build/ab.mk:31: .obj//build.mk: No such file or directory - build attempt fails immediately

[nealcrook]

Hi David,

I am trying to build for the very first time, on Linux Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS

I probably have some missing dependencies, but the build is failing straight away like this:

$ make
build/ab.mk:31: .obj//build.mk: No such file or directory
AB
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "build/ab.py", line 562, in
main()
File "build/ab.py", line 551, in main
loadbuildfile(f)
File "build/ab.py", line 520, in loadbuildfile
filename = filename.replace("/", ".").removesuffix(".py")
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'removesuffix'
make: *** No rule to make target '+all', needed by 'all'. Stop.

I get the same result using a git clone of latest or using a download of the latest "release"

Any hint about how to get further in the build process would be welcome.

thanks

Neal.

[davidgiven]

Could you run these commands and let me know what comes out, please?

echo $PYTHON

and

python3

[nealcrook]

~/local_build/fluxengine$ echo $PYTHON

~/local_build/fluxengine$ python3
Python 3.6.9 (default, Mar 10 2023, 16:46:00) 
[GCC 8.4.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> quit
Use quit() or Ctrl-D (i.e. EOF) to exit
>>> 

thanks,

Neal

[davidgiven]

Seems that removesuffix() was added in Python 3.9. Can you upgrade? Ubuntu 18 is now six years old.

[nealcrook]

Can you upgrade? Ubuntu 18 is now six years old.
I probably should. I wonder how much of my life it will consume to get everything else working again..
I think my first attempt will be to pull a newer Python and see whether that is enough or just the start of a different world of pain.

thanks,
Neal.

[nealcrook]

Thanks - I bit the bullet and upgraded through to LTS 24.04 (good for another 12 years!!)

I suggest these two tweaks to your build instructions:

For Linux with Ubuntu/Debian: ... libwxgtk3.0-gtk3-dev (libwxgtk3.2-dev on ubuntu 24.04 and later)

You may need to set up permissions to allow user-access the the USB device. On ubuntu something like this:

# this gives access for ALL users. Google for more restrictive rule setup
$ sudo echo  "SUBSYSTEMS==\"usb\", ATTRS{idVendor}==\"1209\", ATTRS{idProduct}==\"6e00\", MODE:=\"0666\"" > /etc/udev/rules.d/90-fluxengine.rules
$ sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
# now unplug the fluxengine hardware from the USB and reconnect it to trigger the new rule