calibre-server no longer installs on Raspberry Pi

[unleashkids]

Up to and including Calibre 3.23, all versions Calibre 3.x were installable on Raspberry Pi (on top of Raspbian OS's own Calibre 2.75.1) using the .deb installers here:

http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/rasp...ain/c/calibre/

But this suddenly changed 11+ days ago with 3.24.2, and 3.25 unfortunately also fails since then

This is what used to work, since 2017:

echo "deb http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/ testing main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rpi-testing.list
apt update
apt -y install calibre calibre-bin

The error is:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
calibre : Depends: python-pyqt5 (>= 5.10.1+dfsg-2) but 5.10.1+dfsg-1+rpi1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Hit:1 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ansible/ansible/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Hit:2 http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian stretch InRelease
Hit:3 http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian stretch InRelease

What else should we try?!

PS does anyone know who is packaging for Raspbian, within http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org, such that we might hopefully contact them too?

CLARIF: this is part of Internet-in-a-Box (https://github.com/iiab, formerly known as http://SchoolServer.org by One Laptop Per Child) that is used broadly by schools in the developing world. Teachers on many continents are Very Eager for a solution (:

[kovidgoyal]

Presumably, that is based on the debian calibre package. Which is maintained by norbert preining. Basically, raspbian has to port the Qt/PyQt packages first, only then will the updated calibre packages work.

In general if you want touse up-to-date software, avoid debian. I believe Arch Linux ARM has up-to-date calibre packages.

[norbusan]

The problem is, as Kovid said, with the Qt packages which went through a API changing transition. That meant, that all packages need to be updated.

I have no idea about raspian inner workings, but a simple recompile of the current package from the current sources should suffice, since I didn't add any versioned dependencies.

This has nothing to do neither with Calibre upstream, nor with Calibre as in Debian, but simple package managing and necessity when compiling against system installed libraries that get updated.

[unleashkids]

Suddenly with Calibre 3.26.0 (from http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/rasp...ain/c/calibre/) our trusted installation recipe for Calibre 3.x on Rapberry Pi (from 2017) once again now works:

echo "deb http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/ testing main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rpi-testing.list
apt update
apt -y install calibre calibre-bin

Does anybody know what exactly caused Calibre 3.24 and 3.25 to fail on Raspbian (on Raspberry Pi) over the past 3 weeks, to help everyone avoid a recurrence of this very painful pattern? (Affecting many developing world schools!)

With a HUGE Thank You to whoever is the anonymous heroic person who stepped in to fix the error below:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
calibre : Depends: python-pyqt5 (>= 5.10.1+dfsg-2) but 5.10.1+dfsg-1+rpi1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

[norbusan]

The transition succeeded and everything made it into testing, I guess that is the only explanation.

[unleashkids]

Calibre and calibre-bin 3.27.1 were released for Raspberry Pi (Raspbian) earlier today:

http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/rasp...ain/c/calibre/
http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian...ain/c/calibre/

Installing 3.26.1 worked on Raspberry Pi until yesterday, using stock method:

echo "deb http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/ testing main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rpi-testing.list
apt update
apt -y install calibre calibre-bin

Suddenly today however this no longer works with 3.27.1:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
calibre : Depends: python-pyqt5 (>= 5.11.2+dfsg-1) but 5.10.1+dfsg-2+rpi1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

This is reminiscent of 3.24.x and 3.25 failing to install throughout early June:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
calibre : Depends: python-pyqt5 (>= 5.10.1+dfsg-2) but 5.10.1+dfsg-1+rpi1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Can anybody think of a way to obtain 5.11.2+dfsg-1 despite the following?

root@box:~# apt -a list python-pyqt5
Listing... Done
python-pyqt5/testing 5.10.1+dfsg-2+rpi1 armhf [upgradable from: 5.7+dfsg-5]
python-pyqt5/stable,now 5.7+dfsg-5 armhf [installed,upgradable to: 5.10.1+dfsg-2+rpi1]

(So schools are not blocked as they were in early June!)

[unleashkids]

FYI great news: Calibre 3.28 and 3.29[*] both installs cleanly on Raspbian Lite on Raspberry Pi 3, using the standard recipe:

echo "deb http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/ testing main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rpi-testing.list
apt update
apt -y install calibre calibre-bin

(Let us hope the installation nightmares of May, June and July...are truly now over ;-)

[*] Calibre 3.29's .deb packages were released earlier today @ http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/rasp...ain/c/calibre/ and http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian...ain/c/calibre/

[norbusan]

Yes, this is because the libqt transition is more or less finished ;-)

[unleashkids]

CORRECTION: Calibre 3.29 does not install cleanly on Raspbian. My earlier/above message from 2018-08-14 was erroneous, as 3.29 had been installed on top of 3.28 then, leading to fake news (or certainly a false positive!)

