Linux: Reqs are borked out of the box

[b0bh00d]

OS: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
Py: Python 3.12.3 (main, Jun 18 2025, 17:59:45) [GCC 13.3.0] on linux

1. Pull repo to folder voice-assistant:

git pull https://github.com/vndee/local-talking-llm.git voice-assistant

2. Create virtual environment:

python3 -m venv voice-assistant

3. Enter folder, activate environment, and install requirements:

pip install -r requirements

This step will fail with the cPython requirement:

...
Collecting coloredlogs==15.0.1 (from -r requirements.txt (line 23))
Using cached coloredlogs-15.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl.metadata (12 kB)
Collecting contourpy==1.2.1 (from -r requirements.txt (line 24))
Using cached contourpy-1.2.1-cp312-cp312-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.metadata (5.8 kB)
ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement cPython==0.0.6 (from versions: none)
ERROR: No matching distribution found for cPython==0.0.6

4. Remove the cPython requirement from the requirements.txt file, and run again.

This will then fail with a module error on distutils:

...
raise BackendUnavailable(data.get('traceback', ''))
pip._vendor.pyproject_hooks._impl.BackendUnavailable: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/bob/AI/projects/voice-assistant/lib/python3.12/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 77, in _build_backend
obj = import_module(mod_path)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/lib/python3.12/importlib/init.py", line 90, in import_module
return _bootstrap._gcd_import(name[level:], package, level)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "", line 1387, in _gcd_import
File "", line 1360, in _find_and_load
File "", line 1310, in _find_and_load_unlocked
File "", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
File "", line 1387, in _gcd_import
File "", line 1360, in _find_and_load
File "", line 1331, in _find_and_load_unlocked
File "", line 935, in _load_unlocked
File "", line 995, in exec_module
File "", line 488, in _call_with_frames_removed
File "/tmp/pip-build-env-4qiewh0g/overlay/lib/python3.12/site-packages/setuptools/init.py", line 10, in
import distutils.core
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'distutils'

I tried manually installing setuptools to get the distutils module, and it failed again on something else. I gave up then.

[Desperationis]

Same exact issue; Running Debian 12. However I had to comment out around 12 packages total. Not exactly ideal.

[saakolch]

Same exact issue; Running Debian 12. However I had to comment out around 12 packages total. Not exactly ideal.

Hey, could you send all packages that you commented out?

[vndee]

Hi @b0bh00d,

Thank you for reporting this issue, and I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience with the dependency installation! 🙏

You're absolutely right - the requirements.txt file has been causing problems because it was generated using uv pip freeze, which creates overly specific version constraints that don't work well across different systems and Python versions.

I've just updated the project with a fix:

• Updated the README with clear installation instructions using better dependency management
• Updated requirements.txt with more flexible version constraints
• Added troubleshooting section explaining these issues

Recommended solution (easiest):

# Install uv (modern Python package manager)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/vndee/local-talking-llm.git
cd local-talking-llm
uv sync

Alternative using pip:

pip install -e .  # Install from pyproject.toml instead of requirements.txt

The project now uses pyproject.toml for proper dependency management, which should resolve all the version conflicts you encountered. Please try the uv approach - it's much more reliable!

Let me know if you run into any other issues.