where the Django-x.xx.tar.gz archive is located. These commands will extract the archive and install Django for you:

$ tar xfz Django-x.xx.tar.gz
$ cd Django-x.xx
$ sudo python setup.py install

These instructions should work on any UNIX or Linux system as well as on Mac OS X. However, it may be easier to install Django through your system's package manager if it has a package for Django. Ubuntu has one, so to install Django on Ubuntu, simply look for the package python-django in Synaptic, or run the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install python-django

You can test your installation by running this command:

$ django-admin.py --version

If you are using the python-django package in Ubuntu, the command will be slightly different. It won't contain the .py extension. Keep this in mind because you will be using the django-admin.py again later on.

$ django-admin --version

If you see the current version of Django printed on the screen, then everything is set.