Python installation of Electrum on latest Linux kernel (6.0 and above)

[DireWolfM14]

I'll try to make time to replicate the errors you're having one of these days, and provide a follow up.

[DireWolfM14]

~

I had time to play with it for a little bit today, and had no major problems.  Here's my adventure:

I started with Debian 13.4.0 since I already had the ISO downloaded and installed the KDE Plasma DTE on top of it.

Since you had an issue with python3.13-venv I did a couple of searches to figure out if it was the latest version of venv, and it turns out it is.  This might be something you want to look into on Kubuntu.  I don't remember why I specified v3.13, perhaps the Debian package manager delayed release at one point, and I had noticed it was necessary.  I restored the instructions in the OP to python3-venv because it's the same version now.



Creating the virtual environment and downloading the files with supplied commands went without a hitch.



I'm anal, so I never skip verification, even when testing on a VM I never plan to use.



Installation went smooth.



Here's the whole output:

Code:

root@debvb:~# /opt/electrum/bin/pip install --use-pep517 Electrum-4.7.2.tar.gz
Processing ./Electrum-4.7.2.tar.gz
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... done
Collecting qrcode (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading qrcode-8.2-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (17 kB)
Collecting protobuf>=3.20 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading protobuf-7.34.1-cp310-abi3-manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.metadata (595 bytes)
Collecting qdarkstyle>=3.2 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading QDarkStyle-3.2.3-py2.py3-none-any.whl.metadata (3.2 kB)
Collecting aiorpcx<0.26,>=0.25.0 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading aiorpcX-0.25.0-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (2.2 kB)
Collecting aiohttp<4.0.0,>=3.11.0 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading aiohttp-3.13.5-cp313-cp313-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl.metadata (8.1 kB)
Collecting aiohttp_socks>=0.9.2 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading aiohttp_socks-0.11.0-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (3.6 kB)
Requirement already satisfied: certifi in /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages (from Electrum==4.7.2) (2025.1.31)
Collecting jsonpatch (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading jsonpatch-1.33-py2.py3-none-any.whl.metadata (3.0 kB)
Collecting electrum_ecc<0.1,>=0.0.4 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading electrum_ecc-0.0.7.tar.gz (2.2 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 2.2/2.2 MB 5.9 MB/s eta 0:00:00
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... done
Collecting electrum_aionostr<0.2,>=0.1.0 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading electrum_aionostr-0.1.0.tar.gz (25 kB)
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... done
Collecting attrs<23,>=20.1.0 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading attrs-22.2.0-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (13 kB)
Collecting dnspython<2.5,>=2.2 (from Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading dnspython-2.4.2-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (4.9 kB)
Collecting aiohappyeyeballs>=2.5.0 (from aiohttp<4.0.0,>=3.11.0->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading aiohappyeyeballs-2.6.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (5.9 kB)
Collecting aiosignal>=1.4.0 (from aiohttp<4.0.0,>=3.11.0->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading aiosignal-1.4.0-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (3.7 kB)
Collecting frozenlist>=1.1.1 (from aiohttp<4.0.0,>=3.11.0->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading frozenlist-1.8.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux1_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.manylinux_2_5_x86_64.whl.metadata (20 kB)
Collecting multidict<7.0,>=4.5 (from aiohttp<4.0.0,>=3.11.0->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading multidict-6.7.1-cp313-cp313-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl.metadata (5.3 kB)
Collecting propcache>=0.2.0 (from aiohttp<4.0.0,>=3.11.0->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading propcache-0.4.1-cp313-cp313-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl.metadata (13 kB)
