Can I upgrade my Python version with miniconda on Stretch or do I need to upgrade OS?

Question

Need some advice here. I have an old RPI 2B with ARMv7 Processor rev 5 (v7l) running Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch).

At the moment it's got python 3.4.3 and a lot of other packages installed with miniconda:

# packages in environment at /home/pi/miniconda3:
conda                     3.16.0                   py34_0  
conda-env                 2.4.2                    py34_0  
decorator                 4.0.2                    py34_0  
flask                     0.10.1                   py34_1  
freetype                  2.5.2                         2  
ipython                   4.0.0                    py34_0  
...

The problem is, most of my code now uses f-strings which aren't supported by Python 3.4.

I tried to upgrade but this is the message I get from miniconda:

pi@raspberrypi01:~ $ conda install python=3.6
Fetching package metadata: ....
Error: No packages found in current linux-armv7l channels matching: python 3.6*

Did you mean one of these?

    python

You can search for this package on anaconda.org with

    anaconda search -t conda python 3.6*

(anaconda search -t conda python 3.6* doesn't work in miniconda of course...)

What are my options? Should I just accept that I need to update the OS or is there a way to upgrade Python without too much fuss (I need to start an experiment tonight and reinstalling a new OS and all the software again will take too long).

Answer 1

I found a solution. There is a Conda-based Python distribution called Berryconda that provides newer packages as an additional channel to miniconda.

See this stackoverflow answer for a step-by-step on how to upgrade to Python 3.6. It seems to work.

Looks like it doesn't go as far as Python 3.7. The documentation says it was designed to work with Raspbian Jessie. "Other Linux versions and distributions may or may not work" and is no longer active, so "no recipe will be updated and no packages will be added" it says.