How to install PyQt on Ubuntu 12.04 with python 2.7?

Question

There may be some similar questions like this one, but I didn't find any answer for me.

I tried some ways to do it like:

sudo aptitude install python-qt4-dev python-sip4 python-sip4-dev

from: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mnemosyne-proj-devel/VQQzjhARWoA

I tried:

sudo aptitude install python-qt4

from: http://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2008/01/how-to-install-pyqt4-on-ubuntu-linux/

Every time after above installations I got error:

$python2.7
Python 2.7.3 (default, Aug  1 2012, 05:14:39) 
[GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import PyQt4
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named PyQt4

I also tried to install it from source downloading PyQt4 from: http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/download and sip from: http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/sip/download

Then I got error tring to install PyQt4:

$ sudo python configure.py --verbose
Determining the layout of your Qt installation...
/usr/bin/qmake -o qtdirs.mk qtdirs.pro
make -f qtdirs.mk
g++ -c -m64 -pipe -O2 -Wall -W -D_REENTRANT -DQT_NO_DEBUG -DQT_CORE_LIB -I/usr/share/qt4/mkspecs/linux-g++-64 -I. -I/usr/include/qt4/QtCore -I/usr/include/qt4 -I. -o qtdirs.o qtdirs.cpp
qtdirs.cpp:1:28: fatal error: QCoreApplication: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make: *** [qtdirs.o] Error 1
Error: Failed to determine the layout of your Qt installation. Try again using
the --verbose flag to see more detail about the problem.

My question is: What is proper and effective way to install PyQt4 on Ubuntu 12.04?

Answer 1

You did in fact properly install the python bindings for Qt4 when you used:

sudo aptitude install python-qt4

You should usually use the Distribution-provided packages - the Ubuntu-provided packages are perfectly adequate for your needs.

What's puzzling me is the error you got after installing the Ubuntu package. I just tried this on a Ubuntu 12.04 installation and it worked for me. That suggests to me that your current installation of Ubuntu on your system is broken in some way.

You could try completely purging the python-qt4 package and reinstalling it again;

sudo apt-get remove --purge python-qt4

If you also issue:

sudo apt-get clean

... that will remove any downloaded package files from the system, so that apt will then download the package file again when you issue a

sudo apt-get install python-qt4

If that still doesn't work, then something very odd indeed is going on with your Ubuntu installation, and it might be wise to completely reinstall Ubuntu.

Answer 2

On aws ubuntu (12.04 and 14.04):

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-qt4
sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev python-dev
sudo apt-get install python-lxml
sudo apt-get install xvfb

Check this link and generate your-own-example.py

DISPLAY=localhost:1.0 xvfb-run python your-own-example.py

Voila.