Installing Python 3.8.3 with tkinter

[Klaus Jantzen]

Hi,

Trying to install Python 3.8.3 with tkinter I run configure with the
following options

./configure --enable-optimizations --with-ssl-default-suites=openssl
--with-openssl=/usr/local --enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions
--with-pydebug --with-tcltk-libs='-L/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib/tcl8.6'
--with-tcltk-includes='-I/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/include'

Running Python gives the following information

Python 3.8.3 (default, Jul 22 2020, 11:52:15)
[GCC 8.3.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sqlite3
>>> import tkinter
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/tkinter/__init__.py", line 36, in <module>
    import _tkinter # If this fails your Python may not be configured
for Tk
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_tkinter'
>>>

Obviously there is something wrong with my configure options.

How do that correctly?

Thanks for any help.

K.D.J.

[Ned Deily]

On 2020-07-22 06:20, Klaus Jantzen wrote:
> Trying to install Python 3.8.3 with tkinter I run configure with the
> following options
>
> ./configure --enable-optimizations --with-ssl-default-suites=openssl
> --with-openssl=/usr/local --enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions
> --with-pydebug --with-tcltk-libs='-L/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib/tcl8.6'
> --with-tcltk-includes='-I/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/include'
>
> Running Python gives the following information

[...]
> How do that correctly?

Try --with-tcltk-libs='-L/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib -ltcl8.6 -ltk8.6'

[Klaus Jantzen]

Thank you for your suggestion; unfortunately it did not help.

[Christian Gollwitzer]

Am 23.07.20 um 06:30 schrieb Klaus Jantzen:

Does the configure process output something when checking for Tcl/Tk?
Does it say "no"? THen you can analyse the config.log file what happened.

In order to compile Tk extensions, you need X11 development headers.
Maybe that is one problem.

Christian

[Ned Deily]

On 2020-07-23 00:30, Klaus Jantzen wrote:
> On 7/22/20 11:05 PM, Ned Deily wrote:
>> On 2020-07-22 06:20, Klaus Jantzen wrote:
>>> Trying to install Python 3.8.3 with tkinter I run configure with the
>>> following options
>>>
>>> ./configure --enable-optimizations --with-ssl-default-suites=openssl
>>> --with-openssl=/usr/local --enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions
>>> --with-pydebug --with-tcltk-libs='-L/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib/tcl8.6'
>>> --with-tcltk-includes='-I/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/include'
>>>
>>> Running Python gives the following information
>> [...]
>>> How do that correctly?
>> Try --with-tcltk-libs='-L/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib -ltcl8.6 -ltk8.6'
>>
>>
> Thank you for your suggestion; unfortunately it did not help.

Without knowing exactly how the /opt/ActiveTcl-8.6 directory is laid
out, we can only guess at what the right options should be. The basic
idea is that there needs to be one or more -I entries that covers the
top-level directory(ies) with Tcl and Tk include files and for the
libraries there needs to be a -L entry for the directory and a -l entry
for the name of the shared library (minus the "lib" prefix), assuming
Tcl and Tk were built with --enable-shared. Usually both libraries are
installed into the same directory, in which case you only need one -L as
above. If they do not have a common parent, you would need to specify
each separately, like -L/libtclparent -l tcl8.6 -L/libtkparent -ltk8.6.

If that doesn't help, you could display the show the contents of the
include and directories here:

ls -l /opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/include /opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib

Also exactly what platform are you building on? And, btw, Python 3.8.5
is now current.

[Anssi Saari]

Klaus Jantzen <k.d.j...@mailbox.org> writes:

> On 7/22/20 11:05 PM, Ned Deily wrote:
>> On 2020-07-22 06:20, Klaus Jantzen wrote:
>>> Trying to install Python 3.8.3 with tkinter I run configure with the
>>> following options
>>>
>>> ./configure --enable-optimizations --with-ssl-default-suites=openssl
>>> --with-openssl=/usr/local --enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions
>>> --with-pydebug --with-tcltk-libs='-L/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib/tcl8.6'
>>> --with-tcltk-includes='-I/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/include'
>>>
>>> Running Python gives the following information
>> [...]
>>> How do that correctly?
>> Try --with-tcltk-libs='-L/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib -ltcl8.6 -ltk8.6'
>>
>>
> Thank you for your suggestion; unfortunately it did not help.

Are you sure the libs you need (presumably libtcl8.6.so and libtk8.6.so)
are both in /opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib/tcl8.6? Or where are they actually?
Presumably not in /opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib since that didn't work.

Could be something else too. You may need to dig into setup.py and the
configure script.

[Klaus Jantzen]

On 7/22/20 12:20 PM, Klaus Jantzen wrote:
> Hi,

>
> Trying to install Python 3.8.3 with tkinter I run configure with the
> following options
>
> ./configure --enable-optimizations --with-ssl-default-suites=openssl
> --with-openssl=/usr/local --enable-loadable-sqlite-extensions
> --with-pydebug --with-tcltk-libs='-L/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/lib/tcl8.6'
> --with-tcltk-includes='-I/opt/ActiveTcl-8.6/include'
>
> Running Python gives the following information
>

> Python 3.8.3 (default, Jul 22 2020, 11:52:15)
> [GCC 8.3.0] on linux
> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
> >>> import sqlite3
> >>> import tkinter
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>   File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/tkinter/__init__.py", line 36, in
> <module>
>     import _tkinter # If this fails your Python may not be configured
> for Tk
> ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_tkinter'
> >>>
>
> Obviously there is something wrong with my configure options.
>
> How do that correctly?
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
> K.D.J.
>
>

In my post I forgot to mention that I am running PY under Debian Buster.

As suggested by Ned Deily I switched to PY 3.8.5

After some more research in the internet I found that the tcl/tk
libraries have automaticalle been installed during the Buster installation.

For automatically including tkinter during the PY installation one needs
also the 'tk-dev toolkit'.

With that I did not need the options
'--with-tcltk-libs'/'--with-tcltk-includes'

After the installation of PY 3.8.5 I can import tkinter.

Thank you very much for your replies.

K.D.J.