native FAF on ubuntu (QtWebKit on ubuntu 17.04+)

software-installation 17.04 pyqt qt4 qtwebkit

8,608

Solution 1

Note: the steps for Python 3 with PyQt5 are proven to work while the steps for Python 2 with PyQt4 and PySide are still experimental.

Python 3 with PyQt5 (proven to work)

It appears that the 474-feature-py3 branch of the FAForever/client GitHub repository uses Python 3 with PyQt5, which contains QtWebKit. Therefore, using this branch is the most straightforward solution. Note that PyQt5 (but not PyQt4) can in fact be installed with pip, so that makes things way more convenient.

Steps for Python 3 with PyQt5:

cd into a directory of your choice, which will be ~/Desktop/temp for the purpose of writing this answer, git clone the FAForever/client GitHub repository and git checkout the 474-feature-py3 branch:
```
mkdir ~/Desktop/temp
cd ~/Desktop/temp
git clone https://github.com/FAForever/client.git faf-client
cd faf-client
git checkout 474-feature-py3
```

Create and activate a virtualenv for Python 3 (the default is Python 3.5 for Ubuntu 17.04) and force-upgrade pip just to make sure it is up-to-date:

virtualenv venv -p python3  # replace python3 with python3.6 if you want to use Python 3.6 instead
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -U --force-reinstall pip

Use pip to install PyQt5 and from requirements.txt:

pip install PyQt5
pip install -r requirements.txt

Download the faf-uid binary into faf-client/lib and make it executable:

wget https://github.com/FAForever/uid/releases/download/v4.0.4/faf-uid -O lib/faf-uid
chmod +x lib/faf-uid

Run python on src/__main__.py:
```
python src/__main__.py
```

Python 2 with PyQt4 and PySide (experimental)

It looks like I may have figured out how to import the QtWebKit module, but I don't have the FAF game installed, so I cannot fully verify that this works and therefore this answer is a work in progress.

In a nutshell, I used apt to install python-qt4, which does not have the QtWebKit module. I created and activated a virtualenv without using the --system-site-packages option and used pip to install PySide, which does have the QtWebKit module. I then symlinked the appropriate system libraries and files for PyQt4 into the virtualenv. Then I made a couple of changes to faf-client/src to import the QtWebKit module from PySide. This solution is inspired by https://stackoverflow.com/a/28850104/486919, https://stackoverflow.com/a/36887302/486919 and https://stackoverflow.com/a/37616466/486919.

Steps:

Install python-qt4:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python-qt4

cd into a directory of your choice, which will be ~/Desktop/temp for the purpose of writing this answer, git clone my version of the repository and git checkout the patch branch:
```
mkdir ~/Desktop/temp
cd ~/Desktop/temp
git clone https://github.com/edwinksl/client.git faf-client
cd faf-client
git checkout patch
```
This patch branch has several additional commits compared to the default develop branch: 1) it gets rid of the version specification for cx_Freeze, which was giving me installation problems if I used the 4.3.4 version previously specified, and 2) it imports QtWebKit from PySide instead of PyQt4.
Create and activate a virtualenv for Python 2 and force-upgrade pip just to make sure it is up-to-date:
```
virtualenv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -U --force-reinstall pip
```

Use pip to install PySide and from requirements.txt:

pip install PySide
pip install -r requirements.txt

Download the faf-uid binary into faf-client/lib and make it executable:

wget https://github.com/FAForever/uid/releases/download/v4.0.4/faf-uid -O lib/faf-uid
chmod +x lib/faf-uid

cd to the site-packages directory inside the virtualenv and make appropriate symlinks:

cd venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages
ln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PyQt4/ .
ln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/sip.x86_64-linux-gnu.so .

Note the . at the end of each symlink.

cd back to faf-client and run python on src/__main__.py:

cd -  # this goes back to previous directory, which should be ~/Desktop/temp/faf-client
python src/__main__.py

Solution 2

Check `~/.bashrc` for Python version override

The package you are wanting to compile requires Python version 2.7.x. Confirm that with these commands:

$ python
Python 2.7.12 (default, Nov 19 2016, 06:48:10) 
[GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import PyQt4
>>> print PyQt4.__path__
['/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PyQt4']
>>>

That was the problem in this Q&A.

