'pip install hermit' does not install zbar dependency

[kirillkovalenko]

On a fresh Ubuntu 19.10 I did install hermit with 'pip3 install hermit' and I'm trying to launch it. It crashes with

raise ImportError('Unable to find zbar shared library')

[destrys]

Yup, zbar is a system dependency, not something pip will install.
In the Makefile you'll see it in system-dependencies, but it would be nice to make this explicit in the README and a better Error message.

[Stadicus]

The quick start is a bit short on details. For me on Ubuntu, instead of just $ pip install hermit, it should be more like:

# system dependencies
sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-venv libzbar0        

# avoids python2-usage, uses recommended way of invoking pip
python3 -m pip install hermit

This does not take the creation of a venv into account, so cloning the repository and just running make is probably still the easier and more stable way to do this (although there the Python system dependencies might be helpful in the Makefile).