Sad Reality: the dependency errors of installing Calibre 3.29 on Raspbian (on Raspberry Pi) are worse than May/June/July:

calibre : Depends: python-pyqt5 (>= 5.11.2+dfsg-1+b1)

calibre-bin : Depends: qtbase-abi-5-10-0 [virtual package related to libqt5core5a] but it is not installable

Specifically: installing package python-pyqt5 from repo debian-testing no longer functions as a sufficient workaround — as had helped back in June/July

[norbusan]

Hmm, that should be fixed by now since python-pyqt5 is back in testing, as can be seen at https://packages.debian.org/search?k...s=python-pyqt5

Package python-pyqt5
    buster (testing) (python): Python 2 bindings for Qt5
    5.11.2+dfsg-1+b1: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x
    sid (unstable) (python): Python 2 bindings for Qt5
    5.11.2+dfsg-1+b2 [debports]: sh4
    5.11.2+dfsg-1+b1 [debports]: amd64 arm64 armel armhf hppa i386 m68k mips mips64el mipsel ppc64 ppc64el s390x

[unleashkids]

Originally Posted by norbusan

Hmm, that should be fixed by now since python-pyqt5 is back in testing, as can be seen at https://packages.debian.org/search?k...s=python-pyqt5

Indeed "apt install python-pyqt5" solves half the issue — after temporarily switching to Debian's testing repo using:

echo "deb http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/ testing main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rpi-testing.list

So the core problem is: how do we include virtual package qtbase-abi-5-10-0 on Raspbian / Raspberry Pi? Since "parent" package libqt5core5a is unfortunately not providing this

[norbusan]

That should not be needed anymore, since Qt moved to 5.11, so it would be qtbase-abi-5-11-0. What part is depending on 5-10-0?

[unleashkids]

Originally Posted by norbusan

That should not be needed anymore, since Qt moved to 5.11, so it would be qtbase-abi-5-11-0. What part is depending on 5-10-0?

Interesting.

Unfortunately when trying to install calibre-bin on Raspbian / Raspberry Pi, it definitely keeps asking for virtual package qtbase-abi-5-10-0, as evidenced by my many/failed attempts to get passed this:

calibre-bin : Depends: qtbase-abi-5-10-0 [virtual package related to libqt5core5a] but it is not installable

[norbusan]

From where are you pulling calibre-bin? In Debian/testing and Debian/unstable there is the version 3.29.0 and apt-cache show calibre-bin shows me:

Package: calibre-bin
Source: calibre
Version: 3.29.0+dfsg-1
Installed-Size: 5257
Maintainer: Norbert Preining <preining@debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.27), libchm1 (>= 0.40), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.12.6), libfreetype6 (>= 2.6), libgcc1 (>= 1:3.0), libgl1, libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0), libicu60 (>= 60.1-1~), libmtp9 (>= 1.1.3), libpodofo0.9.5 (>= 0.9.5-7), libpython2.7 (>= 2.7), libqt5core5a (>= 5.11.0~rc1), libqt5dbus5 (>= 5.0.2), libqt5gui5 (>= 5.10.0), libqt5widgets5 (>= 5.0.2), libssl1.1 (>= 1.1.0), libstdc++6 (>= 5.2), libusb-1.0-0 (>= 2:1.0.9), qtbase-abi-5-11-0, zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4), sip-api-12.5, python2.7

which clearly indicates qtbase-abi-5-11-0

[unleashkids]

Originally Posted by norbusan

From where are you pulling calibre-bin?

On a fresh install of the latest Raspbian 48 hours ago on Raspberry Pi, "apt-cache show calibre-bin" definitely shows qtbase-abi-5-10-0 (not 5-11-0) here:

Package: calibre-bin
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: text
Installed-Size: 4016
Maintainer: Norbert Preining <preining@debian.org>
Architecture: armhf
Source: calibre
Version: 3.29.0+dfsg-1
Depends: libatomic1 (>= 4.8), libc6 (>= 2.27), libchm1 (>= 0.40), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.12.6), libfreetype6 (>= 2.6), libgcc1 (>= 1:3.5), libgles2, libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0), libicu60 (>= 60.1-1~), libmtp9 (>= 1.1.3), libpodofo0.9.5 (>= 0.9.5-7), libpython2.7 (>= 2.7), libqt5core5a (>= 5.5.0), libqt5dbus5 (>= 5.0.2), libqt5gui5 (>= 5.10.0), libqt5widgets5 (>= 5.0.2), libssl1.1 (>= 1.1.0), libstdc++6 (>= 5.2), libusb-1.0-0 (>= 2:1.0.9), qtbase-abi-5-10-0, zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4), sip-api-12.5, python2.7
Recommends: calibre (>= 3.29.0+dfsg-1)

This is currently using Debian/testing out of desperation:

echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian testing main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-testing.list

But we need to go back to using Raspbian/testing as soon as possible, as was working until May 2018, and has been working intermittently since then:

echo "deb http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/ testing main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rpi-testing.list

REASON: Raspbian/tesing is necessary so it works on the Raspberry Pi Zero W hardware, needed by low-income schools & medical clinics around the planet.

LMK any other strategies I should test, to start bringing this 3-month headache to a close