native FAF on ubuntu (QtWebKit on ubuntu 17.04+)

Note: the steps for Python 3 with PyQt5 are proven to work while the steps for Python 2 with PyQt4 and PySide are still experimental.

Python 3 with PyQt5 (proven to work)

It appears that the 474-feature-py3 branch of the FAForever/client GitHub repository uses Python 3 with PyQt5, which contains QtWebKit. Therefore, using this branch is the most straightforward solution. Note that PyQt5 (but not PyQt4) can in fact be installed with pip, so that makes things way more convenient.

Steps for Python 3 with PyQt5:

1. cd into a directory of your choice, which will be ~/Desktop/temp for the purpose of writing this answer, git clone the FAForever/client GitHub repository and git checkout the 474-feature-py3 branch:

   mkdir ~/Desktop/temp
   cd ~/Desktop/temp
   git clone https://github.com/FAForever/client.git faf-client
   cd faf-client
   git checkout 474-feature-py3
   

2. Create and activate a virtualenv for Python 3 (the default is Python 3.5 for Ubuntu 17.04) and force-upgrade pip just to make sure it is up-to-date:

   virtualenv venv -p python3  # replace python3 with python3.6 if you want to use Python 3.6 instead
   source venv/bin/activate
   pip install -U --force-reinstall pip
   

3. Use pip to install PyQt5 and from requirements.txt:

   pip install PyQt5
   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

4. Download the faf-uid binary into faf-client/lib and make it executable:

   wget https://github.com/FAForever/uid/releases/download/v4.0.4/faf-uid -O lib/faf-uid
   chmod +x lib/faf-uid
   

5. Run python on src/__main__.py:

   python src/__main__.py
   

Python 2 with PyQt4 and PySide (experimental)

It looks like I may have figured out how to import the QtWebKit module, but I don't have the FAF game installed, so I cannot fully verify that this works and therefore this answer is a work in progress.

In a nutshell, I used apt to install python-qt4, which does not have the QtWebKit module. I created and activated a virtualenv without using the --system-site-packages option and used pip to install PySide, which does have the QtWebKit module. I then symlinked the appropriate system libraries and files for PyQt4 into the virtualenv. Then I made a couple of changes to faf-client/src to import the QtWebKit module from PySide. This solution is inspired by https://stackoverflow.com/a/28850104/486919, https://stackoverflow.com/a/36887302/486919 and https://stackoverflow.com/a/37616466/486919.

Steps:

1. Install python-qt4:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install python-qt4
   

2. cd into a directory of your choice, which will be ~/Desktop/temp for the purpose of writing this answer, git clone my version of the repository and git checkout the patch branch:

   mkdir ~/Desktop/temp
   cd ~/Desktop/temp
   git clone https://github.com/edwinksl/client.git faf-client
   cd faf-client
   git checkout patch
   

   This patch branch has several additional commits compared to the default develop branch: 1) it gets rid of the version specification for cx_Freeze, which was giving me installation problems if I used the 4.3.4 version previously specified, and 2) it imports QtWebKit from PySide instead of PyQt4.

3. Create and activate a virtualenv for Python 2 and force-upgrade pip just to make sure it is up-to-date:

   virtualenv venv
   source venv/bin/activate
   pip install -U --force-reinstall pip
   

4. Use pip to install PySide and from requirements.txt:

   pip install PySide
   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

5. Download the faf-uid binary into faf-client/lib and make it executable:

   wget https://github.com/FAForever/uid/releases/download/v4.0.4/faf-uid -O lib/faf-uid
   chmod +x lib/faf-uid
   

6. cd to the site-packages directory inside the virtualenv and make appropriate symlinks:

   cd venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages
   ln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PyQt4/ .
   ln -s /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/sip.x86_64-linux-gnu.so .
   

   Note the . at the end of each symlink.

7. cd back to faf-client and run python on src/__main__.py:

   cd -  # this goes back to previous directory, which should be ~/Desktop/temp/faf-client
   python src/__main__.py