Collecting yarl<2.0,>=1.17.0 (from aiohttp<4.0.0,>=3.11.0->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading yarl-1.23.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl.metadata (79 kB)
Requirement already satisfied: idna>=2.0 in /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages (from yarl<2.0,>=1.17.0->aiohttp<4.0.0,>=3.11.0->Electrum==4.7.2) (3.10)
Collecting python-socks<3.0.0,>=2.4.3 (from python-socks[asyncio]<3.0.0,>=2.4.3->aiohttp_socks>=0.9.2->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading python_socks-2.8.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (8.2 kB)
Collecting qtpy>=2 (from qdarkstyle>=3.2->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading QtPy-2.4.3-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (12 kB)
Collecting packaging (from qtpy>=2->qdarkstyle>=3.2->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading packaging-26.2-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (3.5 kB)
Collecting jsonpointer>=1.9 (from jsonpatch->Electrum==4.7.2)
  Downloading jsonpointer-3.1.1-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (2.4 kB)
Downloading aiohttp-3.13.5-cp313-cp313-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl (1.8 MB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1.8/1.8 MB 5.1 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading aiorpcX-0.25.0-py3-none-any.whl (39 kB)
Downloading attrs-22.2.0-py3-none-any.whl (60 kB)
Downloading dnspython-2.4.2-py3-none-any.whl (300 kB)
Downloading multidict-6.7.1-cp313-cp313-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl (254 kB)
Downloading yarl-1.23.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl (101 kB)
Downloading aiohappyeyeballs-2.6.1-py3-none-any.whl (15 kB)
Downloading aiohttp_socks-0.11.0-py3-none-any.whl (10 kB)
Downloading python_socks-2.8.1-py3-none-any.whl (55 kB)
Downloading aiosignal-1.4.0-py3-none-any.whl (7.5 kB)
Downloading frozenlist-1.8.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux1_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.manylinux_2_5_x86_64.whl (234 kB)
Downloading propcache-0.4.1-cp313-cp313-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl (204 kB)
Downloading protobuf-7.34.1-cp310-abi3-manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (324 kB)
Downloading QDarkStyle-3.2.3-py2.py3-none-any.whl (871 kB)
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 871.8/871.8 kB 6.3 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading QtPy-2.4.3-py3-none-any.whl (95 kB)
Downloading jsonpatch-1.33-py2.py3-none-any.whl (12 kB)
Downloading jsonpointer-3.1.1-py3-none-any.whl (7.7 kB)
Downloading packaging-26.2-py3-none-any.whl (100 kB)
Downloading qrcode-8.2-py3-none-any.whl (45 kB)
Building wheels for collected packages: Electrum, electrum_aionostr, electrum_ecc
  Building wheel for Electrum (pyproject.toml) ... done
  Created wheel for Electrum: filename=electrum-4.7.2-py3-none-any.whl size=7864762 sha256=0d4339756664a483dc1fa15a19208edf368b0522c110fc74d4a6dada284cde7e
  Stored in directory: /root/.cache/pip/wheels/44/7f/64/ccc9c1eca0c7b536638d5508ef123e5c9441f78ee769028eda
  Building wheel for electrum_aionostr (pyproject.toml) ... done
  Created wheel for electrum_aionostr: filename=electrum_aionostr-0.1.0-py3-none-any.whl size=24937 sha256=d2a4ad9f6a4d82f6c8325380871e73411e3c52fd8d35a890cb3772ce40e2aeaa
  Stored in directory: /root/.cache/pip/wheels/ed/d6/66/1fad1f790e74311f452a37f4118ed6162d0c770196e5e61536
  Building wheel for electrum_ecc (pyproject.toml) ... done
  Created wheel for electrum_ecc: filename=electrum_ecc-0.0.7-py3-none-linux_x86_64.whl size=1620948 sha256=4e8da1e3b7bcecc818f0478ab3bad5f0ee35815eed366ead51a714e629db6983
  Stored in directory: /root/.cache/pip/wheels/16/e6/fe/b064dfea35b4dabfb7f8d5b3c67eea9636c1d3298b74203bb3
Successfully built Electrum electrum_aionostr electrum_ecc
Installing collected packages: qrcode, python-socks, protobuf, propcache, packaging, multidict, jsonpointer, frozenlist, electrum_ecc, dnspython, attrs, aiorpcx, aiohappyeyeballs, yarl, qtpy, jsonpatch, aiosignal, qdarkstyle, aiohttp, aiohttp_socks, electrum_aionostr, Electrum
Successfully installed Electrum-4.7.2 aiohappyeyeballs-2.6.1 aiohttp-3.13.5 aiohttp_socks-0.11.0 aiorpcx-0.25.0 aiosignal-1.4.0 attrs-22.2.0 dnspython-2.4.2 electrum_aionostr-0.1.0 electrum_ecc-0.0.7 frozenlist-1.8.0 jsonpatch-1.33 jsonpointer-3.1.1 multidict-6.7.1 packaging-26.2 propcache-0.4.1 protobuf-7.34.1 python-socks-2.8.1 qdarkstyle-3.2.3 qrcode-8.2 qtpy-2.4.3 yarl-1.23.0
root@debvb:~#

