Question

I’m trying to install the application node, but by default in my environment is python 3, and requires python 2.6. How can I change the default python version in FreeBSD?

# cd /usr/local/bin
# ls -l | grep python
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel  1246256 Jul 12  2011 python
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     1401 Jul 12  2011 python-config
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     6060 Jul 12  2011 python-shared
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     1408 Jul 12  2011 python-shared-config
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     3720 Jul 12  2011 python-shared2.6
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     1431 Jul 12  2011 python-shared2.6-config
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     6060 Jul 12  2011 python-shared3.1
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     1408 Jul 12  2011 python-shared3.1-config
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root  wheel  1182056 Jul 12  2011 python2.6
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     1424 Jul 12  2011 python2.6-config
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel  1246256 Jul 12  2011 python3.1
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     1401 Jul 12  2011 python3.1-config

Answer 1

You could remove /usr/local/bin/python and create a symlink to Python 2.6:

rm /usr/local/bin/python
ln -s /usr/local/bin/python2.6 /usr/local/bin/python