Re: distutils use in hivex libdnet libnbd (and more) [was: Re: Help needed triaging build failures without distutils]

[Richard W.M. Jones]

[Sending again since it didn't reach the Python-devel list first time]

On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 10:53:12AM +0100, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>  On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 11:27:47AM +0200, Miro Hrončok wrote:
>  > Hey Pythonistas.
>  > 
>  > The Python standard library distutils module will be removed from Python 3.12+
>  > 
>  > https://peps.python.org/pep-0632/
>  
>  Annoying, but OK ...
>  
>  > As preparatory work, we build all python packages in a Copr repository
>  > with Python 3.11 sans distutils:
>  > 
>  > https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/python/python-without-distutils/
>  > 
>  > I've rebuilt all the failed builds again and also in a control-group copr:
>  > 
>  > https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/python/python-with-distutils/
>  >
>  > 250 packages that failed to build without distuils but succeeded
>  > with distutils need to be examined and categorized into various
>  > different groups:
>  > 
>  >  - package uses distutils only if sys.version_info < (3, 12)
>  >      -- this is OK but still fails here
>  >  - package uses distutils unconditionally and the package needs to be fixed
>  >  - package uses another package that uses distutils unconditionally
>  >       and the dependency needs to be fixed
>  > 
>  > I suspect most of the packages will fail to build with Python 3.12
>  > (planned for Fedora 39, change proposal TBD). The python3-setutpools
>  > package provides a distutils module [^1], so sometimes "simply"
>  > adding BuildRequires: python3-setuptools might workaround the
>  > problem.
>  
>  ...
>  
>  > rjones     hivex libdnet libnbd
>  
>  I think your testing methodology might have been wrong because we use
>  distutils in other packages that I maintain, notably:
>  
>    https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/blob/master/m4/guestfs-python.m4
>  
>  I'm not sure what could have happened here.  The RPM would have failed
>  to build if the Python bindings had been ./configure-d out.  The link
>  shows libguestfs as "not build yet / Disabled":
>  
>   
> https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/python/python-without-distutils...
>  
>  but then there's a build which succeeded:
>  
>   
> https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/python/python-without-distutils...
>  
>  and it has Python bindings.  (The logs of the build don't seem to be
>  available.)
>  
>  Anyway I'll see if I can fix this upstream as requested.
>  
>  Rich.
>  
>  -- 
>  Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
>  Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
>  virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
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>  http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top 
-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
virt-top is 'top' for virtual machines.  Tiny program with many
powerful monitoring features, net stats, disk stats, logging, etc.
http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-top