pip install in latest debian and ubuntu requires --break-system-packages... or venv.

[petersilva]

my laptop has ubuntu 23.04 on it, I think... and when I try to do the traditiona l pip install -e . for local development...
but in the latest OS's I get:

blacklab% pip3 install -e .
error: externally-managed-environment

× This environment is externally managed
╰─> To install Python packages system-wide, try apt install
    python3-xyz, where xyz is the package you are trying to
    install.
    
    If you wish to install a non-Debian-packaged Python package,
    create a virtual environment using python3 -m venv path/to/venv.
    Then use path/to/venv/bin/python and path/to/venv/bin/pip. Make
    sure you have python3-full installed.
    
    If you wish to install a non-Debian packaged Python application,
    it may be easiest to use pipx install xyz, which will manage a
    virtual environment for you. Make sure you have pipx installed.
    
    See /usr/share/doc/python3.11/README.venv for more information.

note: If you believe this is a mistake, please contact your Python installation or OS distribution provider. You can override this, at the risk of breaking your Python installation or OS, by passing --break-system-packages.
hint: See PEP 668 for the detailed specification.
blacklab% pip3 install --break-system-packages -e .

[petersilva]

This will probably eventually break all the github actions which install non repo available packages with pip.
probably need to adopt venv and migrate actions to use it.

[petersilva]

https://veronneau.org/python-311-pip-and-breaking-system-packages.html

[petersilva]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76499565/python-does-not-find-module-installed-with-pipx

pipx installed apps are self-isolated, so you can't install dependencies for them? I don't get how this works....
"
pipx(Install and Run Python Applications in Isolated Environments) is not an equal alternative to pip(The Python Package Installer) ... It uses pip and works differently too … It isolates the apps/packages it downloads ... So, they are not made available to system Python outside that isolated environment ... It creates a separate virtual environment for each app it installs … Its main purpose, however, is to make Python apps run-able as regular commands from the command-line in the console/terminal and not to make them available(importable) to your Python interpreter."

source: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1481763/importing-python-packages-installed-with-pipx

so... we definitely do not want pipx, because we want people running python code to be able to do import sarracenia.
It isn't a standalone package.

[petersilva]

when I installed metpx-sr3 with pipx, it could not see any packages installed via pip.... this is a feature? checking with sr3 features many were missing. did not quite understand the pattern (was it that packages installed with pip were missing? I seem to recall normal system ones were missing too... did not quite understand... have to look again.)

[petersilva]

This is essentially a dup of #740 ... I got a pyproject.toml working, which gets rid of this error message, but I don't know how to create an RPM for redhat environments.

I think just close this one in favour of #740