How to install Jupyter Lab on Debian 12 bookworm?

Question

• In Debian 11 I had installed jupyter lab with pip in my user directory, but on Debian 12 this is not possible anymore since Debian decided to follow pep-668 and python packages are marked as externally managed, you can only install system wide with the package manager (APT).

• I installed python3-jupyterlab-server lab with APT, but it fails to start

   $ sudo apt reinstall python3-jupyterlab-server
  ...
  ...
  Preparing to unpack .../python3-jupyterlab-server_2.16.5-1_all.deb ...
  Unpacking python3-jupyterlab-server (2.16.5-1) over (2.16.5-1) ...
  Setting up python3-jupyterlab-server (2.16.5-1) ...
  
  $ jupyter lab
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/local/bin/jupyter-lab", line 5, in <module>
      from jupyterlab.labapp import main
  ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'jupyterlab'
  

• I installed Jupyter Lab with pip in a virtual environment and can successfully start it from there. Is this the only way?

I understand the value of virtual environments or conda for maintaining a lot of data analysis packages. But Jupyter Lab is now a core component of the system, so I guess it should be installed system-wide with the system package manage (APT on Debian). I'm wondering what's wrong in my config, why can't I start jupyter lab when installed from apt?

Related questions:

• How do I solve "error: externally-managed-environment" every time I use pip 3?
• pip install -r requirements.txt is failing: "This environment is externally managed"

Answer 1

Have you tried installing pipx via apt and then installing it via pipx install jupyterlab?

It is an alternative way of installing packages mentioned in the first link.