Recomend using pipx instead of pip about pympress HOT 3 CLOSED

Ok I’ve had to rewrite the error message and add some significant caveats to the python-installed troubleshooting, but the information should now recommend the proper way of installing (pipx or venv + pip, with system-site-packages to find dependencies) with up-to-date information on best practices and the desktop integration limitations.

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This seems a good idea, but does not work in all environments. E.g. this way gstreamer or vlc may not found. Embedded videos can not be played. Works when install via pip (at least for me).

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Many distributions now recommend against using pip to install packages

Yes there’s been this push even within pip. I must say I’ve silenced all these warnings with break-system-packages = true (which is a quite aggressive option name) but we shouldn’t expect users to install via a deprecated way.

Before we update install instructions, I think we have to look at what the state of the situation is:

• the best solution is to use system/package manager distributed packages, and that includes pympress.
• pipx makes installing into virtual environments easy, but you first have to install pipx
• It used to not be desirable to install the pygobject and pycairo dependencies in non-standard locations (user, virtual environment, etc) as building from scratch required compiling C modules. We want people to be able to install easily without requiring installing compiler toolchains, headers/development packages, etc.
• Even if pygobject and pycairo get installed as binary wheels, people need the proper system packages.

We also need to review the impact of using pip on all relevant distributions.

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