To install Python 3.8 on Ubuntu version 24

Open your terminal and run these commands:

Install build dependencies

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install -y build-essential libssl-dev zlib1g-dev libbz2-dev \
                        libreadline-dev libsqlite3-dev wget curl llvm \
                        libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev xz-utils tk-dev \
                        libffi-dev liblzma-dev python3-openssl git

Download and extract Python 3.8 source code

mkdir ~/python38
cd ~/python38
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.8.16/Python-3.8.16.tgz
tar -xf Python-3.8.16.tgz

cd Python-3.8.16

Configure the build

./configure --enable-optimizations

Compile the source code

make -j$(nproc)

Install Python

sudo make install

Verify the installation

python3.8 --version

To create a virtual environment specify the Python version.

Example: python3.8 -m venv venv