[chirp_users] Upgrading CHIRP on Ubuntu 23.04?

[Dan Smith]

> But the instructions as written, do not work for Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar Lobster).
> Now, I do realize that 23.04 is not an LTS (long-term-support) version of
> Ubuntu, so it may have its quirks.

It's not just that, it's that as of 23.04, the way python applications are (or can be) installed in a distro-managed python environment has changed fundamentally. This is not something we control nor chose. Since 23.04 (and Debian 11, etc) is the first distro where this new restriction has hit the masses, you can expect some bumps along the way. Feel free to submit your feedback to the distros and python community who have chosen this path for you.

> But the upgrade instructions, as written, do not work:
> 
> "Once chirp is properly installed, upgrades to newer versions are done with two
> simple steps:
> 
> 1. Download the newer .tar.gz file.
> 2. Run pip install --upgrade ./chirp-<version>.whl (use pipx if you used it
> above)

The command as provided is correct. Since pipx aims (seemingly) to be a stand-in for pip itself, the parenthetical *should* be correct, but clearly isn't.

> First of all, they tell you to download the .tar.gz file instead of the
> preferred .whl file.

...which is fine, you can use either.

> Secondly, pipx does not have a --upgrade option to the "install" verb. Instead,
> it uses the verb "upgrade". But as I noted in my initial post, when I tried:
> 
> "pipx upgrade ./chirp-20230601-py3-none-any.whl"
> 
> it responded:
> "'chirp' already seems to be installed. Not modifying existing
> installation in '/home/jon/.local/pipx/venvs/chirp'. Pass '--force'
> to force installation."
> 
> I tried the --force option which "seemed" to install chirp successfully, but
> chirp would not load. The only thing that worked was to explicitly uninstall as
> I noted in the thread using pipx, then did a fresh install with pipx of the new
> version.
> 
> It may work fine on an LTS version like Ubuntu 22.04 using pip, but with 23.04
> using pipx, I had to uninstall the old version first.

Sounds like a bug (or quirk) in pipx, but I guess this is how it has to be for the moment. I've updated the instructions. David was echoing the general instructions on the download page that chirp itself has no such requirement, which is correct.

I hope you'll understand that the documenting ever-moving target and spectrum of how python applications are installed on Linux is a challenge. Also, Linux users represent less than two percent of CHIRP's userbase, which means issues with the newest one-month-old distro that has radically changed the landscape should be expected until a critical mass (like yourself) have bumped into them.

--Dan