Ubuntu package "python3" does not include tkinter

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 9:18 PM, lcrocker <leedanielcrocker at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 21, 11:36 pm, Rui Maciel <rui.mac... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> > It's only easy to install a package on Ubuntu if you know that you have
>> > to, and can somehow work out the name of the package.
>>
>> No one actually has to install tkinter.  That's the whole point of providing
>> it as a separate package: only those who want to use it have to install it.
>> The rest of us don't.
>
> I'm a programmer, I installed Tkinter, and use it. I'd like to deploy
> programs
> written with it to others.  **Those** people know nothing about it,
> and
> **shouldn't have to**. I've given them a program in Python, they have
> Python,
> but it doesn't run, and doesn't give them a helpful error. They'll
> probably
> just blame me and move on.  Not every Python user is a programmer.  If
> I write
> a program in Java, any user with Java installed can run it.  As it
> stands,
> that's no true for Python.  That's not good PR for the cause.

If you're deploying only to Debian-based Linuxes (such as the Ubuntu
you mentioned originally), then it may be worth distributing your
program as a .deb file and declaring all the appropriate dependencies
(which would then include python3-tk). Alternatively, just put an
"apt-get install python3-tk" into your install script (which is what I
do for internal deployments - if you need package XYZ for program Foo,
inst-foo will install XYZ), or simply tell people they need to install
it. How do you make sure they even have a Python 3.x? Whatever you do
to ensure that, just add python3-tk to it.

ChrisA