FAHControl not installable in new Debian stable (Bullseye)

[IgnacioVicario]

I have been folding in the former Linux Debian stable (Buster). But after upgrading to the new stable distro, Bullseye, FAHControl package was uninstalled and if I try to install it, apt refuses because the packages python-gtk2 and python-gnome2 can not be installed.

[psaam0001]

Welcome to the forum!!

I am hopeful that someone who has a better understanding of Debian related issues can help you, as I am currently using the Fedora/Red Hat/CentOs variety of the linux distributions.

Generally speaking, FAHControl (as downloaded from the FAH Servers) is dependent on Python v2. However, some distributions have stopped including support for the Python v2 compiler's, in order to focus their attention on providing a more stable and secure experience.

There is a workaround, that someone will be able to help you with.

Paul

[IgnacioVicario]

Yes. Debian claims that python2 is obsolete. Although it still ships 2.7.

[Joe_H]

The FAHControl supplied with the official package of the F@h client requires Python 2.7 and some other libraries considered obsolete in recent Linux distributions. But the last major update to the client code was several years ago in the time period when 2.7 was current. The updates over the last year were minor ones to add new cause preferences such as COVID, and fix some bugs.

The code for FAHControl is one component of the client that is open source. Several people have worked with that to provide versions of FAHControl that are based on Python 3. Links have been provided here in the past, don't have links to those posts at the moment.

[calxalot]

https://github.com/cdberkstresser/fah-control

[IgnacioVicario]

https://github.com/cdberkstresser/fah-control

Thanks a lot! It is perfect!
It should be placed in the downloads section.

[JimF]

Actually, python 2 is no longer necessary, at least on Ubuntu 20.04.3. I have suspected that for some time, since I have been able to re-install FAH 7.6.21 on machines where only python 3 was active. But they had had python 2 previously installed, so I could not be sure whether it left some part of it behind that FAH used.

However, today I did a new install of Ubuntu 20.04.3 on a new SSD that has never had any python installed by me. It uses only the default version 3.8.10, which is the one that comes with the OS.
And FAH installed simply by searching for "FAH" in Ubuntu Software, and then after it is installed search for it again in "Activities". You can then add it as a Favorite if you want to.

Whether that is all due to a change in python that somehow makes it backwards compatible or something else is beyond me, but it is running fine.

[dephekt]

However, today I did a new install of Ubuntu 20.04.3 on a new SSD that has never had any python installed by me. It uses only the default version 3.8.10, which is the one that comes with the OS.
And FAH installed simply by searching for "FAH" in Ubuntu Software, and then after it is installed search for it again in "Activities". You can then add it as a Favorite if you want to.

Whether that is all due to a change in python that somehow makes it backwards compatible or something else is beyond me, but it is running fine.

This works because the package you see in the software store is a Snap package, not a typical DEB archive. It allows developers to define all the required dependencies for the thing to work, then installs all those packages and the thing itself into a SquashFS image which can then be distributed. Your system mounts the SquashFS image and can run the app in an essentially self-contained environment without polluting your system-level libraries. For your own edification, you can see the dependencies defined here result in python2 being made available in this self-contained filesystem: https://github.com/fcole90/fah-snap/blo ... craft.yaml

Besides Snap (a thing provided by Canonical, the folks behind Ubuntu), there is also Flatpak and AppImage, and probably others I'm forgetting or even unaware of. They're meant to be ways to distribute apps across platforms without having to maintain separate repos and packages for many different distributions and without having to worry so much about the complexity behind what libraries are available in a given distro and release version versus what the application requires.

[JimF]

dephekt,

Thanks. That makes sense. I didn't think either FAH or python had changed, it was probably something else in the Ubuntu environment.
I am glad they are doing something useful.

[rbtfrog]

Is there any possibility of making the default version of FAHControl be Python3 compatible? It's been several months since this thread started.

[toTOW]

Don't expect anything new from v7 branch ... so maybe with v8 client, on day ...