Category Archives: Python

linux, mac, Python, ubuntu, virtualization

Installing Mac OS on KVM

Background

I first tried to install Mac OS onto a VM back in 2010 or 2011 I think. I’ve come back to the task from time to time and have never been successful, but truthfully until recently all the virtual machines I’ve created on Cinnamon had been too slow to be useful anyway. Now that I have Cinnamon doing virtual machines well, I came back to the Mac – at the same time I was doing other VMs, and I didn’t keep careful track of what I did to get it up. This document is meant to record what I remember of what I did the first time, and then to do it again and keep better records.

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linux, Python, ubuntu

Python Hack

I suddenly had a problem on the laptop (ubuntu 18.04, Bionic), and I’ve seen similar problems on Cinnamon. One manifestation is that when I try to start terminal using the gnome-terminal.desktop app, i.e. the icon in the dock, the launch fails, with no stated reason. A look in the log reveals a problem in Python loading _gi.

I resolved to look at it later. I was able to start the terminal from the desktop by right clicking, and open terminal.

Later I had a similar problem trying to launch gnome-tweak. It failed in the same way, trying to start up the python app it attempted to load _gi.

I have only the vaguest clue what is going on here. I looked at the python code. Indeed they are attempting: 

From . import _gi.

And the directory /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gi does not have a library named _gi. It does however have two library files: 

_gi.cpython-36m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
   and 
_gi_cairo.cpython-36m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so

Perusing the net, I find some suggestion that these libraries, with the 36m designation are somehow specific to or found by Python 3.6, and that if I want this to work under Python 3.7, I have to copy these files, and change 36m to 37m.

Ok, what have I got to lose? I did that simple thing – with just a simple copy in the above named directory. Lo and behold, it fixed the symptom that I was experiencing.

I don’t really like fixing things with magic when I don’t know what is happening, but now is not the time to go on a voyage of discovery with Python.