You are not alone with `linux error PyQt4 import QtWebKit` google search:

Unfortunately there are alot more google results but these I believe are the most pertinent for you to read if the first recommendation doesn't pan out.

8,608

tatsu

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

tatsu over 1 year
I'm trying to run FAF (natively) in conjunction with FA (through wine)

(due to the views this post receives and to how much the methods have updated I've decided to update this question for it to answer as well as ask. check revision history of this post for the process to finding the old method to run the python client and the old guides)

Beta-state Java Client :

use this script : (updated 3/12/2019)

https://github.com/tatsujb/installFAFscript

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEWUEoQ8Q4k

Python client : (NOW OBSOLETE)

How to: compile this python app (FAF) from source :

up and running thanks to @edwinksl 's "Python 3 with PyQt5" guide. marked him as solution. good job!

Update (31/1/2018)

Sorry I took so long to update this post. it's gotten 7000 views! it really deserves up-to-date info.

Since I asked a lot has happened. FAF now has more or less linux support. they even have a wiki to installing it (and per distro!) :

https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?title=Setting_Up_FAF_Linux#Debian.2FUbuntu

it's not guaranteed to fit your needs, more can be found by digging in : http://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4507

right now the wiki isn't all that up to date.

for awhile I could get faf to run with native python, no virtualenv needed but QT's aver changing dependencies and package composition as well as the FAF usage of them has broken that again ... temporarily I hope !

rest assured I've got it running personally and I'm here to offer solace (try skipping steps 6 & 7 first they may be unneeded ):
1. Install some prerequisites : sudo apt update && sudo apt install wget PyQt5.QtMultimedia python3-idna python3-semantic-version python3-pyqt5 python3-pyqt5.qtwebengine
2. cd Downloads && wget https://github.com/FAForever/client/archive/0.16.1.tar.gz (or whichever release is latest at https://github.com/FAForever/client/releases/ )
3. extract (for this example I'll extract to home) (cd Downloads/ && mv client-0.16.1.tar.gz ~/ && cd && tar -zxf client-0.16.1.tar.gz && mv client-0.16.1 faf-client && rm client-0.16.1.tar.gz)
4. cd fafclient/ : move to the working dirrectory
5. sed -i 1,1d requirements.txt : removes cxFreeze from the requirements (it's not required and it will kill compile)
6. virtualenv -p python3 faf
7. pip install -r requirements.txt
8. sudo wget https://github.com/FAForever/uid/releases/download/v4.0.5/faf-uid -O /usr/bin/faf-uid : downloads login binary and : sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/faf-uid allows it to be executed by faf.
9. touch res/RELEASE-VERSION && echo "0.16.1" >> res/RELEASE-VERSION : fulfills faf's final requirement : a release version file.
now it should run but for the heck of it let's make a runner :
```
touch FAF.sh
echo "#! /bin/bash" >> FAF.sh
echo "cd /home/t/faf-client" >> FAF.sh
echo "python3 src/__main__.py" >> FAF.sh
chmod +x FAF.sh
```
then ./FAF.sh to run FAF.

