Problems installing GNU Health on Trisquel 8

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ricardo63
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Joined: 06/29/2019

Hello,

I am new in this forum and would be very thankful for any help on this issue.

I am trying to install GNU Health on a fresh Trisquel 8 system and it looks like there is some problem with Python pip. I wrote the GNU Health leader and here I send you his answer:
"I guess you can always install it. All the python packages that GNU Health uses are Libre, so no worries on that.

PS: You should talk to the Trisquel team, and ask them to include pip.The argument of not including pip because there might be some non-free software on pypi, IMHO, is way restrictive".

Other recommendations were:

-"As a last ressort (not nice, but a possibility) you could try
https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/"

- or tryng with Debian.

But I would be very happy to achieve an installation on Trisquel that would be also useful for other users.

Best regards,

Ricardo

chaosmonk

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/07/2017

> I am trying to install GNU Health on a fresh Trisquel 8 system and it
> looks like there is some problem with Python pip.

The problem is that including pip would violate the GNU Free System
Distribution Guidelines,[1] which state:

"A free system distribution must not steer users towards obtaining any
nonfree information for practical use, or encourage them to do so. The
system should have no repositories for nonfree software and no specific
recipes for installation of particular nonfree programs. Nor should the
distribution refer to third-party repositories that are not committed to
only including free software"

> "I guess you can always install it. All the python packages that GNU
> Health uses are Libre, so no worries on that.

Installing it should be easy. Packages in the PyPi repository use
setuptools, so they are not hard to build. After verifying that a PyPi
package and all of its dependencies are free, you can install it
manually. See my comment here[2] and onpon4's correction.

> PS: You should talk to the Trisquel team, and ask them to include pip.The
> argument of not including pip because there might be some non-free
> software on pypi, IMHO, is way restrictive".

It is inaccurate to say that "there *might* be some non-free software on
pypi," because we know for a fact that there is non-free software on
PyPi.[3]

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190629121929/http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html
[2] https://trisquel.info/en/forum/pip-python-pip-doesnt-work-trisquel#comment-140235
[3] https://trisquel.info/en/issues/3741

CitoplasmaX
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Joined: 11/24/2016
ricardo63
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Joined: 06/29/2019

Chaosmonk,

thank you very much for your comments. I will forward them to the GNU Health team so that we can find the better way to install GNU Health on Trisquel 8.

Best regards,

Ricardo

chaosmonk

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/07/2017

> thank you very much for your comments. I will forward them to the GNU
> Health team so that we can find the better way to install GNU Health
> on Trisquel (.

It would be good to come up with a convenient way to install GNU Health
without relying on a third-party repository. It seems contradictory for
a GNU program to rely on a method of distribution that is incompatible
with the GNU FSDG.

If the developers have interest in packaging GNU Health for Debian
(either for inclusion in Debian, as a PPA or apt repository, or as a
standalone .deb file), that would make it much easier for Debian and
Debian-based distros like Ubuntu, Trisquel, and PureOS to include GNU
Health. An AUR package might also be a good idea for Arch and
derivatives like Parabola and Hyperbola. If GNU Health is part of the
GNU project, it seems it would make sense for it to be packaged for
distributions of GNU.

ricardo63
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Joined: 06/29/2019

And is someone there who would be able to build such a package? Or should we wait till the GNU Health project does this?
An one more question chaosmonk, as I have seen in one of your links, should something like this work in order to try to install GNU Health on Trisquel 8?:

$ gnuhealth-3.4.0.tar.gz
$ cd gnuhealth-3.4.0/
$ sudo apt install python-setuptools python3-setuptools
$ python setup.py build
$ sudo python setup.py install

And if yes should I put these commands all together? Sorry for the newbie question :-(

Thanks and best regards,
Ricardo

chaosmonk

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/07/2017

> And is someone there who would be able to build such a package? Or should
> we wait till the GNU Health project does this?

I have seem some projects package their own software and distribute it
as a standalone .deb package, PPA, or apt repository. If the GNU Health
team wants to do this, it would then be easy to add GNU Health to
Trisquel's repositories. If not, we could make a request for packaging
in Debian. If a Debian maintainer takes on the task, GNU Health could be
made available in Debian and all downstream distributions, including
Ubuntu and Trisquel. If that doesn't work, a third party could package
it in a PPA. I've learned how to create very simple Debian packages, but
glancing at the GNU Health source code it looks outside my skill level.

> An one more question chaosmonk, as I have seen in one of your links,
> should something like this work in order to try to install GNU Health on
> Trisquel 8?:
>
> $ gnuhealth-3.4.0.tar.gz

Did you mean to say

> $ tar xf gnuhealth-3.4.0.tar.gz

?

> $ cd gnuhealth-3.4.0/
> $ sudo apt install python-setuptools python3-setuptools

Installing setuptools is necessary if this is the first time you've
compiled a program that uses setuptools. In the future you can skip this
step.

> $ python setup.py build
> $ sudo python setup.py install

Those notes aside, this should work *if* you have all of the necessary
dependencies installed. If you are missing some dependencies, you'll
have to install those first. If a missing dependency is in Trisquel's
repository, you can just install it with apt. If not, you'll need to
build it too. Why don't you give it a try, and "python setup.py build"
fails, copy/paste the error message here.

ricardo63
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Joined: 06/29/2019

Hi all,

it did not work. Here the error message:
python: can't open file 'setup.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

And again my old question: should all commands be written together?

