Keep yourself sane: Don't use "python". Use "python2" or "python3". (And why use python2 at all any more?)

Slight aside:

This sounds a bit like the days when I had to support Java runtimes on a system. Java doesn't understand the concept of backward compatibility. The OS wanted one version, a production application written a couple of years earlier wouldn't run except on one particular runtime (current at the time). Eventually we had four different runtimes that were required by different applications. "Write once, run anywhere" my eye. If Python ever gets like this? Ugh! (Look how long it took for the 2.x tree to be officially sunsetted.)

Oh, yes. back around 2000, I built some computers by hand with a Linux for Dummies book, I somehow, eventually did something right. Only took 6 or 8 days,lol. I am starting clean-ish, basically. Praise C'thulu that I never have to compile a kernel again, even if I relearn how,

Thank you all, again. I just got 10 16 GB drives and am seeing if I can use ventoy to dl 2 or 3 .isos each.