Bring README.md up to date

We've had a number of new features introduced - time to document and update the README.md file.

PyQt6
Builds:
- Linux
- Windows
- macOS
  - See: add macos CI build #122
Largely dropped the use of sudo to install the packages
- Check debian installs, seems that by default in debian pythons environment is externally managed.
  - Look into PEP 668
  - If we want to install a non-debian based Python application (can we argue that dronecan_gui_tool is?) then recommended approach is to use pipx and pipx install https://github.com/dronecan/gui_tool.git.
    - This approach means all the sudo apt installs (of which, one was recently added here: README: add pyqt6-dev-tools to Debian deps #130) can be resolved to user managed python environments, and the changes are not necessary.
Makes use of newer versions of python
CLI arguments to launch the application on a selected interface/bus number/etc.
- See: gui: fixes a forever loop when a malformed interface is specified #96
Generally an overdue tidy up of README.md to keep the applicable content.

I've made a start on the changes - just adding an issue so we can track the update.

I've got personal stake in getting the plugin system merged: See: #106

This would need a README.md update too.

@tridge

@tridge further to the above notes, keen to get your thoughts since you introduced the changes for debian and pyqtgraph in PR#130.

Would you object to making use of either pipx or uv or just a straight python venv instead?

System packages might be a little different but we certainly don't want to be sudo pip install 'ing into the system.

My experimenting with a fresh install of Debian GNU/Linux 13 (Trixie), I can get away with the following, without any additional system packages.

# from fresh, let's make sure we have the bare basics.
sudo apt install git python3-venv python3-pip pipx

# this one isn't necessary, just make sure all python references python3 instead
sudo apt install python-is-python3

# pipx version...
pipx ensurepath
source ~/.bashrc
pipx install git+https://github.com/dronecan/gui_tool.git
which dronecan_gui_tool

# pipx cleanup
pipx uninstall dronecan-gui-tool

# python-venv
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install git+https://github.com/dronecan/gui_tool.git

# python-venv cleanup
deactivate
rm -rf .venv

In both cases, the application launches and runs how I would expect. Am I missing any other considerations there?

Worth noting, I've set VMs up for Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu.

Latest versions of Ubuntu and Debian are enforcing PEP 668, which does not allow for pip install --user <PACKAGE>.

Updates to the readme should consider probably consider references to pipx, python venv, uv or some other virtual environment.

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Bring README.md up to date #131

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Bring README.md up to date #131

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joshanne commented on Jun 2, 2026

joshanne commented on Jun 5, 2026

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