Installing KiCad 8 in Puppy - anyone done it (successfully) ?

[courtage]

Puppy Fossa 64bit

Anyone managed to install a fully working KiCad 8 in fossa - or any Puppy, really?

Yes, it's possible to install v5 from petget, but I need to look at some projects created in v8, and they aren't backwards compatible.

The KiCad install instructions for Ubuntu go like this:

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad

So I modified these to use the pkg manager in Puppy:

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pkg add-repo ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
pkg ru ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
pkg repo focal-kicad
pkg add kicad

This seemed to install OK, but errored out when I tried to run KiCad:

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root# kicad
kicad: error while loading shared libraries: libpcre2-32.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
root# 

I installed the libpcre2-32 package using petget, and then KiCad would start up OK.

However, none of the functions I wish to use will run.

example, trying to open a pcb file:

kicad_err_01.png (34.9 KiB) Viewed 474 times

I even tried installing via flatpak, and boy what a sh*tshow that system is. I seemed to get KiCad installed as a flatpak but it crashed wildly whenever I tried to do anything.

Finally I've tried compiling, but even though I think I probably have the dependencies installed, kicad requires cmake v3.21 or better and the toolchain in devx for fossa has cmake 3.16.3

so I'm at a standstill.

[rockedge]

I feel your dilemma.....

Looking quickly you need the package libTKRWMesh.so.7.7.2()(64bit) or along those lines.......

I find it here -> https://pkgs.org/download/libTKRWMesh.so.7.7.2()(64bit) as a an RPM package.

Here is the libocct-data-exchange-7.6_7.6.3+dfsg1-7_amd64.deb package for Debian that has the library contained in it -> https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/am ... 6/download

[courtage]

Ah thx, I couldn't even get a hit when I searched. Websearch is so broken. I'll give it a go when I get back home (slammed the laptop shut and went out to get a breath of fresh air
)

[rockedge]

The Debian version libocct-data-exchange-7.6_7.6.3+dfsg1-7_amd64.deb looks promising and is more or less directly compatible with Fossapup64

[mikeslr]

I just looked at the links from pkgs.org. Both Ubuntu Jammy and Debian Bookworm are at version 7.9 and you've indicated that your datafiles need version 8. So I'd give Bookworm64 a shot as you can use apt under it to add the necessary ppa.

[courtage]

Slept on it and had another look this morning.

It turns out that the pkg install does find, download & install the libocct dependency.

But there must other deps that it's not finding, because I thought I'd run ldd on /usr/bin_pcbnew.kiface and got this (grepped for "not found")

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	libTKBRep.so.7 => not found
	libTKCDF.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKGeomBase.so.7 => not found
	libTKLCAF.so.7 => not found
	libTKMath.so.7 => not found
	libTKMesh.so.7 => not found
	libTKPrim.so.7 => not found
	libTKShHealing.so.7 => not found
	libTKTopAlgo.so.7 => not found
	libTKMesh.so.7 => not found
	libTKService.so.7 => not found
	libTKLCAF.so.7 => not found
	libTKBRep.so.7 => not found
	libTKG3d.so.7 => not found
	libTKMath.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKVCAF.so.7 => not found
	libTKV3d.so.7 => not found
	libTKService.so.7 => not found
	libTKCAF.so.7 => not found
	libTKLCAF.so.7 => not found
	libTKCDF.so.7 => not found
	libTKTopAlgo.so.7 => not found
	libTKBRep.so.7 => not found
	libTKG3d.so.7 => not found
	libTKMath.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKShHealing.so.7 => not found
	libTKTopAlgo.so.7 => not found
	libTKBRep.so.7 => not found
	libTKG3d.so.7 => not found
	libTKG2d.so.7 => not found
	libTKMath.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKBool.so.7 => not found
	libTKPrim.so.7 => not found
	libTKShHealing.so.7 => not found
	libTKTopAlgo.so.7 => not found
	libTKGeomAlgo.so.7 => not found
	libTKBRep.so.7 => not found
	libTKGeomBase.so.7 => not found
	libTKG3d.so.7 => not found
	libTKG2d.so.7 => not found
	libTKMath.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKShHealing.so.7 => not found
	libTKTopAlgo.so.7 => not found
	libTKBRep.so.7 => not found
	libTKGeomBase.so.7 => not found
	libTKG3d.so.7 => not found
	libTKG2d.so.7 => not found
	libTKMath.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKLCAF.so.7 => not found
	libTKBRep.so.7 => not found
	libTKMath.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKCAF.so.7 => not found
	libTKLCAF.so.7 => not found
	libTKShHealing.so.7 => not found
	libTKTopAlgo.so.7 => not found
	libTKBRep.so.7 => not found
	libTKG3d.so.7 => not found
	libTKMath.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found
	libTKernel.so.7 => not found

