[PD] recent Pd versions on older ubuntu studio computers

[Claude Heiland-Allen]

Hi,

On 13/01/2020 14:13, info at hansroels.be wrote:
> Is an installation of a /recent/ version of Pd vanilla (0.49 or 0.50) 
> possible on an older linux computer?

Should be possible.

> I am trying to install Pd 0.50.2 on two older Ubuntu Studio laptops, one 
> has Ubuntu 14.04, the other Ubuntu 16.04. 

> When I try to install the deb 
> package from https://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/puredata/  

Pd is atomised into many tiny debs, you'd need all of them...

> I get 
> a dependencies error, saying that I need a higher version of libc6.

The chances of random binaries from the internet working are smaller 
than with Windows I guess.

> Is it a solution to try compiling the Pd source code on both machines? 

Yes I think so.  But it might be awkward with packaged Pd externals 
(you'd need to keep the old pd around and tell the new Pd where the 
externals are).

To solve that, you can compile the collection of debs locally.  First 
add the following two lines (only two lines, without leading space, 
email may have wrapped them) to `/etc/apt/sources.list`:

     deb http://http.debian.net/debian unstable main contrib non-free
     deb-src http://http.debian.net/debian unstable main contrib non-free

(Alternatively add `deb` + `deb-src` lines for a later version of Ubuntu 
Studio that has the version of Pd you want, then modify the below's `-t` 
accordingly.)

Then invoke something like the following as regular user, being careful 
to do it one line at a time and read the output so you can stop if apt 
decides to upgrade everything to unstable or remove key parts of your 
installation:

     mkdir build
     cd build
     sudo apt update
     sudo apt-get -t unstable build-dep puredata
     apt-get -t unstable --build source puredata
     sudo dpkg --auto-deconfigure --install ./*.deb

If the `sudo apt-get` is too risky and you decide not to run it after 
all, you could try again without `-t unstable` and hope that older 
versions of the build dependencies are ok.

Then you can edit your `sources.list` again and comment out the lines 
you added before.  Remember to run `sudo apt update` after changing it.

If you need to downgrade the packages later, `aptitude` works much 
better than `apt` or `apt-get` (it offers choices between different ways 
to resolve problems).

> or is the only solution to upgrade the whole Ubuntu Studio version? > (...which isn't possible on one of these machines).

The above is roughly what "backports" repositories do, I don't know if 
there is one for Ubuntu Studio.  You can also compile the source from 
Miller's site "by hand".


Claude
-- 
https://mathr.co.uk