byobu-config can't run on Ubuntu 18(python 3)

[Lance Tien]

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Release: 18.04

$ byobu --version
byobu version 5.125
tmux 2.6

$ byobu-config
ERROR: Could not import the python snack module

And when I manually install snack through pip, there's a syntax error(print vs print()). So I guess byobu-config can't work on a python 3 only environment.

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Hi Lance,
I installed byobu on my 18.04 and it worked right away - byobu-config as well.

# byobu --version
byobu version 5.125
tmux 2.6

byobu is on 5.125-0ubuntu1

There must be some change in your python dependencies that triggers this, or an byobu extra of some sort maybe? My system was a fresh 18.04 from a cloud image - no snack form pip, not from the archive - so if you could try to reproduce on a fresh image and report back.
If a fresh image works for you as it does for me, then you'd need to check what on your current setup is different to trigger the issue.

[Lance Tien (lance6716)]

Oh silly me, I used a minimal-installed Ubuntu and thus don't have python-newt package. Now it works. I wish python-newt could be added into dependencies.

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Yeah, agree to the wish as a dependency

[YUKI Hiroshi (piro-or)]

Same problem happens on my Ubuntu 16.04LTS.

[Lance Tien (lance6716)]

Now it's broken again. Python-newt installed, ubuntu 18 LTS, 4.15.0-24-generic #26-Ubuntu

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

@Lance - hi I just recently fixed such an issue, see bug 1537528
TL;DR it crashes when it was using the screen backend.
Since you have python-newt installed this bug here isn't your issue.
Maybe it is the other I linked (which is on it's way into the release atm).
And if it is neither, then please file a new bug about it sharing some details on the crash.

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

@Lance, could you please test the package from bug #1537528 which is in proposed?

[Lance Tien (lance6716)]

@Andreas Sorry I'm not familiar with this bug fix system, how could I install that package in Ubuntu? I can't find a download link

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Hi Lance, since the fix of bug #1537528 is released in the meantime it would be enough to just upgrade all packages (slang2 in particular if you want to be selective).

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

Among other fixes that will bring
  slang2 (2.3.0-2ubuntu1.1) xenial

So to be more selective than the full update
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install libslang2

And that might be the fix for your issue (or not).
Let us know.

[Lance Tien (lance6716)]

that doesn't work. I have installed libslang2, apt shows 2.3.1a-3ubuntu1.

BTW, I use tmux as backend, so I guess it's another problem.

now byobu config says "ERROR: Could not import the python snack module."

 Christian Ehrhardt  <email address hidden> 于 2018年7月30日周一 17:50写道：

> Hi Lance, since the fix of bug #1537528 is released in the meantime it
> would be enough to just upgrade all packages (slang2 in particular if
> you want to be selective).
>
> $ sudo apt update
> $ sudo apt dist-upgrade
>
> Among other fixes that will bring
> slang2 (2.3.0-2ubuntu1.1) xenial
>
> So to be more selective than the full update
> $ sudo apt update
> $ sudo apt install libslang2
>
> And that might be the fix for your issue (or not).
> Let us know.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1770090
>
> Title:
> byobu-config can't run on Ubuntu 18(python 3)
>
> Status in byobu package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> $ lsb_release -rd
> Description: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
> Release: 18.04
>
> $ byobu --version
> byobu version 5.125
> tmux 2.6
>
> $ byobu-config
> ERROR: Could not import the python snack module
>
> And when I manually install snack through pip, there's a syntax
> error(print vs print()). So I guess byobu-config can't work on a
> python 3 only environment.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/byobu/+bug/1770090/+subscriptions
>

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Oh I realized that we all totally missed that you said 18.04 in your first post.
Obviously a different issue, as the fix we wanted to check was towards 16.04 and already ok in Bionic.

Sorry for the noise Lance :-/
TL;DR you are still affected by somehow broken dependencies with "snack" being the current one that bites you.

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

I did a minimal installation of 18.04 (desktop). Logged in, opened a terminal, typed byobu, not installed, installed it with apt.

byobu itself, as well as byobu-config, worked out of the box.

I also have newt installed, in terms of python3-newt and libnewt0.52, and tmux 2.6-3.

I don't know how you get from running byobu to getting an error about "snack". The only snack I see in ubuntu 18.04 is python{,3}-tksnack, which is something about audio/sound.

Do you have some byobu customization to call out to this "snack" python module you have? Did you install the py3 version of that module from pip?

[Lance Tien (lance6716)]

@Andreas I think I didn't modified byobu, and I run `pip list | grep snack` it shows nothing.

The byobu-config worked about two month ago(#2), at that time I found my missing package by reading the build instruction on Github's byobu repo. Now I have no idea what's wrong with this, may be I should try to build byobu from source to get more errors this weekend. Could you give a recommanded branch to work on? I use Git-based repos sometimes and don't know how to deal with code.launchpad.net.

[Lance Tien (lance6716)]

apt removed and autoremoved byobu, then I downloaded the code from

git clone -b ubuntu/bionic https://git.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/byobu

but make install failed. It says

Making install in etc/byobu
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/lance/byobu/etc/byobu'
make[2]: Entering directory '/home/lance/byobu/etc/byobu'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for 'install-exec-am'.
 /bin/mkdir -p '/home/lance/byobu/etc/byobu/'
 /usr/bin/install -c -m 644 backend socketdir '/home/lance/byobu/etc/byobu/'
/usr/bin/install: 'backend' and '/home/lance/byobu/etc/byobu/backend' are the same file
/usr/bin/install: 'socketdir' and '/home/lance/byobu/etc/byobu/socketdir' are the same file
Makefile:259: recipe for target 'install-etcDATA' failed
make[2]: *** [install-etcDATA] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/lance/byobu/etc/byobu'
Makefile:329: recipe for target 'install-am' failed
make[1]: *** [install-am] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/lance/byobu/etc/byobu'
Makefile:335: recipe for target 'install-recursive' failed
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

I don't know. That looks like a pure upstream issue. This bug is about the package in Ubuntu, and we still can't reproduce the issue you encountered.

[Lance Tien (lance6716)]

I suddenly found byobu-config works with sudo, so I have no problems now :P

[Lance Tien (lance6716)]

As far as I can debug, `which python` shows my python-anaconda distribution and can't import snack. `sudo which python` shows /usr/bin/python and can import snack. I guess there's a problem about python-newt package and user-installed python distribution. So byobu-config could always using system-installed python may be a solution.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for byobu (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]