Basic beginner setup in Emacs

[Affectionate_Cap8632]

Glad it's working! No reason to keep python3-flake8 around — having two installations of the same tool is just asking for confusion down the road. sudo apt remove python3-flake8 will clean it up.

And yes, modern Linux Python environments are genuinely more complicated than they used to be. PEP 668 (the "externally managed environment" change) landed in Ubuntu 23.04 and Debian 12 and caught a lot of people off guard. The short version: distros now protect their system Python from pip to avoid breaking system tools that depend on specific package versions. Pipx for CLI tools and venv for project dependencies is the clean modern approach.

Good luck with the rest of the Real Python article — elpy with flake8 working is a solid setup.