Re: pip / python /Is it possible to run magic-wormhole from Trisquel 8
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> Could anyone enlighten me as to the problem here and moreover whether there is any suggested solution?
> I had imagined that being presented at Libre Planet shoulod imply magic-wormhole would be suitably FREE for Trisquel
The wormhole is likely free enough indeed. But the installation instructions you were trying to follow involve Python's package manager, pip. Pip is also free software but by default uses a repository (PyPI) that happens to allow nonfree software — hence the ban on pip in some FSF-endorsed distros. It seems like Trisquel 8 is one of them. I'm not aware of the situation in newer Trisquels.
It's actually a controversial topic. The repositories of pip and similar language-specific package managers (there are many of them) do contain some nonfree software… and yet the nonfree part often constitutes a very small percentage. Free Software Distribution Guidelines merely forbid suggesting the user to install nonfree software. It has been argued whether using a repository like PyPI already constitutes "suggesting" someone to install something particular from it.
Also, tools like pip are theoretically usable with custom repositories — except nobody seems to be providing such custom repositories with FSDG-compliance as an explicit rule.
Add to this that the software in language-specific repos — even when free — is usually far less hygienically packaged than if it were included in the distro itself.
If you want a suggestion, here's one
1. reinstall the OS with Trisquel 11 (for security reasons, among others)
2. install from APT with `sudo apt install magic-wormhole` — it's available in Trisquel 11
Hope it helps :)
Thanks. I am one of those who prefers not to update software but I will consider your suggestion. In case I would update from Trisquel 8 to 11 can anyone comment on whether this will be easy and maintain all of my data?
> Thanks. I am one of those who prefers not to update software but I will consider your suggestion. In case I would update from Trisquel 8 to 11 can anyone comment on whether this will be easy and maintain all of my data?
I believe updates are only officially supported by one version (e.g. from Trisquel 10 to 11, not from 8 to 11). At least that's how it is in similar APT-based distros that I am more familiar with… So, you'd need to do several updates, one by one. That's why I wrote "reinstall" in my previous message — reinstalling from scratch seems easier than updating. Especially that some minor things may go wrong even when updating "legally", by one OS version.
If you didn't put your data in some weird, root-owned places, all you need to do is sync the /home directory to your new system. You then need to manually install all the applications you used to be using (well, it might be possible to automate to some extent but personally, I find manual reinstallation more reliable in case of APT-based distros). Also, I guess some applications might have problems reading configuration files written under /home by their older versions but that shouldn't be a critical issue :)
A lot depends on how experienced user you are. This task is fairly simple for some but when you lack some piece of knowledge, it might grow up to a day-long work
Good luck with this :)
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