Unable to install Calibre 0.7.56 from source

[prashc]

Hi..

We have a shared-desktop server running Debian Lenny. An upgrade to Squeeze is not possible anytime soon so installing Calibre from the Debian repo is not an option.
I'm trying to install Calibre 0.7.56 from source. Since many packages required by Calibre are not available/were in conflict with existing packages on our server running Lenny, I installed all of the dependencies manually, from source, taking care to match the versions with the minimum listed on the calibre site. The installation completed successfully, terminating with a 'calibre successfully installed. You can start it by running the command calibre' message, but upon launching calibre, I get hit with the following error traceback. Incidentally, I get the exact same error with calibre 0.7.54, 0.7.55 and 0.7.56. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm using SIP version 4.12.1.


Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/python-2.7.1/bin/calibre", line 19, in <module>
sys.exit(main())
File "/opt/python-2.7.1/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/main.py", line 362, in main
app, opts, args, actions = init_qt(args)
File "/opt/python-2.7.1/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/main.py", line 43, in init_qt
from calibre.gui2.ui import Main
File "/opt/python-2.7.1/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/ui.py", line 39, in <module>
from calibre.gui2.init import LibraryViewMixin, LayoutMixin
File "/opt/python-2.7.1/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/init.py", line 17, in <module>
from calibre.gui2.library.views import BooksView, DeviceBooksView
File "/opt/python-2.7.1/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/library/views.py", line 15, in <module>
from calibre.gui2.library.delegates import RatingDelegate, PubDateDelegate, \
File "/opt/python-2.7.1/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/library/delegates.py", line 27, in <module>
class RatingDelegate(QStyledItemDelegate): # {{{
File "/opt/python-2.7.1/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/library/delegates.py", line 28, in RatingDelegate
COLOR = QColor("blue")
TypeError: unable to convert a Python 'str' object to a C++ 'QString' instance

[theducks]

Moderator Notice
Not a device question. Moved to main

[chaley]

I tried to install calibre on Lenny and failed miserably. The libraries are too old, and getting everything from backports wasn't possible. Installing upgraded versions of some libraries, in particular glibc, hosed my system.

I did succeed using a chroot'ed jail, where I could add the necessary libraries. This post describes what I did. I never attempted to run the GUI, so there is likely more work to do.