Before you can use Django, you’ll need to get it installed. We have a complete installation guide that covers all the possibilities; this guide will guide you to a simple, minimal installation that’ll work while you walk through the introduction.
Being a Python Web framework, Django requires Python. It works with any Python version from 2.3 to 2.6 (due to backwards incompatibilities in Python 3.0, Django does not currently work with Python 3.0; see the Django FAQ for more information on supported Python versions and the 3.0 transition), but we recommend installing Python 2.5 or later. If you do so, you won’t need to set up a database just yet: Python 2.5 or later includes a lightweight database called SQLite.
Get Python at http://www.python.org. If you’re running Linux or Mac OS X, you probably already have it installed.
Django on Jython
If you use Jython (a Python implementation for the Java platform), you’ll need to follow a few additional steps. See Running Django on Jython for details.
You can verify that Python’s installed by typing python from your shell; you should see something like:
Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Jan 17 2008, 19:35:17)
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5465)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
If you installed Python 2.5 or later, you can skip this step for now.
If not, or if you'd like to work with a "large" database engine like PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Oracle, consult the database installation information.
If you are upgrading your installation of Django from a previous version, you will need to uninstall the old Django version before installing the new version.
You've got three easy options to install Django:
Warning
If do either of the first two steps, keep an eye out for parts of the documentation marked new in development version. That phrase flags features that are only available in development versions of Django; if you try to use them with an official release they won't work.
That's it -- you can now move onto the tutorial.
Sep 20, 2009