The differences between Buildozer install guides is confusing and worrying

[Henrik R.]

Hi!

I am trying to solve complex problems with Buildozer and Gradlew etc. by creating a new Ubuntu 20.04 partition. Therefore I am trying to install as much as possible inside virtual environments, so I can try several solutions on the same Ubuntu boot partition.

So I have created a Python 3.8 'venv' inside which Kivy 2.0 works perfectly.

Now I want to install Buildozer inside the same venv, again so that I can install or configure Buildozer in different ways in different virtual environments.

But it's a bit confusing and worrying that there are at least 2 Buildozer installation guides, and they are different, and only one of them mention that you should omit the '--user' option if you are in a venv. So question no. 1 is which of the 2 following commands I should use - and why - what's the difference between them?:

1. https://buildozer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html :

" First, install the buildozer project with:

pip3 install --user --upgrade buildozer "

2. https://github.com/kivy/buildozer :

" Install buildozer:

# via pip (latest stable, recommended)
# if you use a virtualenv, don't use the `--user` option
pip install --user buildozer "

Guide no. 1 has a long list of extra modules/libraries that should be installed in Ubuntu 20.04. Guide no. 2 mentions nothing extra needed. That's a bit worrying - to me. :-) So question no. 2: Why this difference?

Any help will be much appreciated. Thank you.

[Alexander Taylor]

This isn't really anything to do with buildozer, it's a matter of how pip works with/without virtualenvs. According to its documentation --user means "Install to the Python user install directory for your platform. Typically ~/.local, or %APPDATA%\Python on Windows". This is why it doesn't make sense in a virtualenv: it doesn't have a global platform level directory. I think if you do pass the argument within a virtualenv that doesn't have an appropriate accessible site-packages, you get a message telling you this.

As for why the guides are different, they were probably written by different people with different priorities at different times. If you think they should say something different, please consider contributing to them, for instance it would be welcome to propose linking the brief github instructions to the more extensive documentation.

[Henrik R.]

While in the Python/Kivy app project folder and after activating the venv (which is situated in the same folder), I installed Buildozer. But Buildozer installed 4.3GB in my home directory '~/' any way. Was that supposed to happen? :-)

[Alexander Taylor]

Yes, this is intended behaviour, buildozer puts generic build requirements (mainly Android SDK and NDK) in a global place so that you don't have to keep re-downloading them. There are buildozer.spec options to make it access them from somewhere else of your choice.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Kivy users support" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/kivy-users/CJDD-VDpnKg/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to kivy-users+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/kivy-users/c3c9da2a-f389-4c40-aa09-64042e49441bo%40googlegroups.com.

[Henrik R.]

OK. That sounds logical. Thank you. :-)

To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to kivy-...@googlegroups.com.