The only thing that didn't work was the desktop-file-install command, so in the instructions I replaced it with a simple copy command.



The terminal command works fine, no errors.



The desktop icon is listed in the app drawer, and also works fine.



In summation, I'm still not sure why you're having issues.  I can only assume it's something specific to Kubuntu and the version of Python virtual environment.  There might be some difference in the version released through Kubuntu's package manager, and that could be the root of all your issues.

[Forsyth Jones]

-

Thanks for the update, you did very well to have tested with debian (ubuntu and kubuntu are based on it) for its stability.

I managed to install electrum via python package after some research, according to this guide on reddit, there was the following tutorial:

Code:

# Creating and entering python Virtual Environment to install Electrum
#
python3 -m venv venv-electrum
source venv-electrum/bin/activate
sudo apt-get install build-essential libsecp256k1-0
venv-electrum/bin/pip3 install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
venv-electrum/bin/pip3 install https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/archive/refs/tags/4.1.4.tar.gz pyqt5 cryptography
deactivate

However, this post would be to use electrum via command line, so I just installed a dependency that was missing (which is not mentioned in your tutorial), which is 'build-essential', see in one of my previous posts that, when installing this dependency, Electrum managed to be installed without errors.

In short, by combining your tutorial with the addition of installing the build-essential dependency, electrum is normally installed on Kubuntu.

On another desktop where I have Ubuntu 22.04 LTS installed, it was a little more difficult, on that one it was unable to locate either python3.13-venv or python3.14-venv, but it already had python3.10-venv or python3.12-venv installed, so apart from that, I followed your tutorial and managed to install electrum on Ubuntu (on Kubuntu it was more easy, after installing build-essential).

Now changing the subject a little, it's a fact that the guide on the electrum download page is outdated, searching old videos on YouTube, it seems that the same command lines have been listed there since 2020... Now Ubuntu and based systems have tightened the rules a bit for installing python packages, requiring a virtual environment (from what I get it), so why haven't they updated this guide yet? We are talking about one of the most reliable and used wallets in the world, which is electrum. Has anyone already opened an issue on github about that?

I think that if they made a .deb package available, we wouldn't have to do this whole process (and run the risk of errors), the impression it gives is that as time goes by, the way to install electrum changes radically... one more detail, when installing electrum via python package, it doesn't come (or can't access the library) with the udevs rules for recognizing hardware wallets... like trezor.

[DireWolfM14]

build-essential

That looks like it was the culprit.  It installs automatically on Debian, but apparently not on Kubuntu. 

Code:

root@debvb:~# apt search build-essential
build-essential/stable,now 12.12 amd64 [installed,automatic]
  Informational list of build-essential packages

I've added it to the list of dependencies so it doesn't get missed in the distributions that don't install it automatically.

That only leaves the issue of libsecp256k1-0.  My distribution's package manager is unable to locate that package.  I've added instructions to try installing it if the primary method fails.

[nc50lc]

so why haven't they updated this guide yet? We are talking about one of the most reliable and used wallets in the world, which is electrum. Has anyone already opened an issue on github about that?

Looks like there isn't any: github.com/spesmilo/electrum-web/issues?q=is%3Aissue
You can open a "feature request" issue or a pull request with the necessary changes if you want to.

The last update in the Python install command was a year ago but that's only to update the required pyqt version to pyqt6.
The dependencies and command remain the same.

[DireWolfM14]

so why haven't they updated this guide yet? We are talking about one of the most reliable and used wallets in the world, which is electrum. Has anyone already opened an issue on github about that?

