Unable to install Pillow with pip in Linux (error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1)

Question

I have been trying to install the Pillow package using pip (python version 3.6, Pillow version 8.4, Linux virtual machine). Several other answers have suggested installing the developer package but I do not have sudo privileges.

I am getting "fatal error: Python.h: no such file or directory" with "error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1"

I have tried both:

python3 -m pip install Pillow

and

python3 -m pip install Pillow --upgrade

Both give the below output/error (>20 successful compilation lines were omitted to meet submission requirements)

Collecting Pillow
  Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/7d/2a/2fc11b54e2742db06297f7fa7f420a0e3069fdcf0e4b57dfec33f0b08622/Pillow-8.4.0.tar.gz
Installing collected packages: Pillow
  Running setup.py install for Pillow ... error
    Complete output from command /usr/bin/python3 -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-build-go2j0sv9/Pillow/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-piu2gd0c-record/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile:
    running install
    running build
    running build_py
    creating build
    creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.6
    creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.6/PIL
    copying src/PIL/IcnsImagePlugin.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.6/PIL
    # x20 copying lines removed
    running egg_info
    writing src/Pillow.egg-info/PKG-INFO
    writing dependency_links to src/Pillow.egg-info/dependency_links.txt
    writing top-level names to src/Pillow.egg-info/top_level.txt
    reading manifest file 'src/Pillow.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
    reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
    warning: no files found matching '*.c'
    warning: no files found matching '*.h'
    warning: no files found matching '*.sh'
    warning: no previously-included files found matching '.appveyor.yml'
    warning: no previously-included files found matching '.clang-format'
    warning: no previously-included files found matching '.coveragerc'
    warning: no previously-included files found matching '.editorconfig'
    warning: no previously-included files found matching '.readthedocs.yml'
    warning: no previously-included files found matching 'codecov.yml'
    warning: no previously-included files matching '.git*' found anywhere in distribution
    warning: no previously-included files matching '*.pyc' found anywhere in distribution
    warning: no previously-included files matching '*.so' found anywhere in distribution
    no previously-included directories found matching '.ci'
    writing manifest file 'src/Pillow.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
    running build_ext
    building 'PIL._imaging' extension
    building 'PIL._imagingft' extension
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6
    building 'PIL._imagingtk' extension
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src/Tk
    gcc -pthread -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -fwrapv -fPIC -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/tmp/pip-build-go2j0sv9/Pillow -I/usr/include/fribidi -I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/python3.6m -c src/_imagingtk.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src/_imagingtk.o
    creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src/libImaging
    gcc -pthread -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -fwrapv -fPIC -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/tmp/pip-build-go2j0sv9/Pillow -I/usr/include/fribidi -I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/python3.6m -c src/_imagingft.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src/_imagingft.o
    building 'PIL._imagingmath' extension
    gcc -pthread -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -fwrapv -fPIC -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/tmp/pip-build-go2j0sv9/Pillow -I/usr/include/fribidi -I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/python3.6m -c src/_imagingmath.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src/_imagingmath.o
    gcc -pthread -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -fwrapv -fPIC -DHAVE_LIBJPEG -DHAVE_LIBZ -DHAVE_LIBTIFF -DHAVE_XCB -DPILLOW_VERSION="8.4.0" -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/tmp/pip-build-go2j0sv9/Pillow -I/usr/include/fribidi -I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/python3.6m -c src/_imaging.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src/_imaging.o
    src/_imagingft.c:22:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
     #include "Python.h"
                        ^
    compilation terminated.
    src/_imagingtk.c:15:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
     #include "Python.h"
                        ^
    compilation terminated.
    src/_imagingmath.c:16:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
     #include "Python.h"
                        ^
    compilation terminated.
    src/_imaging.c:75:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
     #include "Python.h"
                        ^
    compilation terminated.
    building 'PIL._imagingmorph' extension
    gcc -pthread -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -fwrapv -fPIC -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/tmp/pip-build-go2j0sv9/Pillow -I/usr/include/fribidi -I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/python3.6m -c src/_imagingmorph.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/src/_imagingmorph.o
    src/_imagingmorph.c:14:20: fatal error: Python.h: No such file or directory
     #include "Python.h"
                        ^
    compilation terminated.
    error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

Answer 1

Usually, updating pip, setuptools and wheel packages solves the problem.
Details: setuptools and wheel packages are used to install python libraries via pip.

Update pip:

pip3 install --upgrade pip

then:

Setuptools & Wheel: `pip3 install --upgrade setuptools wheel`

Answer 2

Looking at the wheels available for the latest Pillow version, I can see there is no wheel for Python 3.6. Python 3.7 is the oldest supported version.

A solution is to either upgrade Python (3.6 is quite old!) or to install an older version of Pillow. For example version 8.4.0 has wheels for Python 3.6. To get an older version, specify the version number when installing with pip:

pip install Pillow==8.4.0