deb

You are currently browsing articles tagged deb.

I recently posted about backporting packages with pbuilder. Someone asked about forward porting PHP4, which is a huge task. PHP4 is out of date, and the entire set of PHP4 libraries has a lot of build dependencies, including some packages you must build yourself. I’m not going to take you through the process of backporting PHP4. If you really need it, you can install php4-cgi and php4-* from Ubuntu dapper directly on hardy. But I will show you how to enable a local repository in pbuilder. This will allow you to build a package with pbuilder, and then use that package to satisfy any build-dependencies that other packages need.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

Finally, finally, FINALLY! The Sun Java plugin now works on Firefox amd64 in native 64-bit. It has already been included in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty, but the packages work just fine on Hardy as well, and probably on Intrepid.

Just download and install the Jaunty versions of sun-java6-bin, sun-java6-jre, sun-java6-fonts, and sun-java6-plugin. Install them, and remove the old icedtea plugin if you have it:

sudo dpkg -i sun-java6-bin_6-13-1_amd64.deb sun-java6-fonts_6-13-1_all.deb sun-java6-jre_6-13-1_all.deb sun-java6-plugin_6-13-1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get remove --purge icedtea-gcjwebplugin

Then restart Firefox and Sun java will load natively 64-bit. Check it:

tyler@baal:~$ java -version

java version "1.6.0_13"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_13-b03)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.3-b02, mixed mode)

I’ve included them in the repository.

Update 2009-07-16: A more recent version is now available in the hardy-updates repository. I have removed the above copy from my repo. Intrepid users should upgrade to jaunty anyway, but can still download packages directly.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

I frequently need to package software for install on Ubuntu systems. If you manage only one server, don’t upgrade often, and don’t need to uninstall, then you may be happy with the ancient “untar, make, make install” method. But if you’re like me you prefer to create .deb packages and install those.

I run Ubuntu 8.04 “hardy” on my servers. Hardy is almost a year old now, and although it has up to date security fixes it no longer has the latest releases of software. This is fine for most purpose, but sometimes I want an updated version of some software and I’m willing to risk the slight chance that it has bugs.

The best traceroute tool around is mtr. The version in Hardy is 0.72, but Jaunty now has a package for 0.75. So let’s backport it with pbuilder.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,

There is a bug in the version of wine supplied with Ubuntu Hardy. This causes the version of Internet Explorer installed with ies4linux to hang when loading sites via HTTPS. I use IE for a few sites written back in the dark ages, and for testing a site’s layout before publication.

Aside: tolaris.com’s neat new automagically expanding header images look terrible in IE 5/6. I have no intention of fixing this. If you’re reading my site, you probably know better than to use IE for everyday browsing.

In October I recompiled wine from the Hardy source packages with the proposed bug fix. But I never announced it. If you missed that, you can find it in the repository.

Tags: , , ,

KGTK is a wrapper utility that allows GTK applications to use the native KDE file open/save dialogs. I cannot stand the GTK/Gnome dialogs, and I this helps apps like Firefox maintain a consistent appearance with KDE.

I’ve packaged the latest release, 0.10.0, for Ubuntu Hardy amd64 and i386. It is available in my repository now. Source packages are provided, so any other Debian-based distro or architecture should be able to build it.

Tags: , , ,