Thanks and best regards

chaosmonk

I am a member!

I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/07/2017

> it did not work. Here the error message:
> python: can't open file 'setup.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

I'm not sure where you got this tarball from so I'm not sure whether it
is the right one or why it doesn't have setup.py. The GNU Health
downloads page[1] has multiple tarballs available. For now I'll assume
you're trying to install gnuhealth-client.

$ wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/health/gnuhealth-client-3.4.4.tar.gz
$ tar xf gnuhealth-client-3.4.4.tar.gz
$ cd gnuhealth-client-3.4.4/
$ python setup.py build
$ sudo python setup.py install

After this, I was able to launch the program by running

$ gnuhealth-client

> And again my old question: should all commands be written together?

You input them one at a time. Is that what you're asking?

[1] https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/health/

ricardo63
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Joined: 06/29/2019

Hi Chaosmonk,

it looks like I had the wrong tar from python:

https://pypi.org/project/gnuhealth/

Now it looks like it is working, the client is already installed and now I need to try to begin working with it.

And yes, that was want I wanted to know.

Thanks a lot!

Best regards and happy Hacking!

Ricardo

ricardo63
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Joined: 06/29/2019

Hi all,

now I have the client, now I need to install the whole system:

https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/health/gnuhealth-latest.tar.gz

The same way as the client should work, am I right?

Sorry for so many questions, but I think it would be really nice to achieve that GNU Health works on Trisquel 8.

Best regards,

Ricardo

chaosmonk

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/07/2017

On 07/12, name at domain wrote:
> now I have the client, now I need to install the whole system:
>
> https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/health/gnuhealth-latest.tar.gz
>
> The same way as the client should work, am I right?

Well, the few couple steps are the same,

$ wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/health/gnuhealth-latest.tar.gz
$ tar xf gnuhealth-latest.tar.gz
$ cd gnuhealth-3.4.1/

but I don't see setup.py. Instead I see three executable files:
gnuhealth-setup, gnuhealth-control, and start_gnuhealth.sh.

When I run

$ ./gnuhealth-setup

I get

This is GNU Health Setup 3.4.0

usage: gnuhealth-setup command

Command:

version : Show version
install : Install a GNU Health server
help : shows this message

So perhaps try running

$ ./gnuhealth-setup install

and see if this installs GNU Health. (I did not try this myself since I
don't want to install GNU Health on my machine.)

If that appears to work, try running it with

$ ./start_gnuhealth.sh

ricardo63
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Joined: 06/29/2019

Hi Chaosmonk,

thanks again for your comment. I will try these steps and let you all know if it works. Although I think that the pip problem will come again :-( because some changes in the operating system are needed:

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Operating_System-Specific_Notes#Ubuntu

and for Trisquel 8 I think that I should work with Ubuntu 16.04 and not Ubuntu 18.04, right?

Best regards,

Ricardo

chaosmonk

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I am a translator!

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Joined: 07/07/2017

> thanks again for your comment. I will try these steps and let you all know
> if it works. Although I think that the pip problem will come again :-(
> because some changes in the operating system are needed:

pip is just a package manager. Anything that can be installed with pip
can be installed without pip, and any software in the PyPi repository
should be accessible elsewhere. Just give it a try, see if you run into
problems, and we'll take it from there.

> and for Trisquel 8 I think that I should work with Ubuntu 16.04 and not
> Ubuntu 18.04, right?

Trisquel 8 is based on Ubuntu 16.04, but that doesn't mean that
instructions for 18.04 necessarily *won't* work. It would depend on
whether something specifically changed from 16.04 to 18.04 that makes
the 18.04 documentation unsuitable for 16.04. Again, try it, see if you
run into problems, and we'll take it from there.

ricardo63
Desconectado
Joined: 06/29/2019

Hi again,

we needed one more thing: the GNU Health Installer. I have tried and it looks like the Python problems come again:

ricardo@ricardo-ThinkPad-X230:~$ wget -qO- https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/health/gnuhealth-setup-latest.tar.gz | tar -xzvf -
gnuhealth-setup
ricardo@ricardo-ThinkPad-X230:~$ ./gnuhealth-setup install
cat: version: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
2019-07-24 13:19:15 [INFO] Starting GNU Health installation...
2019-07-24 13:19:15 [INFO] Checking requirements
-> Looking for wget... wget ist /usr/bin/wget
-> Looking for 2to3... 2to3 ist /usr/bin/2to3
-> Looking for patch... patch ist /usr/bin/patch
-> Looking for the Python Interpreter command... python ist /usr/bin/python
Python 2.7.12
2019-07-24 13:19:15 [ERROR] Found an Incompatible Python version.
2019-07-24 13:19:15 [INFO] Bailing out !
2019-07-24 13:19:15 [INFO] Cleaning up temp directories at
2019-07-24 13:19:15 [INFO] removing base dir at

Thanks again.
Happy and healthy Hacking,
Ricardo