As mentioned on Getting, Launchpad is not currently supported on Ubuntu Karmic Koala, primarily because it currently has a hard dependency on Python 2.4, which is no longer included in Karmic.

This page is a place to collect notes written for and by people living on the bleeding edge and attempting to get Launchpad working on Karmic / Python 2.5.

The ultimate goal is to migrate Launchpad to Python 2.6. Rather than go straight to Python 2.6, I (maxb) am focusing on Python 2.5 first as a stepping stone.

launchpad-dependencies

First, there is the issue that the ~launchpad PPA doesn't have any packages for Karmic. I (maxb) have tweaked the launchpad-dependencies package to have a first approximation of suitable dependencies for Python 2.5, and uploaded it to my PPA for Launchpad-related packages https://launchpad.net/~maxb/+archive/launchpad, and copied the geoip-data-city-lite package from the ~launchpad PPA there as well for convenience.

Launchpad code itself

https://code.launchpad.net/~maxb/launchpad/python2.5 contains a few fixes:

• Adjusting the Python version in the Makefiles
• Adjusting import statements to handle the built-in location of cElementTree in Python 2.5
• Making buildmailman.py compatible with Python 2.5 sys.path_importer_cache behaviour

• Fixing Launchpad's TestCase subclass for method renames in unittest in Python 2.5

Launchpad source dependencies - Zope

https://code.launchpad.net/~maxb/zope3/launchpad-3.4-py2.5 contains backports of some changes to zope.proxy and zope.security in post-3.4 Zope releases which are required for Python 2.5 compatibility (possibly only on 64-bit architectures). Without these, Launchpad produces perplexing MemoryErrors. It also contains a patch to zope.sendmail working around a change in the ordering of atexit vs. waiting for non-main non-daemon threads to shut down which otherwise caused various Python processes to hang on shutdown.

Launchpad source dependencies - Twisted

I used to have a Twisted branch mentioned here. It's now obsoleted by the above patch to zope.sendmail.

Test Status

Many test problems relating to uncollectable garbage including LayerIsolationErrors.

• unit tests: Ran 1328 tests with 9 failures and 1 errors

  • librarianformatter_noca.txt: Py2.5 differences in traceback formatting
  • test_helpers.make_test_tarball_2: odd discrepancy

  • test_raising_with_unprintable_exception (canonical.launchpad.webapp.tests.test_errorlog.TestErrorReportingUtility): looks benign

  • test_successful_start_then_stop (lp.codehosting.tests.test_lpserve.TestLaunchpadServe): ?

  • test_unexpected_error_logs_oops (lp.codehosting.tests.test_lpserve.TestLaunchpadServe): ?

  • lib/lp/translations/utilities/tests/test_xpi_properties_format.py: several escaping issues

• canonical.testing.layers.BaseLayer tests: Ran 250 tests with 0 failures and 1 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.LibrarianLayer tests: Ran 8 tests with 0 failures and 1 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.DatabaseLayer tests: Ran 48 tests with 0 failures and 1 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.LaunchpadLayer tests: Ran 23 tests with 0 failures and 1 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.ZopelessLayer tests: Ran 17 tests with 0 failures and 1 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.LaunchpadScriptLayer tests: Ran 72 tests with 0 failures and 2 errors

  • test_initZopelessTwice (canonical.lp.ftests.test_zopeless.TestInitZopeless) monkeypatches warnings.warn_explicit in way that is no longer compatible

• canonical.testing.layers.LaunchpadZopelessLayer tests: Ran 3110 tests with 5 failures and 10 errors

  • canonical.launchpad.scripts.tests.test_entitlementimport.EntitlementImporterTestCase: multiple errors, UnicodeCSVReader not compatible with Py2.5 csv.

