How to Install Anki in Bionicpup32?

[TauDudeBlobber]

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to install Anki, but it won't work.

Puppy: Bionicpup32 19.03
Computer: Acer Aspire 1 ZG5
Installation: frugal, internal drive, ext4, vfat (installed to ext4), installed with the installer program off of a bootable cd

[OscarTalks]

Most of the linux downloads on the Anki website are 64bit so they won't run in 32bit BionicPup
There is an older version of Anki (2.0.52-i386) available via the "alternate download site" link which does start up.
Otherwise try a 64bit Puppy

EDIT (Later):-
Some notes for anyone interested.
The Anki website page with downloads is here:-
https://apps.ankiweb.net
Quick test in FossaPup (64bit)
The slightly earlier stable release 2.1.49 works if you add the common --no-sandbox argument
For example from the extracted directory ./bin/Anki --no-sandbox in terminal and it starts up
I tried the most recent 2.1.54 Qt5 version and that did NOT seem to want to work
but it is not something which I personally need so I didn't spend much time looking at it

[TauDudeBlobber]

i've installed the version ending in i386 and it starts now but it has this error in the terminal and when i try to sync to ankiweb and input my credentials an error comes up in a popup. i've copied and pasted both errors here incase they are helpful. (i have tried it with the firewall disabled but it didn't fix it.)

error in the terminal:
Unable to load library icui18n "Cannot load library icui18n: (libicui18n.so.48: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)"

error in the popup:
Syncing failed:
Error establishing a secure connection. This is usually caused by antivirus, firewall or VPN software, or problems with your ISP.

[OscarTalks]

Regarding the error in the terminal, as you can see in the above image, I got that also. Normally when you get a missing shared library it will be a fatal error and the program will not start at all. In the case of that specific library, libicui18n, I have seen cases before where that one is not found but the program starts and runs anyway. Not sure exactly why, but it is something to do with unicode support I think, which is not always needed. The error happens because the version of Anki was compiled in a build environment which had an earlier version of the library, hence the mismatch when trying to run it in something more recent. In fact there is a later version of this library in BionicPup32 with a higher number. I did try creating a symlink as a workaround, this sometimes works, but there was still an "unable to read symbols" error so it was not fully fixed.

I do not know if the missing library is the cause of the other syncing problem you have encountered. This may be caused by some other networking or security issue. I only did a couple of quick tests. I have never used Anki and am not familiar with it at all, nor do I have any credentials for it so I don't think I will be able to advise any further, other than to suggest that you try the later version of Anki in a later 64bit Puppy and see if it performs any differently.

[TauDudeBlobber]

i am unable to use a 64-bit puppy because this laptop is 32-bit. do you think it is possible to downgrade the library, and if so, how?

[mcewanw]

@TauDudeBlobber
Don't know if this will help you, when you uncompress the download available from following link you will get 48 version of libicu in folder oldubuntu_icu48libs

https://owncloud.rockedge.org/index.php ... TioXvz12oo

I haven't tried using Anki or these libs. So for your own experiment/risk, but these are official ubuntu i386 version.

Some of these files are symlinks only. The actual 48 lib is: libicui18n.so.48.1.1

Maybe you could simply use that one lib file (I don't know) but rename it to libicui18n.so.48, or maybe you need all of them, or maybe it won't work...

[OscarTalks]

I would suggest keeping the bundle of libs from that package all together
The libicui18n.so.48 does depend on some others in the bundle
I copied the bundle of those libraries into /opt/anki/bin (along with the other "self contained" libs in the anki package)
You can alternatively copy them into /usr/lib in BionicPup32 (they don't clash with the native versions)
Doing either of those steps will remove the "could not find library" error

BUT as I suspected, the sync issue is still not resolved
I signed up for an ankiweb.net account just to do a test, but I get the same error here as reported above.
I see that this anki has its own openssl libraries (libcrypto.so.1.0.0 and libssl.so.1.0.0) as well as good old Qt4
It could be that the ankiweb cloud now requires a later version of openssl and certificates, but that is just a guess
The "unable to establish SECURE connection" message does point to that.
I presume the program does work standalone on the computer, but just won't connect for any syncing.

A LITTLE LATER:-
I tested the version 2.1.49 in FossaPup64
The sync feature DOES LOG IN using the credentials I set up
There is another issue relating to mpv media player and samba libraries
It then tries to revert to mplayer because mpv is too old
But FossaPup does not have mplayer installed, so that would need to be resolved, but...
At least it suggests I was on the right track with SSL being the syncing problem in the i386 earlier version.

Code: Select all

root# ./bin/Anki --no-sandbox
mpv: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libsmbconf.so.0: undefined symbol: nt_time_to_full_timespec, version SAMBA_UTIL_0.0.1
mpv too old, reverting to mplayer