Trouble installing unrardll

[abdulbasitsaeed]

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the calibre world, and have installed calibre 8.16.2 headless on Ubuntu Server.

I am trying to install unrardll as indicated here:

pip install unrardll

This gives me the error:

error: externally-managed-environment

× This environment is externally managed
╰─> To install Python packages system-wide, try apt install
    python3-xyz, where xyz is the package you are trying to
    install.

    If you wish to install a non-Debian-packaged Python package,
    create a virtual environment using python3 -m venv path/to/venv.
    Then use path/to/venv/bin/python and path/to/venv/bin/pip. Make
    sure you have python3-full installed.

    If you wish to install a non-Debian packaged Python application,
    it may be easiest to use pipx install xyz, which will manage a
    virtual environment for you. Make sure you have pipx installed.

    See /usr/share/doc/python3.12/README.venv for more information.

note: If you believe this is a mistake, please contact your Python installation or OS distribution provider. You can override this, at the risk of breaking your Python installation or OS, by passing --break-system-packages.
hint: See PEP 668 for the detailed specification.

After creating a virtual environment and running

pip install unrardll

I get the error:

Collecting unrardll
  Using cached unrardll-0.1.7.tar.gz (10.8 MB)
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... done
Building wheels for collected packages: unrardll
  Building wheel for unrardll (pyproject.toml) ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Building wheel for unrardll (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [27 lines of output]
      /tmp/pip-build-env-60kfojh3/overlay/lib/python3.12/site-packages/setuptools/dist.py:759: SetuptoolsDeprecationWarning: License classifiers are deprecated.
      !!

              ********************************************************************************
              Please consider removing the following classifiers in favor of a SPDX license expression:

              License :: OSI Approved :: BSD License

              See https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/guides/writing-pyproject-toml/#license for details.
              ********************************************************************************

      !!
        self._finalize_license_expression()
      running bdist_wheel
      running build
      running build_py
      creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-cpython-312/unrardll
      copying src/unrardll/__init__.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-cpython-312/unrardll
      running build_ext
      building 'unrardll.unrar' extension
      creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-cpython-312/src/unrardll
      x86_64-linux-gnu-g++ -fno-strict-overflow -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -g -O2 -Wall -fPIC -DSILENT=1 -DRARDLL=1 -DUNRAR=1 -D_UNIX=1 -I/var/WD_200GB/calibre.raita.xyz/Calibre-Web/calibre-web/calibre-web-env/include -I/usr/include/python3.12 -c src/unrardll/wrapper.cpp -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-cpython-312/src/unrardll/wrapper.o
      src/unrardll/wrapper.cpp:19:10: fatal error: unrar/dll.hpp: No such file or directory
         19 | #include <unrar/dll.hpp>
            |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      compilation terminated.
      error: command '/usr/bin/x86_64-linux-gnu-g++' failed with exit code 1
      [end of output]

  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
  ERROR: Failed building wheel for unrardll
Failed to build unrardll
ERROR: Could not build wheels for unrardll, which is required to install pyproject.toml-based projects

I would appreciate if someone could shed some light as to what am I doing wrong and how can I correctly install unrardll.

Many thanks!

[DNSB]

If you are feeling nasty, you can use the --break-system-packages option for pip.

I'd try sudo pip install libunrar-dev

If that doesn't work, pip install libunrar-dev --break-system-packages

Edit: I was looking at Launchpad and there are quite a few options so you may have to do some more digging on your own.

[kovidgoyal]

Why do you need to install unrardll? calibre ships with a private copy already.

[abdulbasitsaeed]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you are feeling nasty, you can use the --break-system-packages option for pip.

I'd try sudo pip install libunrar-dev

If that doesn't work, pip install libunrar-dev --break-system-packages

Edit: I was looking at Launchpad and there are quite a few options so you may have to do some more digging on your own.

Thanks for the detailed reply, DNSB. Much appreciated!

I installed libunrar-dev with:

sudo apt install libunrar-dev

and then tried installing unrardll in a virtual environment with:

pip install unrardll

This time it was able to build the wheel and installed successfully!

Unfortunately, it did not help me achieve my goal (as below).

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Why do you need to install unrardll? calibre ships with a private copy already.

Hi Kovid!

Actually, I am running calibre-web as the frontend UI along with a headless calibre installation.

After installing calibre-web, among the list of other programs installed, unrar shows as uninstalled. With DNSB's advice, I managed to install unrardll, but unrar still appears as uninstalled.

[kovidgoyal]

You should as the developer of calibre-web for help with that. calibre itself *does not* need you to have unrardll installed.

[abdulbasitsaeed]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You should as the developer of calibre-web for help with that. calibre itself *does not* need you to have unrardll installed.

Will do!

Thanks a million for clarifying that, Kovid.