[Rant] New dependencies for 0.6.11?

[Jellby]

I was going to upgrade the Calibre version in my work computer (Mandriva 2008) and got a new error:

Extracting application files...
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/init.py", line 43, in <module>
  File "/home/kovid/build/calibre/src/calibre/__init__.py", line 15, in <module>
  File "ExtensionLoader_PyQt4_QtGui.py", line 12, in <module>
ImportError: /lib/i686/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.7' not found (required by /usr/local/calibre/libxml2.so.2)

I had already compiled libjpeg locally to work around a similar problem, now I have to do the same with libxml2? And what else? I cannot compile Calibre itself because I don't have python 2.6 (only 2.5)... I'm sorry but this is starting to be too much for me.

I understand that is the price to pay if one wishes cutting edge applications, though

[kovidgoyal]

It's pretty much impossible for me to keep calibre compatible with older system. This is because it needs to keep on using new features from various dependencies, like Qt and python. For example, currently the viewer has a bug where it doesn't display soft hyphens at the end of the line. This is because of a bug in Qt, so as soon as a new Qt is released, calibre will be upgraded.

And the recent customizable Save to disk feature depends on a feature in the latest python 2.6

And then there is a bug in lxml that affects handling if unicode CSS selectors which neccessitates an upgrade as soon as the next version is rleased. (lxml is what uses libxml2, among other things).

Still glibc 2.7 is almost 2 years old. Instead of recompiling individual dependencies that depend on it, you should just manuall compile glibc2.7 and put it into the calibre folder.

[luqmaninbmore]

WOuld it be possible to make some type of note as to OS compatibility for linux distros though? So that we don't accidently break a perfectly working version calibre with no possibility of returning to the older version?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

WOuld it be possible to make some type of note as to OS compatibility for linux distros though? So that we don't accidently break a perfectly working version calibre with no possibility of returning to the older version?

I am certainly not going to sit and test calibre on a dozen different distros before every release. If you're concerned, I suggest you get your distro maintainers to package calibre and then use only the distro packages.

[user_none]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

I am certainly not going to sit and test calibre on a dozen different distros before every release. If you're concerned, I suggest you get your distro maintainers to package calibre and then use only the distro packages.

The problem is with distros like Ubuntu, Debian and I believe Mandriva, they lock the application version for the life of the distro release. Debian for instance will even go as far as to back port security fixes instead of updating to a newer version in a lot of cases. Not to mention upgrading something as big as a later version of python is just not going to happen during a release. If you use a binary distro you have to live with the package versions that they give you.

Your best options for a binary distro in order of preference are: use the distro package and live with the shipped version, build it yourself, use the binary installer.

If you can't build it yourself or use the binary installer due to packages that you can't update without breaking the system (python, pyqt4) then either live with the last version that you can get working or switch to a distro with more recent version of those packages. In the OPs case updating to the latest Mandriva release will solve the python and glib version issues.

Just because there is a newer version doesn't mean that you have to upgrade. While a new version has bug fixes and new features that doesn't mean you will need or use them.

[kovidgoyal]

That's why I stopped using binary distros years ago.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by luqmaninbmore

So that we don't accidently break a perfectly working version calibre with no possibility of returning to the older version?

Yes, that's what I was thinking... I guess I should have tried to install in a different directory first, and tried the new version, before overwriting the older working version.

Does anyone have a copy of the 0.6.10 binaries?

In the OPs case updating to the latest Mandriva release will solve the python and glib version issues.

Yes, 0.6.11 works fine in Mandriva 2009.1 (I have that on a new netbook I got).

[kovidgoyal]

There's a sticky thread in this forum with links to old binaries, best to ask there.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Still glibc 2.7 is almost 2 years old. Instead of recompiling individual dependencies that depend on it, you should just manuall compile glibc2.7 and put it into the calibre folder.

Well, that worked, thanks for the suggestion

[cutterjohn42]

Actually, I like the binary distros as I had my fill of dependency hell YEARS ago.

