Ctrl+L won't clear Python3.3 terminal

Question

I installed Python3.3 on Ubuntu 12.04 x86 on VirtualBox, from source:

./configure --prefix=/opt/python3.3
make && sudo make install

I can launch python3.3 successfully and the problem starts from there.

1. CTRL+L doesn't clear the python console/terminal, It just displays ^L^L
2. even the up key doesn't show the previous command entered, instead I get [[^A when I press the up key.

But if I install python3.3 on Ubuntu 12.04 x64 following the same procedure, everything works fine. If I install python from sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fkrull/deadsnakes (Ubuntu 12.04 x86 or x64), it works perfectly but installs Python3.3 minimal.

Please tell me where I am making a mistake.

Answer 1

You need to install libreadline-dev for readline support to work.

Once installed, re-compile Python.

You may be missing other dependencies used by other extensions. You may want to install:

libncursesw5-dev
libssl-dev
libgdbm-dev
libsqlite3-dev
tk-dev

as well to take full advantage of Python's extension modules.