Prebuilt Stable Releases for Ubuntu

[MuTaTeD]

Hi,
The pre-built releases for Ubuntu (.deb) are available for the Master channel (as per the installation instructions in the Readme file), Can you provide ppa and or .deb releases for Stable channel for 1.0.8 since only source code is available for Linux versions...

[andreasb242]

I have to check this - but it should be relative easy, we only need to think to merge our stable branch if we create a release

[LittleHuba]

I assume this can be closed as we do provide .deb releases in our nightly pipeline now. As the normal release pipeline will be based on this one it will be fixed for all releases.

[Technius]

We currently have stable releases for 16.04 but not 18.04 (which most users have already moved to).

[bittner]

Just a (maybe stupid) question: Please excuse!

There is the xournal Ubuntu package, which is currently version 0.4.8, in other words, hopelessly outdated:

$ dpkg -l xournal
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name         Version              Architecture    Description
+++-============-===============-====================-=================================
ii  xournal      1:0.4.8-1build1      amd64           GTK+ Application for note taking

On flatpack there seem to be two packages, the outdated "xournal" package and the "xournalpp":

$ flatpak search xournal
Application ID                 Version    Branch Remotes Description                                                                
net.sourceforge.xournal        0.4.8.2016 stable flathub Application for notetaking, sketching, and keeping a journal using a stylus
com.github.xournalpp.xournalpp 1.0.16     stable flathub Take handwritten notes

I only found out by accident (two videos on YouTube) that the Xournal project (seems to have evolved, the source code is finally available on GitHub, contributions are easier and actually happening, and) has a "++" version that has new, long-awaited features.

Are there any efforts ongoing or planned to reduce the confusion and update the old package or remove it from the package index?

[Technius]

Xournal and Xournal++ are different projects maintained by a different set of people. Xournal++ (this project) is a fork and modern C++ port/rewrite of Xournal (the one hosted on SourceForge, written in C) with more features. Xournal++ is not 100% stable and modern yet, as evidenced by our issue tracker, but we're working on it.

[JulianGro]

Would be cool if the PPA could have a stable version. Kind of annoying to get an update notification every day, just for this one package.

[Technius]

I agree. @andreasb242 can help set this up.

[archisman-panigrahi]

I have made a stable PPA for Xournal++. https://launchpad.net/~apandada1/+archive/ubuntu/xournalpp-stable

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/xournalpp-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install xournalpp

How to configure such a PPA to build semi-automatically once a new version is released?

1. I created a new Launchpad packaging recipe from this source.
2. Then I noted the full git commit address (535d261d364f5925dec1ae3966a067883e53281e) of the latest stable release.
3. I edited the packaging recipe to the following, to build that specific commit into my PPA.

# git-build-recipe format 0.4 deb-version {debupstream}-0~{revtime}
lp:xournalpp 535d261d364f5925dec1ae3966a067883e53281e

4. I noticed that the debian/changelog had an old version number (1.0.6), so I manually bumped the version number to 1.0.18 using the packaging recipe. I also removed {revtime} from the version number.
   The new packaging recipe is,

# git-build-recipe format 0.4 deb-version 1.0.18-1
lp:xournalpp 535d261d364f5925dec1ae3966a067883e53281e

Comments:

• Henceforth, please update the debian/changelog while making a new release. If you are not in a Debian system, you can simply edit the version number in this line. There's no need to edit the other fields, Launchpad can pick up the correct version and ignore other things. Then, one would not have to manually change version numbers in Launchpad.
• When a new version is released, one only needs to change the git commit address in the Launchpad recipe (and update the version number, if debian/changelog is not updated).
• I have enabled builds for armhf and arm64 in the PPA. Might come handy for a Raspberry Pi touchscreen or an ARM tablet.
• If the developers want to maintain their own official stable PPA instead of the PPA I made, I am perfectly fine with that (that's why I wrote how to do it in details). Otherwise, I would be happy to maintain the PPA, and update it when a new stable version is released (I am watching releases).
• I have tested that the PPA package works in Ubuntu 18.04 64 bit, and Raspberry Pi OS Buster armhf. Please test it further, and consider adding it to the Readme.

Thanks to all the developers for creating this beautiful software.

[archisman-panigrahi]

@andreasb242 Shall I send a pull request with updated Readme, mentioning this PPA?