Re: Octave unable to find python when using symbolic toolbox

[Kwan Lowe]

On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 6:50 PM Mike Miller <address@hidden> wrote:
> Can you please help us make this kind of problem easier to diagnose and
> fix for users like yourself?
>
> Is there something that we can do in Octave or in the "sympref diagnose"
> command that would help make it clear that "python3.6" isn't available,
> and that you could try setting PYTHON to "python3" or "python3.7"?

Jumping in here (Mike, thanks for you earlier help).

I have noticed that the Python installations on are a bit different
than expected:

    [kwan@scopuli octave]$ ls -l $(which python3.6)
    lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 31 Nov 20 17:48 /usr/bin/python3.6 ->
/usr/libexec/platform-python3.6
    [kwan@scopuli octave]$ ls -l $(which python3)
    lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 25 Feb 22 20:27 /usr/bin/python3 ->
/etc/alternatives/python3
    [kwan@scopuli octave]$ rpm -qf /usr/libexec/platform-python3.6
    platform-python-3.6.8-15.1.el8.x86_64
    [kwan@scopuli octave]$ rpm -qf /etc/alternatives/python3
    file /etc/alternatives/python3 is not owned by any package

There is no "python" in CentOS 8 by default:

    [kwan@scopuli octave]$ which python
    /usr/bin/which: no python in
(/home/kwan/.local/bin:/home/kwan/bin:/home/kwan/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/home/kwan/go/bin)

That said, I almost exclusively use a python virtualenv with my
environment set as follows:

    octave:1> getenv("PATH")
    ans = /home/kwan/bin/python_venv/p36/bin:/app/bin:/usr/bin:/appjre/bin
    octave:2> getenv("PYTHON")
    ans = python3.6

With Snaps I was not successful in getting any Octave versions to work
with the symbolic package.

With Flatpak, I was more successful but required some "flatpak
override env=PATH=xxxx org.octave.Octave" to work with my virtualenv.


> For example, would it help if "sympref diagnose" automatically found all
> "python*" programs on PATH and showed you a list to choose from? Any
> other ideas?

If the output could show which python was loaded that would be helpful to me.