python2.7 will be removed from the python-versions on June 19

[dmitry-shibanov]

Breaking changes

Hello everyone. The Python 2.7.x will be removed from python-versions and it won't be possible to set up Python 2.7.x by setup-python.

The motivation for the changes

Python2.7 is not supported since January 1, 2020.

[rtibbles]

Hi @dmitry-shibanov - do you have any recommended ways to mitigate this for those of us that cannot remove usage of Python 2.7 from our Github Actions before the June 19th deadline?

[bernhardkaindl]

@dmitry-shibanov

• February 2020: GitHub said they'd remove 2.7 from Actions. https://github.blog/changelog/2020-02-27-github-actions-breaking-change-python-2-being-removed-from-all-virtual-environments/
• March 2020: GitHub said they'd exceptionally keep 2.7 longer. Effect of python 2 sunset on setup-python #63 (comment)
• November 2022: GitHub removed 2.7 from Actions.
• December 2022: GitHub added 2.7 back to Actions.
• April 2023: GitHub announced they'll be removing 2.7 in May 2023.

It has already been delayed.

@konradpabjan I hope this can be cancelled like the previous times. I think there will be customer backslash again which would not be justified.

There is no point in removing it.

Linux Distros like Ubuntu 20.04 which contain Python2.7 support Python 2.7 for many many years to come. Canonical will maintain it until April 2025, and it will have emergency security updates in 20.04 until April 2030. Similar for Red Hat and SUSE.

[boegel]

We started hitting this today already (1 June 2023), leading to:

Error: Version 2.7 with arch x64 not found

Support for Python 2.7 is deprecated in our project already, so we'll just stop testing on top of Python 2.7 and not lose sleep over it, but it would be nice if there's a documented/recommended alternative for people that do still want to keep testing on top of Python 2.7 in the near future.

[hugovk]

There's a community-maintained Dockerfile in the works: actions/runner-images#7401 (comment)