I'm on Ubuntu Mate 20.04. I'd like to install latest Python 3.8 on my system globally but I've noticed that it's the same Python install that is managed by the OS and therefore I'd like not to tweak it. For various reasons I need to work with exactly 3.8. I was thinking about installing it locally (e.g. on $HOME/.local) or even create a venv and sourcing the activation on every prompt but it seems to be just more confusing. Is there a safer way to achieve this?

This is not really the answer I was looking for. I'm talking about installing the same python version used by the system.