Compiling for CentOS 7

This guide provides basic instructions on getting PyQt5 compiled on CentOS 7 for Python 2.7

Installation

1. Install Qt

# First turn the newly downloaded file into an executable
$ chmod +x qt-unified-linux-x64-2.0.5-online.run
$ ./qt-unified-linux-x64-2.0.5-online.run

2. Install Dependencies

# Install C++ compiler for Make
$ yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'

# Install Python source
$ yum install python-devel

# (Optional) Install OpenGL headers, for QtGui and QtWidgets
$ yum install freeglut-devel

3. Compile SIP

tar -xf sip-4.19.1.tar.gz 
cd sip-4.19.1
$ python configure.py
$ make
$ sudo make install

4. Compile PyQt

cd ..
tar -xf PyQt5_gpl-5.8.tar.gz
cd PyQt5_gpl-5.8

# This takes a minute or two.
#
# --qmake: Tell compiler about location of Qt binaries
$ python configure.py --qmake ~/Qt/5.8/gcc_64/bin/qmake

# Now we can run make.
# Note: This could potentially take an hour or two.
$ make -j4

# This takes less than a minute
$ sudo make install

Testing

PyQt should now be accessible from the version of Python you first ran configure.py with.

>>> import sys
>>> from PyQt5 import QtWidgets
>>> app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
>>> button = QtWidgets.QPushButton("Hello, World!")
>>> button.setFixedSize(100, 50)
>>> button.show()
>>> app.exec_()

If this produces a new window with a single button in it, you're good to go!

If not, you can contact me at [email protected].