That's probably all findable and fixable, but this libc problem probably kills things off permanently for my fossa64 install :

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/usr/bin/_pcbnew.kiface: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.32' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libTKRWMesh.so.7)
/usr/bin/_pcbnew.kiface: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.32' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libTKXSBase.so.7)
/usr/bin/_pcbnew.kiface: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.29' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libTKXSBase.so.7)
/usr/bin/_pcbnew.kiface: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.32' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libTKIGES.so.7)

I'll have a look at Bookworm64 as well later.

All *extremely* frustrating

[courtage]

Well, its later and I've installed Bookworm64 and achieved partial success!

Which is to say, I managed to get v7 of KiCad installed, which is new enough to read the files I wanted to read.

For completeness, I'll mention what went wrong, and what went right ...

add-apt-repository didn't come installed. So I had to search for a solution, which turns out to be to install "software-properties-common" and then update again, which installed the add-apt-repository script.

Unfortunately, this then failed (with a Python traceback) and I had to search for a solution to *that* ... which was fairly obscure and required a visit to one of the stack-exchange websites which was the only place I could find the answer, and required installing an additional Python package.
(no I didn't take a note of which Python package. bad me.) Really, why isn't this sort of thing taken care of in the dependencies?

Unfortunately again, even though the add-apt-repository script now ran, it refused to add the repo because reasons (no "reference file", some security problem, some IP address not found ...)

At this point I no longer had the patience to persist in bottoming those issues, so I tried searching for "install kicad 7 debian" on the offchance that v7 would do.
That led me to a debian backport, so I gave that a go (I had to do apt edit-sources to add the backport info)
It successfully installed KiCad v7, which runs without error and is happily opening the files I had (though I need to add in some supporting templates & stuff).

Thoughts:

1. Perhaps if I had been running a vanilla Ubuntu, none of these frustrations would have arisen.
2. Fortunately, I know my way around Linux a bit and also know where to ask for help.
3. Sadly, the ubiquity of Ubuntu in the Linux world has led to it becoming a bit like Windows of Linux - too many developers will rely on everyone having a homogeneous, non-customised installation.
4. I inhabit the fediverse. Many times, people there who moan about MS Windows are met with a chorus of "just install Linux". They try, and encounter these sorts of issues and give up. It's a shame.

anyway, thanks for all your help @rockedge & @mikeslr

.

[rockedge]

@courtage Out of curiosity I installed KiCad in KLV-Airedale using the xbps package manager. Worked right away, no fuss and I see that there are a number of additional KiCad packages like 3D rendering and other goodies.

The needed python modules are python3-pillow, python3-numpy, python3-six, wxPython

The Python language components are a separate list of dependencies specific to python (total pain in the ass all on it's own). So when installing KiCad it is assumed that there already is a FULL outfitted Python3 onboard, The other libraries are C or FORTRAN and handled by the package manager. PIP is the manager for python or track down the modules and install with the distro's package manager.

My install of KLV-Airedale I am using is highly customized but still is Void Linux at it's core so I had no conflicts. Since KiCad 8 is the latest it will be using components like libc that are much newer versions which will kill the attempts on Fossapup64 to run v8.

Wish I knew how to use it.

[courtage]

Yep
I know my way around Python and pip, but the requirement was satisfied using apt to install the required module.
This potentially creates another minefield for the casual user as it's perfectly possible to run various versions of Python on the same box, and what apt installs might not be from the same version as the system install (this is more of a problem in petget I suspect).
What can cause extra confusion is that what runs as pip can often depend on what version of the pip executable is linked as the pip on the path. (On my working fossa pip is linked to pip3.11, but there is also a pip3.8 ... on my older bionic I still had a 2.7 as well)
Using envs would be most hygienic, but I'm lazy and just adjust paths and links to suit.