The canonical way to install SCons is from the Python Package Index (PyPi):

% python -m pip install scons
    

If you prefer not to install to the Python system location, or do not have privileges to do so, you can add a flag to install to a location specific to your own account:

% python -m pip install --user scons
    

For those users using Anaconda or Miniconda, use the conda installer instead, so the scons install location will match the version of Python that system will be using. For example:

% conda install -c conda-forge scons
    

SCons comes pre-packaged for installation on many Linux systems. Check your package installation system to see if there is an SCons package available. Many people prefer to install distribution-native packages if available, as they provide a central point for management and updating. During the still-ongoing Python 2 to 3 transition, some distributions may still have two SCons packages available, one which uses Python 2 and one which uses Python 3. Since the latest scons only runs on Python 3, to get the current version you should choose the Python 3 package.

If you need a specific version of SCons that is different from the package available, pip has a version option or you can follow the instructions in the next section.