Building Epyrus with Python 3.x Problem

[geraldh]

Now that an updated version of Epyrus is available I'd like to build a gtk2 version, as I much prefer the gtk2 interface and I have a theme that works well with it. I successfully built the earlier version of Epyrus on Mint 21 which had Python 2.7. I am now on Mint 22 which comes with Python 3.x which has deprecated commands needed to build Epyrus, so I am getting errors such as "ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'imp'.

This issue is mentioned in the Palemoon build instructions which under the title "Debian 12 or later" suggests adding
"deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ stretch contrib main non-free".

Stretch is a much earlier version of Debian and not appropriate for Mint 22 which I understand is based on Trixie and so this solution still does not allow me to install Python 2.7. Is there a way of building Epyrus on modern Linux distributions that have Python 3.X? Thank you.

[jobbautista9]

Adding Debian 9 (or 10 which also has 2.7.x) to your apt repos should be fine. apt will still prioritize Mint 22's repos for packages while allowing you to install Python 2.7.

[athenian200]

Unfortunately, building Epyrus on Linux is dependent on Python 2.x being available due to the mach build system we inherited from Firefox, as far as I know. This is actually a UXP-wide problem and affects Pale Moon as well.

At this point it would probably be easier to use a Docker image or a virtual machine with Oracle Linux 8 to build Epyrus. I've only ever built Epyrus on Oracle Linux, never tested against Debian, Mint, or Ubuntu. Though to be fair I also don't test GTK2, and would hope themes will be adjusted for GTK3.

Off-topic:
By the way, I was reading an article suggesting that GTK2 is likely also on the chopping block for Debian and its derivatives, I hear Forky is planning to drop it.

[geraldh]

Thanks to both of you for your advice on this. I have now cracked it and have a gtk2 version of Epyrus 2.2.0 running. I installed Mint 20.3 on a virtual machine and managed to build it on that after a few false starts (Mint 21.x doesn't work).

The virtual machine does need around 30GB free to build it. I ran it on a host with 16GB of ram and it took around 40 mins on my 4th gen i7 desktop. Seems to work perfectly with the Interlink theme and to my eyes at least looks much nicer than the gtk3 version.

I am aware that gtk2 is on the way out, but I'll keep using it for as long as I can and I then may then switch to a QT Linux Distro. I'm happy to pass on the gtk2 version if anyone wants it, but I don't think it's as simple as that .

[athenian200]

So, I should probably thank you. Thinking about this post kind of made me feel weird about the fact that my e-mail client still requires outdated tools like Python 2 to build, but I don't offer a GTK2 version. And in general made me think more about how inaccessible Epyrus development is becoming for the average Linux user. And that feeling... motivated me to do this.

https://repo.palemoon.org/athenian200/e ... ch/python3

https://repo.palemoon.org/athenian200/U ... hon3-dirty

The Python 3 port is currently in a very experimental state and is full of odd debug prints, hasn't been tested on a variety of platforms (only Windows 10 and Fedora Linux so far), doesn't really have a proper commit history as I was mostly experimenting at first, not sure how far I would get... but anyway, this branch of UXP can be used for a Python 3 build of Epyrus in a pinch. I have no idea when or if a cleaned-up version of this could be incorporated into the real UXP, but it does exist.

[Basilisk-Dev]

At this point it would probably be easier to use a Docker image or a virtual machine with Oracle Linux 8 to build Epyrus. I've only ever built Epyrus on Oracle Linux, never tested against Debian, Mint, or Ubuntu. Though to be fair I also don't test GTK2, and would hope themes will be adjusted for GTK3.

That's what I do on Linux. Feel free to try it out. I've built Pale Moon and Epyrus in this setup before.
https://repo.palemoon.org/Basilisk-Dev/ ... ipts/linux

[Moonchild]

On a related note if I do build Linux binaries (like I've done this release, and in some *nix debugging sessions) I use WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) which is basically a tightly-integrated virtual machine/container in Windows that even allows me to spin up Linux applications in regular windows (running an Xserver for the GUI). I use devtoolset-11 on oracle Linux 8 to have a modern gcc toolchain at my disposal and it Just Works™ -- VirtualBox and VMWare were my go-tos previously but they are considerably slower than WSL.

[andyprough]

On a related note if I do build Linux binaries (like I've done this release, and in some *nix debugging sessions) I use WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) which is basically a tightly-integrated virtual machine/container in Windows that even allows me to spin up Linux applications in regular windows (running an Xserver for the GUI). I use devtoolset-11 on oracle Linux 8 to have a modern gcc toolchain at my disposal and it Just Works™ -- VirtualBox and VMWare were my go-tos previously but they are considerably slower than WSL.

It's just like using kvm on a GNU/Linux distro I would imagine - virtualization that is natively built into the kernel like kvm and wsl should be much more efficient.