Unable to build and run Newelle using Nix

[anna328p]

$ nix run github:qwersyk/Newelle

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/nix/store/ffzvd1pbrr79ynj3233dy3hqx53i0a1p-newelle-0.9.6/bin/.newelle-wrapped", line 45, in <module>
    from newelle import main
  File "/nix/store/ffzvd1pbrr79ynj3233dy3hqx53i0a1p-newelle-0.9.6/share/newelle/newelle/main.py", line 9, in <module>
    from .ui.settings import Settings
  File "/nix/store/ffzvd1pbrr79ynj3233dy3hqx53i0a1p-newelle-0.9.6/share/newelle/newelle/ui/settings.py", line 13, in <module>
    from ..constants import AVAILABLE_EMBEDDINGS, AVAILABLE_LLMS, AVAILABLE_MEMORIES, AVAILABLE_PROMPTS, AVAILABLE_TTS, AVAILABLE_STT, PROMPTS, AVAILABLE_RAGS, AVAILABLE_WEBSEARCH
  File "/nix/store/ffzvd1pbrr79ynj3233dy3hqx53i0a1p-newelle-0.9.6/share/newelle/newelle/constants.py", line 9, in <module>
    from .integrations.website_reader import WebsiteReader
  File "/nix/store/ffzvd1pbrr79ynj3233dy3hqx53i0a1p-newelle-0.9.6/share/newelle/newelle/integrations/website_reader.py", line 3, in <module>
    from ..ui.widgets import WebsiteButton
  File "/nix/store/ffzvd1pbrr79ynj3233dy3hqx53i0a1p-newelle-0.9.6/share/newelle/newelle/ui/widgets/__init__.py", line 14, in <module>
    from .browser import BrowserWidget
  File "/nix/store/ffzvd1pbrr79ynj3233dy3hqx53i0a1p-newelle-0.9.6/share/newelle/newelle/ui/widgets/browser.py", line 6, in <module>
    gi.require_version('WebKit', '6.0')
  File "/nix/store/66r54zb1wzs4fz8ckp8i4bhrw0k67hm3-python3.12-pygobject-3.50.0/lib/python3.12/site-packages/gi/__init__.py", line 122, in require_version
    raise ValueError('Namespace %s not available' % namespace)
ValueError: Namespace WebKit not available

• system: "x86_64-linux"
• host os: Linux 6.15.9, NixOS, 25.11 (Xantusia), 25.11.20250809.bcc20ca
• multi-user?: yes
• sandbox: yes
• version: nix-env (Nix) 2.28.4
• nixpkgs: /nix/store/mbc2kf18m60j8k4h83gzl44qvxjcr1m6-source

[FrancescoCaracciolo]

@mipmip can you look into it? liketly missing the webkitgtk dependency

[bittner]

The error originally reported seems to have gone away with #294 now merged. There's still another issue now, though:

$ nix run github:qwersyk/Newelle
/nix/store/jswlxh1msn1qnkj75f372ph0128vlf4n-gvfs-1.57.2/lib/gvfs/libgvfscommon.so: undefined symbol: g_variant_builder_init_static
Failed to load module: /nix/store/jswlxh1msn1qnkj75f372ph0128vlf4n-gvfs-1.57.2/lib/gio/modules/libgvfsdbus.so
Downloading pip...
bash: line 1: wget: command not found
Error installing pip-install-test Command '['bash', '-c', 'cd /home/peter/.config/Newelle && wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py && python get-pip.py']' returned non-zero exit status 127.
Exception in thread Thread-5 (get_models_infomation):
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/nix/store/kjvgj2n3yn70hmjifg6y0bk9m4rf7jba-python3-3.12.10/lib/python3.12/threading.py", line 1075, in _bootstrap_inner
    self.run()
  File "/nix/store/kjvgj2n3yn70hmjifg6y0bk9m4rf7jba-python3-3.12.10/lib/python3.12/threading.py", line 1012, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "/nix/store/62ryfc89pyky66qzw4js1n8z8w76sn51-newelle-0.9.6/share/newelle/newelle/handlers/llm/gpt4all_handler.py", line 54, in get_models_infomation
    from gpt4all import GPT4All
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'gpt4all'

Note that on my machine I have neither Pip nor wget for a reason, and I'm not excited to see that a user application tries to install Python locally. That's what malicious activity typically looks like, and it's certainly not a behavior desired by Nix. We should install the dependency at build time.

[mipmip]

@bittner Your comments about purity are relevant in the nixpkgs project, but this flake serves developers, not end users. It seems Newelle is trying to fix missing dependancies which we can fullfill in the Nix packaging. I'll try to find time to loook into this.

[bittner]

True. Sorry if I came over harsh, I didn't mean to. While inspecting the error message above I figured that a Nix anti-pattern happens in the code.

<off-topic>

So, while this might be slightly off-topic for the developer setup, it might be worth to point out that in certain environments it's considered "malicious behavior" if an application starts downloading and installing scripts or other executable code off the Internet. Nix(OS) happens to be a package manager that also thinks that way for conceptual reasons.

It might be worth to think about:

• Allowing to ship plugins at installation/build time (packaging, dependencies)
• Optionally disable the installation and removal of plugins (e.g. only allow enabling/disabling of already installed plugins, show a "Plugins are managed by your organization" banner – similar to how Firefox does it in the settings)

Note that installing and using most of the plugins currently fails on NixOS.

[anna328p]

[snip] this flake serves developers, not end users.

It's worth noting that the README of this repo has an "installation" section which tells you how to run the app, which, for example, has instructions for installing Newelle via Flathub. Another section says this:

With nix, you can run the app without installing by executing this command:

nix run github:qwersyk/Newelle

I definitely interpreted it as the Nix flake being meant for users.

[qzylinra]

You should use this from nixpkgs

[anna328p]

You should use this from nixpkgs

That version is over two months old

[bittner]

You should use this from nixpkgs

That version is over two months old

... and not only. The plugins (that I tried) don't work, because the way they are installed – ad-hoc, on demand – is fundamentally incompatible with NixOS.

It would be good to discuss how this situation can be improved. It's not just about NixOS, it's about making Newelle work well across platforms.

[qzylinra]

Nixpkgs uses the release version instead of the latest Git commit. This is consistent with Flathub.

I believe this is same for many Linux distributions for plugins. You can modify the Nix package to install some, but some are difficult.

[anna328p]

Nixpkgs uses the release version instead of the latest Git commit.

Not true anymore now that version 1.0.2 is out.