Install and make tkinter work on AWS EC2 instance

Question

I am desperately trying to make tkinter work on my EC2 instance.

I just want to be able to execute this line in python:

from tkinter import *

or this one for older version as from what I understood before python 3.x you had to use a capital T

from Tkinter import *

Right now both these commands return this:

ImportError: No module named _Tkinter

Here are the steps I took and what I found in my research:

The python version currently running on my instance is python 2.6.8, thinking that tkinter might not come with this version I decided to install python version to 3.2 (keeping 2.6.8) using this http://www.hosting.com/support/linux/installing-python-3-on-centosredhat-5x-from-source/
Then running python 3.2 I ran in the same problem it tells me no module called tkinter.
I then tried to install tkinter using a lot of different commands:

yum install tkinter

yum install Tkinter

yum install python-tk

yum install python3-tk

yum install tk-devel

yum install gtk2-devel

yum install pygtk2-devel

All of these give me the same result:

No package (name of the package) available.

Also in my python 3.2 folder in /opt (the second one I have installed) there is a folder called tkinter but it still seems that somehow python3 does not see it.

What am I missing? Whys can't I import tkinter when I am in python?

Since EC2 instances are server oriented and typically lack an X-server, if you could install a Tkinter application, where would you display it? — msw, Sep 09 '13 at 19:03
Yes this makes sense, I did not thought about it, Thank you! — user2041389, Sep 09 '13 at 20:39
Some Python libs need tkinter despite the display may not even be used. — Guillaume Chevalier, Aug 01 '17 at 22:15
@GuillaumeChevalier things like Matplotlib don't actually *need* Tkinter - they're just designed to take advantage of it, and expect it by default. See e.g. https://help.pythonanywhere.com/pages/TkinterPygameEtc . — Karl Knechtel, Apr 26 '23 at 20:15

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 09 '13 at 20:02

4

Tkinter requires a display. Unless you can somehow access a desktop on the AWS instance, you won't be able to load tkinter, much less use it.

answered Sep 09 '13 at 20:02

Bryan Oakley

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This makes sense. I did not thought about this at all but you are totally right I can not use tkinter in this case... – user2041389 Sep 09 '13 at 20:38

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:53

After the previous answers I realized why it was not working so I made it work using an EC2 Ubuntu instance and doing the following:

  export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
  sudo -E apt-get update
  sudo -E apt-get install -y ubuntu-desktop
  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freenx-team
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo aptitude install -y freenx
  wget https://bugs.launchpad.net/freenxserver/+bug/576359/+attachment/1378450/+files/nxsetup.tar.gz
  tar -xvf nxsetup.tar.gz
  sudo cp nxsetup /usr/lib/nx/nxsetup
  sudo /usr/lib/nx/nxsetup --install

Then said no when asked for a password and did:

  sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config and set PasswordAuthentication to yes
  sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart
  sudo passwd ubuntu
  sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

Once this was done I installed NX client on my local machine. All this thanks to this page

Connected to my new server where I was able to install python-tk like that:

 sudo apt-get install python-tk

And now I can use tkinter on my instance :)

Install and make tkinter work on AWS EC2 instance

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