Ubuntu does what Debian does as well. They release a particular version of apps + kernel + X.org with a release and backport security fixes to that version. Alternatively you can sometimes find newer version in the various PPAs, or the backports repo from the next release. But since Ubuntu has a 6m release cycle you're pretty close to the bleeding edge all of the time anyways.

Lastly, and entirely undesireable(and mostly unnecessary) is to build more recent version from "source". [EDIT] Good thing about Ubuntu being a Debian derived distro is that one can usually find source .debs to build from and therefore not break your entire system(hopefully) if you decided to install system wide... [/EDIT]

The only good reason to use a source based distro is to be able to compile with specific architectural optimizations, but I found the few %age points of performance to no be worth the hassle.

(That said the only version of calibre in the Ubuntu repos is very very very old....)

[jmatthewman]

Originally Posted by cutterjohn42

(That said the only version of calibre in the Ubuntu repos is very very very old....)

i hadn't even noticed how old it was until you mentioned it.. but it looks like it'll be much more up-to-date in the next ubuntu release.

hmm, i wonder which features i'm missing out on! (not that i find myself in want of features -- whatever version this is does everything i need it to just fine)

[cutterjohn42]

Just use the Debian install CLI option... works fine for me since I didn't want to be using an ancient version...

It even creates a menu entry in the Office menu group. You MAY need to download some extra things though, like some basic Qt libs if you're only using GNOME/GTK apps ATM.

[EDIT]
You could also check the 9.10 backports repo or check the various PPAs and see if someone has packaged up a version already.
[/EDIT]

[lbattraw]

*** Never mind, I found out that the libpng version shipped with Ubuntu included the header error at line 326 about 'dont' as well as poppler was not shipped with the xpdf headers. Problem solved! ***

I'm running Ubuntu (JJ) and trying to compile from source (latest, checked out last night). After satisfying all the dependencies I could see I'm still getting an error when running python setup.py build:

/apps/books/calibre/src/calibre/ebooks/pdf/images.cpp: In member function ‘void calibre_reflow::XMLImages::add(GfxState*, Object*, Stream*, unsigned int, unsigned int, GfxImageColorMap*, bool, int*, bool)’:
/apps/books/calibre/src/calibre/ebooks/pdf/images.cpp:160: error: ‘class ImageStream’ has no member named ‘close’
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "setup.py", line 99, in <module>
sys.exit(main())
File "setup.py", line 85, in main
command.run_all(opts)
File "/apps/books/calibre/setup/__init__.py", line 158, in run_all
self.run_cmd(self, opts)
File "/apps/books/calibre/setup/__init__.py", line 154, in run_cmd
cmd.run(opts)
File "/apps/books/calibre/setup/extensions.py", line 232, in run
self.build(ext, dest)
File "/apps/books/calibre/setup/extensions.py", line 269, in build
subprocess.check_call(cmd)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 462, in check_call
raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['g++', '-O3', '-Wall', '-DNDEBUG', '-fPIC', '-fno-strict-aliasing', '-pipe', '-pthread', '-I/usr/include/python2.6', '-DPNG_SKIP_SETJMP_CHECK', '-I/usr/include', '-I/usr/include/ImageMagick', '-I/usr/include/poppler', '-c', '/apps/books/calibre/src/calibre/ebooks/pdf/images.cpp', '-o', '/apps/books/calibre/build/objects/pdfreflow/images.o']' returned non-zero exit status 1

Doess anyone have any ideas?

Thanks-
Larry

[kovidgoyal]

Are you sure you're using poppler 0.12.0?

[lbattraw]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Are you sure you're using poppler 0.12.0?

Positive. I compiled it from source myself. I finally got everything working but it was definitely not a small effort with all the dependencies and the couple adjustments necessary to get it to compile. I was hoping to get better results than the pre-compiled version since I've had a lot of problems with it locking up the KDE task bar such that I can no longer click on any of the icons/active programs and get a response. Have you noticed this?

Thanks-
Larry