Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
If you don't mind trying to run an antique version of calibre with a Python 3 interpreter which does not work very well (I'm feeling kind  ) or being served up a beta version of calibre that won't run most of your plugins—in which world did a beta of calibre 5 become the supported version? I was under the impression that repositories are supposed to be places to go to download tested software. |
Depends on the distro. Sometimes it's also a place to go to download someone's sociopolitical opinions. Debian and Fedora are removing python2 entirely, whether software is ready or not, so they packaged betas of calibre instead of dropping it entirely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
Not every distro has someone who cares enough about calibre to ensure the version in their repository will have all the dependencies and will actually work for the average user. Now if you could clone yourself... Naw, that's too wild eyed even for dreaming.
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I packaged both python2 and python3 builds defaulting to python2, which was a bit of work but I like things to work out of the box and don't inflict beta quality software on people.
That being said, I have helped Debian get their packaging into much better shape, so numerous other causes of breakage have been eliminated, even if the python3 beta is still an unfortunate situation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
And yes, I know enough to install the version from Kovid's site and even enough to modify the install script to match my requirements. There have been enough posts where people have come to this forum after they have installed a repository version of calibre and run into issues. Most of which are fixed by the advice to install and run the version from Kovid's site.
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Yeah... at least there are simple, reliable steps to fix this though. And I hope in the future, distro builds will tend to become more reliable. I've had a lot of success at improving the build system itself to prevent packaging misuse, and advocating for other distros to follow my build guidance.
e.g. debian used to patch in system mathjax, leading to partially broken, regressing math support in the viewer. I added an option to officially support and integrate this. I pushed for people to run the testsuites, made it easier to conformantly install .desktop files, icons, hsell completions, etc. out of the box...
It's harder to mess up third-party builds these days.