SMbus for Python 3.4 on Raspberry Pi
Now, that I had Python 3.4 running, I tried my I2C using project and it failed miserably with
ImportError: No module named 'smbus'
This is because the python-smbus package only contains Python 2 bindings.
pi@whatever ~ $ dpkg -s python-smbus
Package: python-smbus
[...]
Source: i2c-tools
Version: 3.1.0-2
Provides: python2.6-smbus, python2.7-smbus
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.13-28), python2.7 | python2.6, python (>= 2.6), python (<< 2.8)
The solution was actually pretty easy and described in the official Raspberry Pi forum.
sudo apt-get install libi2c-dev # install dependency
wget http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/i/i2c-tools/i2c-tools_3.1.0.orig.tar.bz2 # download i2c-tools source
tar xf i2c-tools_3.1.0.orig.tar.bz2
cd i2c-tools-3.1.0/py-smbus
mv smbusmodule.c smbusmodule.c.orig # backup
wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/sebastianludwig/c648a9e06c0dc2264fbd/raw/2b74f9e72bbdffe298ce02214be8ea1c20aa290f/smbusmodule.c # download patched (Python 3) source
The next steps need to be run with Python 3.4. For me, this meant activating a virtual environment (see previous post) - as root.
sudo bash
source /home/pi/.virtualenvs/python34/bin/activate
python --version # should output 'Python 3.4.1'
python setup.py build
python setup.py install
That’s it. However, I start disliking the virtualenv approach, because simple sudo python3.4 commands don’t work. I think I’ll just add it to the path…
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