Ubuntu 20.04 "error: invalid command 'bdist_wheel'"

I followed the procedure on Lektor’s webpage, and despite having installed all prerequisites, I get the following errors:

Building wheel for inifile (setup.py) ... error
  ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
   command: /usr/local/lib/lektor/bin/python3 -u -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/inifile/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/inifile/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' bdist_wheel -d /tmp/pip-wheel-ayl9hhi2
       cwd: /tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/inifile/
  Complete output (6 lines):
  usage: setup.py [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
     or: setup.py --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
     or: setup.py --help-commands
     or: setup.py cmd --help

  error: invalid command 'bdist_wheel'
  ----------------------------------------
  ERROR: Failed building wheel for inifile
  Running setup.py clean for inifile
  Building wheel for EXIFRead (setup.py) ... error
  ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
   command: /usr/local/lib/lektor/bin/python3 -u -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/EXIFRead/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/EXIFRead/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' bdist_wheel -d /tmp/pip-wheel-mxtpmzko
       cwd: /tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/EXIFRead/
  Complete output (7 lines):
  Warning: 'classifiers' should be a list, got type 'tuple'
  usage: setup.py [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
     or: setup.py --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
     or: setup.py --help-commands
     or: setup.py cmd --help

  error: invalid command 'bdist_wheel'
  ----------------------------------------
  ERROR: Failed building wheel for EXIFRead
  Running setup.py clean for EXIFRead
  Building wheel for watchdog (setup.py) ... error
  ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
   command: /usr/local/lib/lektor/bin/python3 -u -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/watchdog/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/watchdog/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' bdist_wheel -d /tmp/pip-wheel-5pxag3tc
       cwd: /tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/watchdog/
  Complete output (6 lines):
  usage: setup.py [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
     or: setup.py --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
     or: setup.py --help-commands
     or: setup.py cmd --help

  error: invalid command 'bdist_wheel'
  ----------------------------------------
  ERROR: Failed building wheel for watchdog
  Running setup.py clean for watchdog
  Building wheel for pathtools (setup.py) ... error
  ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
   command: /usr/local/lib/lektor/bin/python3 -u -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/pathtools/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/pathtools/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' bdist_wheel -d /tmp/pip-wheel-xurhnhnp
       cwd: /tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/pathtools/
  Complete output (8 lines):
  /tmp/pip-install-af6y5v9m/pathtools/setup.py:25: DeprecationWarning: the imp module is deprecated in favour of importlib; see the module's documentation for alternative uses
    import imp
  usage: setup.py [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
     or: setup.py --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
     or: setup.py --help-commands
     or: setup.py cmd --help

  error: invalid command 'bdist_wheel'
  ----------------------------------------
  ERROR: Failed building wheel for pathtools

Any sugestions? It installed without issue in windows, so I suppose it is something related to Ubuntu 20.04.

[andresperezcera]

@xlotlu Sorry, solved it as mentioned, however I need practice at the vps instance, I’ll reset and proceed again. I’ll be back with results in about 4 hours (currently busy)

[andresperezcera]

I’m updating this topic to point that the best install method at the moment is using pipx:

$ python3 -m pip install --user pipx
$ python3 -m pipx ensurepath

Close and reopen terminal

$ pipx install lektor

I’ll close this issue with this and point out 3 things, 2 and 3 are derived from 1:

• First, the install script should be set aside to prioritize pipx.
• Second, since pipx won’t do system-wide, we have to determine wether that’s important.
• Third, since pipx only workd on 3.6+ we should decide whether all previous version are deprecated.

For further discussion please go to #915