"Install" issues - runs only as "root"

[james]

plover-2.2.0
debian-unstable

From the README file, installing on my debian-unstable system, with the suggested

 sudo python setup.py install

will install plover in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/plover/ with root-only permissions, as

 drwxr-s--- 6 root staff 4096 Jan 15 20:48 plover
 -rw-r----- 1 root staff 1021 Jan 15 20:48 plover-2.2.0.egg-info

and so on, for the installed files.

Did you really want plover to run only as "root"? Is this a permissions error in the install?

There is no mention of having to run "sudo plover" in the README file. Running simply "plover" will produce an error message,

 Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/plover", line 5, in <module>
    import plover.gui.main
 ImportError: No module named plover.gui.main

which is not what the first-time user should see.

But then, maybe you don't want a non-root user mucking with the keyboard mapping? On the other hand, the keyboard is usually already dedicated to the current non-root user.

So, please update the README file, or set the proper install permissions to allow a non-root user to run plover.

Also, allowing for installation in a different directory would be polite. I prefer "/local/" instead of "/usr/local/". Some people might prefer to install in "/opt/". So, a command-line dialog, or an install-configuration-file would be nice.

Thanks. Very cool project!

James

[Joshua Harlan Lifton (joshua-harlan-lifton)]

Thanks for the bug report, James. I suspect I didn't run into this earlier due to a difference between Debian and Ubuntu (or perhaps our particular setups thereon) in the value of the umask during installation. I'll look into this further to determine how to allow Plover to run as a non-root user on systems with a more restrictive umask.

[Joshua Harlan Lifton (joshua-harlan-lifton)]

I set my umask to 0077 and replicated your problem. The default Ubuntu system umask was still 0022. In this situation, "sudo -i python setup.py install" should do the trick. That said, I agree the installation process needs to be improved, or at least better documented.

[james (james-nurealm)]

BTW, I see that, over on Google Groups, a debian package for Plover has been linked. Presumably, this package will not have the root permission problem.

See
 http://groups.google.com/group/ploversteno/browse_thread/thread/2fe9849a6ee90c79

James