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pythonpython-3.xpippep
darkmclo
darkmclo

Reputation: 11

Using pip, what does exactly the --break-system-packages parameter do?

This blog entry mentions packages could be installed either with pip or by using a package manager (apt, dnf, etc), doing this mixing of options could result in unwanted effects to the system.

Is that parameter just a simple yes/no flag or does something else related to Python or the configuration itself?

Context: I was installing a software called ERPNext on a Debian machine, one of the installation steps involved a command with that parameter, it called my attention due to its name and wanted to know if it could have some kind of negative effect to my configuration or any system packages.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 788

Answers (1)

TheCableGUI
TheCableGUI

Reputation: 124

it installs the package into the native python installation. Instead of a virtual environment. More Specifically, you are installing into the python that is used by the user and the system.

  1. In this case we are installing reflex into the virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv 
source ./venv/bin/activate
pip3 install reflex

the target for the above is ./venv/Lib

vs.

  1. here we are installing global reflex package.
pip3 install reflex

the target is /usr/bin/python

Some libraries/modules are not backwards or forwards compatible. If a package demands that a version of a some package be used, it could break more crucial components used by the system. To combat this they added the --break-system-packages to safeguard native python.

You can install multiple versions of python as well. It would be good to look at pipx for the python-savy linux user.

Upvotes: 1

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