Getting Started on Linux

Requirements

  • Qt package from here or a custom build of Qt 5.12+ (preferably 5.15)

  • A Python interpreter (version Python 3.5+ or Python 2.7). You can either use the one provided by your OS, or get it from the official website.

  • GCC

  • CMake version 3.1 or greater

  • Git version 2 or greater

  • libclang from your system or the prebuilt version from the Qt Downloads page is recommended. libclang10 is required for PySide 5.15.

  • sphinx package for the documentation (optional).

  • Depending on your linux distribution, the following dependencies might also be required:

    • libgl-dev,

    • python-dev,

    • python-distutils,

    • and python-setuptools.

Building from source

Creating a virtual environment

The venv module allows you to create a local, user-writeable copy of a python environment into which arbitrary modules can be installed and which can be removed after use:

python -m venv testenv
source testenv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt  # General dependencies, documentation, and examples.

will create and use a new virtual environment, which is indicated by the command prompt changing.

Setting up CLANG

If you don’t have libclang already in your system, you can download from the Qt servers:

wget https://download.qt.io/development_releases/prebuilt/libclang/libclang-release_100-based-linux-Rhel7.6-gcc5.3-x86_64.7z

Extract the files, and leave it on any desired path, and set the environment variable required:

7z x libclang-release_100-based-linux-Rhel7.6-gcc5.3-x86_64.7z
export LLVM_INSTALL_DIR=$PWD/libclang

Getting PySide2

Cloning the official repository can be done by:

git clone --recursive https://code.qt.io/pyside/pyside-setup

Checking out the version that we want to build, e.g. 5.15:

cd pyside-setup && git checkout 5.15

Note

Keep in mind you need to use the same version as your Qt installation. Additionally, git checkout -b 5.15  --track origin/5.14 could be a better option in case you want to work on it.

Building PySide2

Check your Qt installation path, to specifically use that version of qmake to build PySide2. e.g. /opt/Qt/5.14.0/gcc_64/bin/qmake.

Build can take a few minutes, so it is recommended to use more than one CPU core:

python setup.py build --qmake=/opt/Qt/5.15.0/gcc_64/bin/qmake --build-tests --ignore-git --parallel=8

Installing PySide2

To install on the current directory, just run:

python setup.py install --qmake=/opt/Qt/5.15.0/gcc_64/bin/qmake --build-tests --ignore-git --parallel=8

Test installation

You can execute one of the examples to verify the process is properly working. Remember to properly set the environment variables for Qt and PySide2:

python examples/widgets/widgets/tetrix.py