Having trouble starting Anki (flashcard app)

[Member Mynaardt]

Hi again!

So far I’m not doing too bad for installing stuff on antiX, but I have hit a problem trying to run Anki, a flashcard application I like to use for studying.

First little problem I met was that Anki wasn’t showing up in Synaptic. But I found the install instructions from the Anki site https://apps.ankiweb.net.

I installed it well enough, but it wouldn’t work from the menu, so I tried running it from the terminal to see if there were error messages. And indeed there were! This is the output I got from the terminal:

$ anki
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "runanki", line 3, in <module>
  File "/home/dae/Local/py512/lib/python3.6/site-packages/PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py", line 627, in exec_module
  File "aqt/__init__.py", line 14, in <module>
  File "/home/dae/Local/py512/lib/python3.6/site-packages/PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py", line 627, in exec_module
  File "aqt/qt.py", line 17, in <module>
ImportError: libsystemd.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[15509] Failed to execute script runanki

I take it I’m missing something in antiX. I take it I’m missing some Python stuff in there somewhere.

Can someone tell me what else I need to install to get Anki working good and proper?

Also telling me what sort of things these messages tell me look for on my own without having to ask on the forums (as much) would be nice too.

Thanks in advance, yet again!

• This topic was modified 4 years ago by Mynaardt.

What have the Romans ever done for us?
Apart from: sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, fresh water, and public health?

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Seems like it needs systemd and we are systemd-free

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Anonymous]

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This example is pretty innocuous ~~ probably caused no widespread system breakage,
but what you are experiencing, first-hand, is an example of “why not add PPAs?”
aka
“why not install any ole’ stuff from sources other than the official repositories?”

Read the error output you pasted, beginning with the bottommost line, upward.
If you read it slowly, carefully (may need to websearch any unfamiliar term(s) mentioned)
you will discover that python is very good about telling us EXACTLY what the problem is, right down to the detail of which specific line within a specific file.

In a text editor, if you examine
aqt/qt.py
and
/home/dae/Local/py512/lib/python3.6/site-packages/PyInstaller/loader/pyimod03_importers.py
at the lines referenced in the error message
you can discover what exact operation is expecting presence of a libsystemd component.
Which component? idunno.
Can you workaround, maybe outcomment or edit a few lines toward disabling only the problematic operation? idunno.
Is it worth the effort to hack the program toward rendering it usable in the absence of libsystemd? I dunno.

Instead of wrestling with it, you might consider installing an older version of Anki (in which the libsystemd dependency did not yet exist)
https://apps.ankiweb.net/downloads/archive/

I take it I’m missing some Python stuff in there somewhere.

The pasted errors do not mention any missing python libraries (modules), so we probably shouldn’t jump to that conclusion.

[Anonymous]

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Hey, lookit
github.com/dae/anki/…aqt/qt.py

it expects (probably absent unless you manually install) QtWebEngineWidgets

and

even if you manage to workaround systemd dependency

[ if Qt version < 5.9 or 5.10 ]
“Anki does not support your Qt version.”
https://github.com/dae/anki///aqt/qt.py#L50
“Anki requires Python 3.6+”

antiX, with debian stable repositories ~= python3.5.3
so
you would need to self-install a more recent version of python3 or upgrade switch to “testing” repositories and dist-upgrade.

[Member Mynaardt]

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anticapitalista wrote:

Seems like it needs systemd and we are systemd-free

Okay; not a big deal if I can’t get it to work. This is my emergency backup old-clunker computer.

Thanks!

What have the Romans ever done for us?
Apart from: sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, fresh water, and public health?

[Member Mynaardt]

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Anonymous wrote:

This example is pretty innocuous ~~ probably caused no widespread system breakage,
Instead of wrestling with it, you might consider installing an older version of Anki (in which the libsystemd dependency did not yet exist)
https://apps.ankiweb.net/downloads/archive/

Thanks, I’ll check that out. But, as I just said in response to anticapitalista, if I can’t make Anki work on this one computer, I won’t be losing any sleep over it…

What have the Romans ever done for us?
Apart from: sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, fresh water, and public health?

[Moderator caprea]

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Besides the downloads from /downloads/archive/

there is a alternate download in your link from https://apps.ankiweb.net.

which you could try.

Download Anki for older Linux (2.1.11-alternate)

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