Compilation error when importing theano on ubuntu

Question

I am trying to run a python (.py) file on a Linux server with Ubuntu. I created a virtual environment with python3.8 -m venv env_name and installed theano, which is a dependency for the file. I used pip3 install theano=="1.0.5" while inside the virtual environment and it installed fine. However, when trying to import the package, I received the following error:

raise Exception('Compilation failed (return status=%s): %s' %
Exception: Compilation failed (return status=1): /usr/bin/ld: /usr/local/lib/libpython3.8.a(abstract.o): relocation R_X86_64_PC32 against symbol `PyObject_SetItem' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC. /usr/bin/ld: final link failed: Bad value. collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status.

The reason I am using theano==1.0.5 is because the code structure I'm using works just fine in Windows 10 with this version and for Python 3.8.

How do I resolve this error and import theano?

Edit: The entire Traceback of the error message when executing import theano is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/Automatizacao/vxdex/vxdex_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/theano/gof/lazylinker_c.py", line 76, in <module>
    raise ImportError(
ImportError: Version check of the existing lazylinker compiled file. Looking for version 0.211, but found None. Extra debug information: force_compile=False, _need_reload=True

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/Automatizacao/vxdex/vxdex_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/theano/gof/lazylinker_c.py", line 99, in <module>
    raise ImportError(
ImportError: Version check of the existing lazylinker compiled file. Looking for version 0.211, but found None. Extra debug information: force_compile=False, _need_reload=True

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/Automatizacao/vxdex/vxdex_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/theano/__init__.py", line 110, in <module>
    from theano.compile import (
  File "/home/Automatizacao/vxdex/vxdex_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/theano/compile/__init__.py", line 12, in <module>
    from theano.compile.mode import *
  File "/home/Automatizacao/vxdex/vxdex_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/theano/compile/mode.py", line 11, in <module>
    import theano.gof.vm
  File "/home/Automatizacao/vxdex/vxdex_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/theano/gof/vm.py", line 674, in <module>
    from . import lazylinker_c
  File "/home/Automatizacao/vxdex/vxdex_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/theano/gof/lazylinker_c.py", line 139, in <module>
    cmodule.GCC_compiler.compile_str(dirname, code, location=loc,
  File "/home/Automatizacao/vxdex/vxdex_env/lib/python3.8/site-packages/theano/gof/cmodule.py", line 2410, in compile_str
    raise Exception('Compilation failed (return status=%s): %s' %
Exception: Compilation failed (return status=1): /usr/bin/ld: /usr/local/lib/libpython3.8.a(abstract.o): relocation R_X86_64_PC32 against symbol `PyObject_SetItem' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC. /usr/bin/ld: final link failed: Bad value. collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status.

Answer 1

Your error is saying that theano can't find a version of lazylinker on your system. sudo apt-get install python3-dev on your Ubuntu server to install that and other development header files that theano needs.