Python for Kobo Firmware 2.6+

[KevinShort]

Python for Kobo devices running firmware 2.6 and newer.

Download Here


Usage

• To install, just extract the zip file onto your Kobo.
• For easy running of Python, create a symlink in /usr/bin to your Python binary:
  

  ln -s <your python location>/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/python

• If you want to use Pygame, start Python like this:
  

  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<your python location>/pygamelibs/ python

[MarekGibek]

Hi Kevin!

I'm really interested in running python (armhf version) and pygame. Your previous version worked perfect for me with software <= 2.5.2. But when I try this one with 2.8.1 - python console is starting but as soon as I type "import pygame" it crashes.

How did you prepare it? I would like to reproduce your steps. Did you compile it or did you take it from linux distribution - if yes, from which one?

Thanks,
Marek

[KevinShort]

Hi, Marek, do you not get any error message when python crashes? Did you make sure to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the location of the pygamelibs directory?

I compiled python inside a virtual armhf system. I used the directions here to set up a virtual raspberry pi. Another option is to grab the armhf packages from debian.

[MarekGibek]

Thank you Kevin! That's exactly what I wanted to know. It reports problem with importing time (time.so? - there is such library) even if I set LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but I'll try to recompile it myself - that should help. Thank you very much for directions!!

[Morg]

[edit]Download problem vanished. Will try installing...

[KevinShort]

Hi, Morg. The download is still working on my end. If you still can't get it to work I can upload the file somewhere else.

[Morg]

Hi,

download works now - no idea why, though...

Trying to run python isn't too promising as yet...

I ran the "install-python.sh" script and exported LD_LIBRARY_PATH, giving /usr/lib as (additional) path as the installer moved the libraries there (right?)

Python crashes on "import pygame", although I don't understand why. Using verbose output, it stops working on

dlopen("/mnt/onboard/.python/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload/strop.so", 2);

The complete log is attached. I can't make out an error, so I have some problems understanding what is happening... any ideas?

Oh, Kobo Touch 905C, 2.8.1 with devpts/telnet/ftp enabled and nickel killed...

[MarekGibek]

Yeah. Morg, that's exactly what I'm experiencing, too. I didn't have time to recompile it myself yet. But maybe this is something stupid...

The archive is in zip format. Maybe that's a problem? Maybe there is a problem with attributes (missing +x attribute somewhere) or links not handled properly (if there are any).

[Morg]

Hi,

my download was a .tgz file; anyway, correct ungzipping more or less proves data integrity. As the /mnt/onboard is a VFAT filesystem, links don't work anyway, and rights are the same for every file / directory.

We should be able to rule those out - especially, as the programs run as root.

The object library in question - strop.so - is existent, readable and seems ok (the file header, that is).

So - I'm guessing here - either it is not okay, because either compiling or linking went wrong, or there are other (internal?) problems concerning python internals, dynamic linking or something I don't seem to think about.

Python internals have evaded me so far, and I have no experience with cross-compiler-toolchains, so I couldn't say something about that.

I have been running compilers on ARM devices natively, but I don't feel ready yet to put up a complete compiler suite on the Kobo... :-)

Using web search a bit seems to find a lot of issues with python and dlopen(). Further investigation from my side is somewhat futile, as I'm not even able to recognize an error reported by python... or am I overlooking something?

[MarekGibek]

Or maybe we can try to extract needed files from debian packages first, before going through the compilation torture .

Another option is to grab the armhf packages from debian.

[KevinShort]

Originally Posted by Morg

I ran the "install-python.sh" script and exported LD_LIBRARY_PATH, giving /usr/lib as (additional) path as the installer moved the libraries there (right?)

Python crashes on "import pygame", although I don't understand why. Using verbose output, it stops working on

dlopen("/mnt/onboard/.python/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload/strop.so", 2);

The complete log is attached. I can't make out an error, so I have some problems understanding what is happening... any ideas?

Oh, Kobo Touch 905C, 2.8.1 with devpts/telnet/ftp enabled and nickel killed...

You don't need to use install-python.sh for this python package. I just downloaded my python package and put it on my Glo after a factory reset, and everything works fine. There must be something different about the Touch. Maybe if you ran strace on python we could get some more ideas.

[Morg]

Kevin,

you're right about the installer - though everything it does is moving the pygame libraries to /usr/lib (so you wouldn't need LD_LIBRARY_PATH at all) and linking the executable to /usr/bin.

I ran

strace -v -o py-trace.txt python -v -v -v

and entered

import pygame

The result: (only last lines; I guess, the rest is not interesting...)

open("/mnt/onboard/.python/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload/strop.so", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = 5
fstat64(5, {st_dev=makedev(179, 3), st_ino=456, st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_nlink=1, st_uid=0, st_gid=0, st_blksize=4096, st_blocks=112, st_s
ize=56132, st_atime=2013/08/19-02:00:00, st_mtime=2012/02/04-22:19:44, st_ctime=2013/08/19-03:51:46}) = 0
write(2, "dlopen(\"/mnt/onboard/.python/lib"..., 70) = 70
futex(0x2aaf00a4, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 2147483647) = 0
open("/mnt/onboard/.python/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload/strop.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 6
read(6, "\177ELF\1\1\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\0(\0\1\0\0\0\344\16\0\0004\0\0\0"..., 512) = 512
lseek(6, 49152, SEEK_SET)               = 49152
read(6, "\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0"..., 1480) = 1480
lseek(6, 21012, SEEK_SET)               = 21012
read(6, "A-\0\0\0aeabi\0\1#\0\0\0\5ARM9TDMI\0\6\2\10\1\t\1"..., 46) = 46
exit_group(1)                           = ?

So as far as I can see, the lib strop.so is opened successfully, some bytes are read from ist (512, then 1480, then 46).

For some - unknown - reason, after exit_group the process stops.

Any further ideas how to use strace? I'd be glad to help.. :-)

[KevinShort]

I don't know, morg. I don't have any other ideas at the moment.

[MarekGibek]

I have pygame running along with kobo software 2.8.1.

Additional to Kevin's zip package I had to download and replace libs from debian wheezy (armhf):
- libsdl-mixer1.2 (http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/ar...er1.2/download)
- libts-0.0 (http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/ar...0.0-0/download)

After that "import pygame" works.

Don't think if it matters but I also upgrade python to 2.7.3 with python2.7-minimal from here: http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/ar...nimal/download.

But there is one problem: libpng and libjpeg from Kevin's package are not compatible with the ones from kobo's software (v2.8.1). If I use Kevin's versions loading images with pygame works but kobo software won't load. So I'm using kobo's versions and I had to convert all images which I am loading with pygame to BMP format.

I'm not entirely happy with it - it's a mess... but at least I was able to run my boot menu written in python without rewriting it or recompiling libs.

[Morg]

Hm...

I tried your tips on a spare SD card, and got it to work somehow. So I tried implementing it on my "live" SD, but systematically.

This meant:

Installing the koboPython-armhf.zip from the first post to /mnt/onboard/.python, _softlinking_ all pygame libs to /usr/lib, linking python2.7 to /usr/bin/python and running with

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:/mnt/onboard/.python/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH python

It worked - right out of the box and _before_ replacing the additional libs.. though I have no idea why it works now and not before...

Marek: what do you mean with "...but kobo software won't load"? My Touch works fine after installing python the described way...