[Segfault]

Is there any hope for having a Kodi-19 release soon? Keeping python-2 is getting problematic as it is blocking some updates in my Gentoo boxes. I could get live Kodi from git, true. But it would create a good mess because I use a central database and surely there will be a version conflict, some of my Pi frontends run LibreELEC.

[DarrenHill]

It's not even officially in Alpha yet, so no to a full release soon.

Nightlies are of course available, as are various builds of LE that use it such as Milhouse's ones. An alpha release will occur in due course, when it's ready.

You will of course potentially have addon issues as many are not yet Python3 compatible.

[Segfault]

Thanks, I even didn't realize there will be addon problem ...

[DarrenHill]

Some addons are currently Python2 only, either as their authors have yet to update them or they have basically been abandoned/orphaned and will get no update. They will not work on Kodi 19, which will by Python 3 only.

The latter are partly the reason for the hard switch from Python2 to Python3 only in Kodi 19 (aside from Python2 being EOL), so that these outdated and no longer supported addons can be cleared out of our ecosystem and repository.

[Segfault]

The outlook for two desktops I have with Kodi is dim. Dedicated frontends have no problem keeping python2. Not sure what is the best plan, use containers perhaps? Kodi is FOSS, so complaining would be out of line. Still, EOL of python2 was known in advance ... 
I'm starting to wonder if the live version in git is usable? If it is not even reached Alpha stage then it does not sound very encouraging. Maybe I should try it anyway. 

[DarrenHill]

You could always just stay with Leia. It is still currently supported, and even when Matrix does come out it won't suddenly stop functioning.

As things go on, we would need to stop shipping Python2 anyway as the longer past the EOL it is, the more likely that security holes will be found which will not be patched, and so the larger a security risk it may become. Hence some distribution channels may stop allowing distribution of apps which make use of it or ship with it.

Whilst work on Matrix is still quite early, it does work and hopefully an early release shouldn't be too far away. But it won't be any kind of final release for a while yet, so by nature isn't designed for the causal user and as an everyday family device. Whether you class yourself and your usage case for those machines as such is of course up to you.

[Segfault]

You could always just stay with Leia.

That's just the trouble, Leia requires python2 in my system and this in turn is blocking some other updates. I don't want to "freeze" the whole desktop installation. Gentoo is rolling distro and I want to roll it.

[wsnipex]

python2 and python3 can perfectly coexist on a linux system. And once kodi was compiled you only need python libs.

[Segfault]

Code:

dev-python/pillow:0

  (dev-python/pillow-7.1.2:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) USE="jpeg lcms tiff truetype zlib -doc -examples -imagequant -jpeg2k -test -tk -webp -xcb" PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_6 -python3_7 -python3_8" conflicts with
    dev-python/pillow[python_targets_python2_7(-)] required by (media-tv/kodi-18.6:0/0::gentoo, installed) USE="X alsa lcms mariadb opengl (system-ffmpeg) vaapi xslt -airplay -bluetooth -bluray -caps -cec -css -dbus -dvd -gbm -gles -libressl -libusb -lirc -mysql -nfs -pulseaudio (-raspberry-pi) -samba -systemd -test -udev -udisks -upnp -upower -vdpau -wayland -webserver -zeroconf" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python2_7"

It is not so simple, look at that. I cannot upgrade pillow because the new version would break Kodi. Sure, there may be a way around it by creating a custom ebuild, but things like this keep popping up.

[wsnipex]

maybe, but I'm sorry to say: this is a gentoo issue, not a kodi one.

[Segfault]

Maybe it is a Gentoo issue, but it is induced by Kodi release version depending on outdated software - no disrespect, but you can't deny it is a fact. And then other packages which depend on pillow cannot be upgraded ... it gets worse as the time passes by. Maybe I should investigate how *buntus work around this.

[asavah]

Maybe I should investigate how *buntus work around this.

1) *buntus (debian-based) are non-rolling distros, and package versions are frozen until the next release
2) debian-based distros have been providing both python2 and 3 packages independently for eons, eg. python-foo and python3-foo, archlinux which is rolling does the same, but python-foo is python3 package and python2-foo is obvously python2 package

even ubuntu 20.04 still provides some python2 packages they couldn't get rid of yet

Code:

#this is for debian-crap-patched (non-ppa) Kodi
apt depends kodi-data
kodi-data
  Depends: mesa-utils
  Depends: x11-utils
  Depends: libjs-jquery
  Depends: libjs-iscroll
  Depends: python-pil
  Depends: python-pycryptodome

apt policy python-pil
python-pil:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 6.2.1-3
  Version table:
     6.2.1-3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages

[joaopft]

Maybe it is a Gentoo issue, but it is induced by Kodi release version depending on outdated software - no disrespect, but you can't deny it is a fact. And then other packages which depend on pillow cannot be upgraded ... it gets worse as the time passes by. Maybe I should investigate how *buntus work around this.

@Segfault 

Look, gentoo still has python2.7 installed, and they have  dev-python/matplotlib-python2, etc alongside  dev-python/matplotlib. So it is possible for them to have dev-python/pillow-python2 (say, version 6.2.2) alongside their current dev-python/pillow.