Can't install packages via conf.py

[Daltz333]

E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend), are you root?

Sudo also seems to not exist.

Using the following script

if os.environ.get("READTHEDOCS"):
    # Tries to grab draw.io deb
    drawio_download = \
        subprocess.run(["wget", "-O", "drawio.deb",
                        "https://github.com/jgraph/drawio-desktop/releases/download/v12.6.5/draw.io-amd64-12.6.5.deb"])

    if drawio_download.returncode == 0:
        # If we got the draw.io deb, install it, and xvfb to run headless
        drawio_install = subprocess.run(["apt-get", "install", "-qy", "--force-yes", "libasound2",
                                         "./drawio.deb", "xvfb"])
        print("Dependencies Installed" if drawio_install.returncode == 0 else "Error Installing Dependencies")
    else:
        print("Error Downloading Dependencies")

[Daltz333]

We have some special dependencies

inkscape
drawio

that aren't included in RTD

[Daltz333]

It looks like this may be because the docker packages are not ran with the root user. Is there any alternative at all?

[Daltz333]

Conda is an option, but the packages I want to use aren't on there. (drawio and inkscape)

[humitos]

Hi @Daltz333! We don't officially support installing arbitrary packages at build time. There are some people doing similar things in the conf.py but we don't recommend it and we can't guarantee that this will keep working in the future.

I saw that you also created an issue at readthedocs/readthedocs-docker-images#131. That's basically the way we install packages in our Docker images. As these packages affect all the builds we try to analyze if the package is a good candidate or not.

Summarizing, there is no workaround for this at the moment more than continue talking about these packages in the other issue you have created.

[humitos]

I'm closing this issue for now since we don't support installing packages using apt-get or other mechanisms. We should concentrate in the issue opened in the other repository, tho. Thanks!

[humitos]

This is currently possible by using build.apt_packages in the config file. See https://docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/config-file/v2.html#build-apt-packages