  • lib/lp/bugs/doc/bug-export.txt: Mysterious failure parsing doctest
  • lib/lp/bugs/doc/checkwatches-cli-switches.txt: Looks to be formatting differences in help message
  • lib/lp/bugs/doc/externalbugtracker-mantis-csv.txt: Sort order problem.
  • lib/lp/soyuz/doc/soyuz-set-of-uploads.txt: Uploads rejected?!

  • lp.soyuz.tests.test_packageupload.PackageUploadTestCase.test_realiseUpload_for_delayed_copies: Incorrect status

• canonical.launchpad.ftests.test_system_documentation.ProcessMailLayer tests: Ran 269 tests with 0 failures and 1 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.FunctionalLayer tests: Ran 164 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.LaunchpadFunctionalLayer tests: Ran 8116 tests with 11 failures and 0 errors

  • lib/canonical/launchpad/doc/pagetest-helpers.txt: CDATA section introduced
  • lib/canonical/launchpad/doc/tales.txt: Exception message changed in Py2.5.
  • lib/canonical/launchpad/doc/unicode_csv.txt: Failure mode changed in Py2.5. Recurrence of above UnicodeCSVReader issue.
  • lib/canonical/launchpad/scripts/ftests/librarianformatter.txt: Spurious characters.
  • lib/lp/bugs/tests/externalbugtracker-xmlrpc-transport.txt: ?
  • lib/lp/soyuz/doc/gina.txt: ?
  • lib/lp/soyuz/doc/package-diff.txt: ?
  • lib/lp/translations/doc/poexport-language-pack.txt, lib/lp/translations/doc/potemplate.txt: Hints at tarfile.getnames() behaviour change as seen in unit tests too
  • lib/lp/translations/tests/../doc/poexport-request-productseries.txt: ?
  • lib/lp/translations/tests/../doc/poexport-request.txt: ?

• canonical.testing.layers.AppServerLayer tests: Ran 128 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.DatabaseFunctionalLayer tests: Ran 3054 tests with 1 failures and 0 errors

  • lib/lp/registry/doc/teammembership.txt: Looks like benign formatting issue.

• canonical.testing.layers.PageTestLayer tests: Ran 6028 tests with 6 failures and 0 errors

  • lib/canonical/launchpad/pagetests/feeds/xx-links.txt: Formatting issue
  • lib/lp/answers/stories/question-add.txt, question-obfuscation.txt: Formatting issue
  • lib/lp/bugs/stories/distribution/xx-distribution-upstream-bug-report.txt: Formatting issue.
  • lib/lp/bugs/stories/feeds/xx-bug-atom.txt: Looks like benign formatting issue.

• canonical.testing.layers.TwistedLayer tests: Ran 219 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.TwistedLaunchpadZopelessLayer tests: Ran 23 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.TwistedAppServerLayer tests: Ran 5 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.ZopelessAppServerLayer tests: Ran 69 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors

• canonical.testing.layers.ZopelessDatabaseLayer tests: Ran 140 tests with 0 failures and 0 errors

• lp.codehosting.tests.test_acceptance.SSHServerLayer tests: Ran 46 tests with 46 failures and 0 errors

  • unexpected return codes from subprocesses all over the place

Other Related Work

• Launchpad currently depends on a monolithic Zope source distribution. Zope upstream has since restructured itself as a group of separated modular eggs. Gary Poster is working on migrating Launchpad to this new structure at https://code.launchpad.net/~gary/launchpad/zbuildout - this is a prerequisite to upgrading to newer Zope, which would then avoid the need to cherrypick backports into the existing Zope sourcedep.

... but Karmic has Python 2.4 still ...

Yes it does. But many of the required Python modules are no longer packaged for Python 2.4 in Karmic. However.... since the current official LP python version is 2.4, there is still a need for Karmic users to run Launchpad under Python 2.4 to test their changes. A chroot is one possibility, but I find that to be painful. Therefore, I am preparing suitable rebuilt Python module packages in my PPA as referenced above - currently they do not cover the entire set of launchpad-dependencies, but do seem to be enough to "make build schema run". More to follow.