Re: [Gretl-users] Debian Repository for Latest Version of Gretl
On Sat, 7 Jun 2008, Thomas La Bone wrote:
Using Ubuntu 8.04, I put the lenny repository into synaptic and
updated
all the files that appeared to be associated with Gretl. I then
deactivated the lenny repository because synaptic wanted to update ~600
other files. Everything seems to be working fine. So, assuming that I have
not broken something I have yet to discover, what functions do the APT
commands serve (I am a beginner on linux)? Thanks for the help.
The apt-something commands let you do from the command line the things you
probably do now with synaptic. So in practice you could have done the same
by typing from a command prompt:
sudo apt-get install gretl gretl-common gretl-data gretl-doc
However, allow me a detour (longish, I'm afraid): we're releasing 1.7.5
sometime next week. Ubuntu normally uses the Debian gretl packages, which
in turn are prepared by their excellent maintainer Dirk Eddelbuettel in a
matter of days. So, expect gretl 1.7.5 to be in debian unstable (sid) in a
couple of weeks at the latest. Before it hits testing (lenny), it needs at
least 10 days since then, but it could be much more. You need to wait
until the binary package is built successfully on all the architectures
debian supports (which is just short of toasters and washing machines) and
it's 10 days since then, unless some serious bug is found, in which case
the whole procedure restarts after it's fixed. (You may think this is
bureaucratic and inefficient: it's not. This is what makes debian a
monumentally great distro.)
With Ubuntu, the story is a bit different: I think it's rather unlikely
that gretl 1.7.5 finds its way in the official ubuntu repositories before
8.10, not being a security update or something like that.
So, my suggestion is to compile from source as soon as 1.7.5 is released.
I know, this may sound scary. To reassure you, let me point out that I'm a
much less adventurous linux user than other people I know (Allin and
Stefano spring to mind): I _love_ the convenience of the superb debian
packaging system and in many cases I'd rather have an old version of a
program rather than building it myself. This said, I build gretl from
source regularly on the laptop I'm writing you from, which is --- apart
from gretl --- a standard Ubuntu 8.04 install. It's easy, you don't break
anything, and you get the smell of a freshly baked copy of gretl each
morning! Mmmmm!
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Economia
Università Politecnica delle Marche
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www.econ.univpm.it/lucchetti