Since Mac and Linux are both derived from the Unix platform, the instructions about installing Django on Mac and Linux are almost identical to each other and we will present them in the same section.

Python On How To Install Django

Windows, however, is so different from the other two operating systems that we need use one section to present the instructions about how to install Django on Windows.

However if it is not, you can download and install the appropriate Python version for your OS on the official Python website.

Python On Mac OS X And

Assuming you have Python 2.7.x installed on your OS, we will walk you through the steps to create a Django development environment on Window, Mac OS X and Linux in the following sections.

Instead of writing code on top of one global Python environment, virtualenv allows you to create isolated islands or directories of Python environments each of which is an independent Python environment that has its own system-level packages and libraries.

Wouldnt it be nice if you can write mylibrary against an independent 1.0.0 dependentlibrary as well as another upgradedmylibrary against 1.2.0.

Wouldnt it be nice if you can create a Python environment inside your home directory.

Then you can change into that directory to install virtualenv for your current Python interpreter which could be invoked from command line.

Note that Windows execution policy is restricted by default which means scripts such as activate cannot be executed.

Therefore, we need to change the execution policy to AllSigned in order to be able to activate the virtualenv.

Now you can install Django inside the new virtual environment.

Since the virtual environments are separated from the rest of the system, the installed Django library only affects files executed within that particular environment.

Compared to Mac OS X and Linux, setting up virtualenv in Windows requires one extra step to change the execution policy of scripts.

Otherwise the steps to set up a Django virtual environment is almost identical across all platforms.

How To Download Python On Mac