Running uPyLoader from source

Sometimes, you may want to run uPyLoader from source, for example when you want to use latest code and release was not yet published.

In order to run it this way, first clone the repository.

The uPyLoader runs on Python3 and requires PyQt5 and PySerial above version 3. Use pip to download these two via pip install PyQt5 and pip install pyserial>=3.1.1. OS-X users can also use script install_osx_dependencies.sh in root directory provided by @sarusso to install dependencies automatically.

Inside the cloned repository directory, use python main.py to run the application. Depending on your python setup, you may need to actually run it with python3 main.py. Try this if the application crashes on startup. Windows users may want to use pythonw.exe to run application without black console window.

If you are having problems downloading PyQt5 on Debian distro (Ubuntu, Mint,..), try sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt5. Another way to obtain PyQt5 is by installing from source.

Running under WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

If for a reason you'd like to run uPyLoader under WSL (already set-up environment, quickly validating changes work also in Linux, etc) the good news is it's possible, but you may run into issues. When launching uPyLoader, you might get following error:

python main.py
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Available platform plugins are: eglfs, linuxfb, minimal, minimalegl, offscreen, vnc, wayland-egl, wayland, wayland-xcomposite-egl, wayland-xcomposite-glx, webgl, xcb.

[1]    577 abort      python main.py

The solution here seems to be switching to different QPA, like so: QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland python main.py. Specifically wayland and wayland-egl both seemed to work and resolved the error, though you might want to try others to see which one works best for your setup.