Cheers!
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  See wiki.qt.io/Building_Qt_5_from_Git . If you still have a problem, contact the qtwebkit maintainers directly.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  t@tsu:~$ sudo apt-get build-dep qt5-default Reading package lists... Done E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  So put source uri in - askubuntu.com/questions/496549/…
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  i ran evey command on that page except for the "Convenience packages (Ubuntu 11.10 -- 12.10 only)" and yet the FAF crash issue persists. and also t@tsu:~$ whereis qtwebkit qtwebkit:
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  It is unfortuinate, but I have found the qt apps are difficult / frustrating to compile when I have had to do so in the past. File a bug report upstream.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  ok. is the fact that after adding the sources and updating. when I do : sudo apt-get build-dep qt5-default I get the message ending with E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. caused by me having all these random compiles qt and whatnot or is it something else? packages aren't really broken since upgrade and install still work
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  "It depends" building qt has been a pain as it is in rapid development and the dependencies are not always available in any specific version of Ubuntu. You will need to debug that warning though.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  also since I'm new to this I don't know where that bug reporting would be. may I have a link please?
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  wiki.qt.io/Reporting_Bugs
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  is it a QT Web BRowser bug or a QT bug I'm going with QT
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  There are both python (python2) and python3 versions. Are you installing the correct one. Ubuntu is in the process of converting from python2 to python3, so depending on version of Ubuntu you may have one or the other or both. But can install either from all versions of Ubuntu. And then which python is program based on?
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  this program is definitely python2 ... as per why i have to use virtualenv. It's suicide to compile python2 on ubuntu 11+ as far as i know.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  @oldfred hey i've updated the OP could you tell me what you think of this new approach. it was suggested to me by the people of QT bug report but I can't get it to work either.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  I have never compiled anything. But I think I am using this and have it installed using synaptic from Ubuntu repository. python3-pyqt5.qtwebkit
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  @oldfred in my OP i said i did this. this did not yeild results. perhaps it means qtwebkit needs to be available virtualenv side?
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  Never used virtualenv, so do not know.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  @tatsu I think I managed to get QtWebKit working but I don't have the FAF game, so I can't fully verify this works. Let me try to get a chatroom set up so we can discuss.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  @tatsu Meanwhile I wrote an answer. Give it a try and see if it helps.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  @tatsu Your latest error log shows that _clientwindow.py is trying to import QtWebKit from PyQt4, which is the cause of the problem. Try importing QtWebKit from PySide instead.
- Admin almost 7 years
  
  @edwinksl I'm completely noob on this matter. how do I accomplish that x) ?
tatsu almost 7 years

first off thank you! and sorry I missed the queue. I was hospitalized. I'm stuck at : Resolving deltas: 100% (8873/8873), done. t@tsu:~/Desktop/temp$ git checkout patch fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git t@tsu:~/Desktop/temp$ git init Initialized empty Git repository in /home/t/Desktop/temp/.git/ t@tsu:~/Desktop/temp$ git checkout patch error: pathspec 'patch' did not match any file(s) known to git.
edwinksl almost 7 years

@tatsu My bad. You need to cd into the faf-client directory first, then do git checkout patch.
tatsu almost 7 years

@edwinskl yup!! and cd back up once that is done!
tatsu almost 7 years

@edwinskl right after pip install -r faf-client/requirements.txt I added wget https://github.com/FAForever/uid/releases/download/v4.0.4/fa‌f-uid -O ./faf-client/lib/faf-uid and chmod +x ./faf-client/lib/faf-uid then did cd ./faf-client && ../venv/bin/python src/__main__.py as per the original tutorial forum post I built my script with : forums.faforever.com/… FAF runs bbut still with an error log.
edwinksl almost 7 years

@tatsu Feel free to suggest edits! After all you have the game installed while I don't...
tatsu almost 7 years

@edwinski I think I'm close now. perhaps the pointers aren't working since I don't have a clear package setup I'm uninstalling all previous installs. removing any libqt4 or libqt5 package seems impossible due to them being required over the whole system. can I rule them out as not interfering?
edwinksl almost 7 years

As long as you are creating your virtualenv without using the --system-site-packages flag, then your global installs for qt4 and qt5 should not affect the virtualenv.
tatsu almost 7 years

thank but I'm not sure if it's me who's not understanding or what but I'm using virtualenv which (I believe) is helping me not have to install python2 locally. given that i shouldn't have to worry about python3 meddling with anything. correct me if I completely missed the mark here
edwinksl almost 7 years

Let us continue this discussion in chat.
tatsu almost 7 years

for python3 : (venv) t@tsu:~/faf/faf-client$ python src/__main__.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "src/__main__.py", line 52, in <module> import util File "/home/t/faf/faf-client/src/util/__init__.py", line 12, in <module> from semantic_version import Version ImportError: No module named 'semantic_version'
edwinksl almost 7 years

@tatsu semantic_version is clearly in requirements.txt, so this error is very unexpected. Make sure you followed every step correctly.
tatsu almost 7 years

yup! that's it!