Looks like there isn't any:

I experienced the issue that lead to me creating these instructions almost three years ago:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/8487

Someone had brought up a similar experience a couple of months prior:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/8328

The last update in the Python install command was a year ago but that's only to update the required pyqt version to pyqt6.
The dependencies and command remain the same.

I find it odd that the dev team hasn't updated the instructions in all these years.  My only guess is that most people don't bother with the python install and are happy to use the AppImage.  It is much easier and user friendly, that's for sure.

I'm planning on turning my instructions into an automated script at some point, but I need to do some research to figure out what the best way is to deal with verification, and iron out any issues like the one just exposed by Forsyth Jones.

[ABCbits]

I think that if they made a .deb package available,

FWIW, Debian repository actually provide Electrum, https://packages.debian.org/trixie/electrum. So technically what you ask is exist, although it's somewhat outdated and you need to trust who create the .deb file.

The last update in the Python install command was a year ago but that's only to update the required pyqt version to pyqt6.
The dependencies and command remain the same.

I find it odd that the dev team hasn't updated the instructions in all these years.  My only guess is that most people don't bother with the python install and are happy to use the AppImage.  It is much easier and user friendly, that's for sure.

I agree with you. Besides, people who choose to install from source code (when AppImage exist) likely to be advance user who could debug by themself and realize the guide is outdated/not really for their distro.

[Forsyth Jones]

FWIW, Debian repository actually provide Electrum, https://packages.debian.org/trixie/electrum. So technically what you ask is exist, although it's somewhat outdated and you need to trust who create the .deb file.

I remember there was a version of Electrum in the Ubuntu distribution store, but I'm now on Kubuntu 26.04, when I search the store, only the flatpak version appears, which is also not maintained by the official developers. The problem is that distribution packages aren't always up to date and we still have to rely on those packages.

[DireWolfM14]

I think that if they made a .deb package available,

FWIW, Debian repository actually provide Electrum, https://packages.debian.org/trixie/electrum. So technically what you ask is exist, although it's somewhat outdated and you need to trust who create the .deb file.

A 1.5 year old release doesn't strike me as stable and secure, lol.  Zero stars, would not recommend.

The last update in the Python install command was a year ago but that's only to update the required pyqt version to pyqt6.
The dependencies and command remain the same.

I find it odd that the dev team hasn't updated the instructions in all these years.  My only guess is that most people don't bother with the python install and are happy to use the AppImage.  It is much easier and user friendly, that's for sure.

I agree with you. Besides, people who choose to install from source code (when AppImage exist) likely to be advance user who could debug by themself and realize the guide is outdated/not really for their distro.

I take back what I said, it's really not that odd at all.  There's the fact that Windows likely has over 70% of the personal computer market share, vs Linux's maybe 5% (if we're to be generous.)  If I had to guess I'd say 90% of Linux users are content using the AppImage.  Assuming that Electrum users follow the same distribution, that leaves about .5% of us loner, loser, geeks left to fend for ourselves. 

After thinking about it for a bit, it's not that surprising that the dev team focuses on the bigger fish that need frying.  In fact, I myself would rather have them put their energy into implementing tap root than fixing this issue.

[ABCbits]

FWIW, Debian repository actually provide Electrum, https://packages.debian.org/trixie/electrum. So technically what you ask is exist, although it's somewhat outdated and you need to trust who create the .deb file.

I remember there was a version of Electrum in the Ubuntu distribution store, but I'm now on Kubuntu 26.04, when I search the store, only the flatpak version appears, which is also not maintained by the official developers. The problem is that distribution packages aren't always up to date and we still have to rely on those packages.

Ubuntu distribution store? I wonder if it leads to installing Electrum from Snap back then.

I think that if they made a .deb package available,

FWIW, Debian repository actually provide Electrum, https://packages.debian.org/trixie/electrum. So technically what you ask is exist, although it's somewhat outdated and you need to trust who create the .deb file.

A 1.5 year old release doesn't strike me as stable and secure, lol.  Zero stars, would not recommend.

Yeah, Debian definition of stable is quite different that people may expect. It may fit as server for some people/company, but probably not for average people who want up to date apps.