Datasette for Debian
--------------------

Plugin Management (PEP 668)
---------------------------

The "datasette install" and "datasette uninstall" commands use pip
internally to manage plugins. On Debian systems, these commands will
fail with "externally-managed-environment" due to PEP 668, which
prevents pip from modifying the system Python environment.

This is expected behavior and protects system integrity.

To use datasette with plugins, install via pipx instead:

    pipx install datasette
    datasette install datasette-json-html
    datasette uninstall datasette-json-html

Alternatively, use a virtual environment:

    python3 -m venv ~/.local/share/datasette-venv
    ~/.local/share/datasette-venv/bin/pip install datasette
    ~/.local/share/datasette-venv/bin/datasette install <plugin>

The Debian package provides core datasette functionality. For the full
plugin ecosystem, pipx or a virtual environment is recommended.

 -- Mahangu Weerasinghe <mahangu@gmail.com>  Sun, 30 Nov 2025 14:00:00 +0530