Installing OR-Tools for Python from Binary on Linux

  • This guide provides instructions for installing Google's OR-Tools for Python on various Linux distributions, specifically targeting the x86_64 architecture.

  • Before installing OR-Tools, ensure you have Python 3.8+ and pip installed, with distribution-specific commands provided for installation.

  • OR-Tools can be easily installed using pip with the command python3 -m pip install ortools, and it's recommended to use a virtual environment.

  • You can validate your OR-Tools installation by running python3 -c "import ortools; print(ortools.__version__)", which should print the installed version.

 Introduction

This guide explains how to install OR-Tools for Python on Linux.

Although these instructions might also work on other Linux variants, we have only tested them on machines meeting the following requirements:

  • Alpine Edge 64-bit (x86_64)
  • Centos 7 LTS 64-bit (x86_64)
  • Debian SID 64-bit (x86_64)
  • Debian 11 (bullseye) 64-bit (x86_64)
  • Fedora 38 64-bit (x86_64)
  • Fedora 37 64-bit (x86_64)
  • OpenSuse Leap 64-bit (x86_64)
  • Ubuntu 24.10 64-bit (x86_64)
  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 64-bit (x86_64)
  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 64-bit (x86_64)

Prerequisites

The following sections describe the prerequisites for installing OR-Tools.

Python

You must have Python 3.8+ installed.

To install Python 3.8+, open a terminal window and enter:

Alpine

apk add python3-dev py3-pip py3-wheel

Centos

sudo yum install -y python3 python3-devel python3-pip numpy

Debian

sudo apt install -y python3-dev python3-pip python3-venv

Fedora

sudo dnf install -y python3-devel python3-pip python3-venv

Fedora

sudo dnf install -y python3-devel python3-pip python3-venv

OpenSUSE

sudo zypper install -y python3-devel python3-pip python3-wheel

Ubuntu

sudo apt install -y python3-dev python3-pip python3-venv

Ubuntu

sudo apt install -y python3-dev python3-pip python3-venv

Ubuntu

sudo apt install -y python3-dev python3-pip python3-venv

You can check your Python 3 installation using:

python3 --version
python3 -c "import platform; print(platform.architecture()[0])"
python3 -m pip --version

Assuming the prerequisite software is installed on your Linux, take the following steps:

python3 -m pip install ortools

Uninstalling OR-Tools

To uninstall OR-Tools, issue the following commands:

python3 -m pip uninstall ortools

Validate your installation

To test your Python installations, open a terminal window. Then enter the following command:

python3 -c "import ortools; print(ortools.__version__)"

If it runs successfully, you are ready to get started with OR-Tools.

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Last updated 2026-03-18 UTC.