Re: [PATCH v2] docs: sphinx-pre-install: warn about unsupported Docutils versions

[Masaharu Noguchi]

Hi Mauro,

On Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:16:38 +0200, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> Fedora 44 EOL is still in at least 7 months from now (e.g. when Fedora
> 46 will be launched), so, it could still be worth.

Thank you.  And it is not only Fedora: Akira pointed at Ubuntu 26.04 LTS,
which holds up -- it ships Sphinx 8.2.3 with Docutils 0.22.4, and its
python3-sphinx depends on "python3-docutils (>= 0.20)" with no upper bound
at all.  Both fail identically here, and an LTS carries this a good deal
further than seven months.

> Indeed it sounds a better approach on my eyes.

Taken -- v3 moves the check into tools/lib/python/kdoc/docutils_version.py
and calls it from sphinx-build-wrapper next to LatexFontChecker, only
once a PDF build has failed.  sphinx-pre-install is left untouched, which
also drops the overlap with Chen Miao's series.

> On a separate but related issue, has anyone tried to use rst2pdf
> lately (https://github.com/rst2pdf/rst2pdf)?

I have not tried it myself, but not having to go through LaTeX at all is
an appealing idea.  I would like to look at porting your branch once this
one has settled.

Thanks,
Masaharu