Building locally and running scroll demo fails on Linux Mint 20 (Ubuntu 20)

[hbk619]

This is a neat project!

I cloned the repo, ran poetry install, used poetry to run the scroll demo script and got:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/runpy.py", line 194, in _run_module_as_main
    return _run_code(code, main_globals, None,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/runpy.py", line 87, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "/ssd/code/gest/gest/examples/two_handed_scroll_and_click.py", line 6, in <module>
    import pynput.mouse
  File "/home/kimmy/.cache/pypoetry/virtualenvs/gest-DwnxmegZ-py3.8/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pynput/__init__.py", line 40, in <module>
    from . import keyboard
  File "/home/kimmy/.cache/pypoetry/virtualenvs/gest-DwnxmegZ-py3.8/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pynput/keyboard/__init__.py", line 31, in <module>
    backend = backend(__name__)
  File "/home/kimmy/.cache/pypoetry/virtualenvs/gest-DwnxmegZ-py3.8/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pynput/_util/__init__.py", line 76, in backend
    raise ImportError('this platform is not supported: {}'.format(
ImportError: this platform is not supported: ("failed to acquire X connection: No module named 'Xlib'", ModuleNotFoundError("No module named 'Xlib'"))

Try one of the following resolutions:

 * Please make sure that you have an X server running, and that the DISPLAY environment variable is set correctly

I activated the poetry shell via poetry shell and tried again:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/runpy.py", line 194, in _run_module_as_main
    return _run_code(code, main_globals, None,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/runpy.py", line 87, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "/ssd/code/gest/gest/examples/two_handed_scroll_and_click.py", line 6, in <module>
    import pynput.mouse
  File "/home/kimmy/.cache/pypoetry/virtualenvs/gest-DwnxmegZ-py3.8/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pynput/__init__.py", line 40, in <module>
    from . import keyboard
  File "/home/kimmy/.cache/pypoetry/virtualenvs/gest-DwnxmegZ-py3.8/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pynput/keyboard/__init__.py", line 31, in <module>
    backend = backend(__name__)
  File "/home/kimmy/.cache/pypoetry/virtualenvs/gest-DwnxmegZ-py3.8/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pynput/_util/__init__.py", line 76, in backend
    raise ImportError('this platform is not supported: {}'.format(
ImportError: this platform is not supported: ("failed to acquire X connection: No module named 'Xlib'", ModuleNotFoundError("No module named 'Xlib'"))

Try one of the following resolutions:

 * Please make sure that you have an X server running, and that the DISPLAY environment variable is set correctly

Running pip install gest shows an error but does actually install and then
(venv) ➜ gest-test python -m gest.examples.two_handed_scroll_and_click
works.

X-server is running and display is set

(gest-DwnxmegZ-py3.8) ➜  gest git:(master) ✗ echo $DISPLAY
:0.0

I planned on integrating with Talon as an experiment so I don't think I need pynput for that but wondered what I've missed to make it work :-)

[bm371613]

After a short investigation, here is what I think happens: a problem similar to this python-poetry/poetry#2269 makes poetry ignore platform specific requirements. I suspect it affects pip install gest because I use poetry to push to PyPI.

Before I figure out a proper fix, it might help to run pip install pynput.

[hbk619]

That works 👍