4.8.6 for 14.04?

Ubuntu is no rolling release, that means that in an already-rolled-out release there is no (automatic) update of certain packages. Ubuntu trusty is LTS, focusing on stability, and not trying to have the latest bleeding-edge versions of each package included.

I do not expect that there will be an upgrade of qt4-x11 in trusty from 4.8.5 to 4.8.6 unless there are severe bugs that require an upgrade or any other reason that an SRU exception is done ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates ).

I see several options:
1. search for a PPA from someone else who has already created a trusty package
2. create such package in a PPA of your own
3. try installing the utopic packages on your trusty system, and if that works well request a backport of qt4-x11 4.8.6... from utopic to trusty ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports )

On Aug 08, 2014, at 12:17, Manfred Hampl wrote:

> Ubuntu is no rolling release, that means that in an already-rolled-out
> release there is no (automatic) update of certain packages. Ubuntu
> trusty is LTS, focusing on stability, and not trying to have the latest
> bleeding-edge versions of each package included.

I know that, but then again Qt 4.8.6 is hardly bleeding edge AFAIK ... On OS X we have that version in MacPorts, used by KDE 4.12.5 - and working better than 4.8.5 used to.

In fact, I'd hope that LTS also means that the GUI is kept reasonably up to date without requiring us to go through the whole new install procedure.
But maybe I ought to be bringing that up with Kubuntu, because that's what I'm actually running (KDE desktop, hence the interest in reaping any benefits of running Qt 4.8.6).

> I see several options:
> 1. search for a PPA from someone else who has already created a trusty package
> 2. create such package in a PPA of your own
> 3. try installing the utopic packages on your trusty system, and if that works well request a backport of qt4-x11 4.8.6... from utopic to trusty ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports )

I presume you mean (1 or 2) and then 3?

The philosophy behind LTS is more "If the older version is working well don't upgrade" than anything else.

And no, I meant 1 or 2 or 3.

The possibility that I tried to point out was that there is the chance that the 4.8.6 packages for utopic would work for trusty without any modification. (Download the .deb files from https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/utopic/+source/qt4-x11 or http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/utopic/qt4-x11 and install them manually.) You have to make sure do install a suite of packages that fit together to meet the dependencies, so you most probably have to download and install the utopic version for each qt4-x11 package that you have installed in your trusty system, and you most probably have to do that simultaneously.
You must be aware that there is some risk of breaking the system with such action, and that you will not automatically receive any updates for these packages (neither from trusty nor from utopic).

On Friday August 08 2014, <email address hidden> wrote regarding "Re: [Question #252801]: 4.8.6 for 14.04?"

>The philosophy behind LTS is more "If the older version is working well
>don't upgrade" than anything else.

Yeah, I feared that. It's something that has me bouncing between LTS and rolling releases, without ever finding something I'm really happy with (mind you, until now I've been very satisfied with Kubuntu...)

I presume that when the time comes I ought to be able to modify /etc/apt/sources.list to have it point to the release of choice, and upgrade that way?

>And no, I meant 1 or 2 or 3.
>
>The possibility that I tried to point out was that there is the chance that the 4.8.6 packages for utopic would work for trusty without any modification. (Download the .deb files from https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/utopic/+source/qt4-x11 or
>...
>>You must be aware that there is some risk of breaking the system with such action, and that you will not automatically receive any updates for these packages (neither from trusty nor from utopic).

Ah, yeah, right. There's actually a good chance that would work ... but wouldn't I get a rollback/downgrade option if I went through a ppa, at least with a tool like synaptic?
In any event, this would be the kind of experiment for which I'd use one of the reasons I'm running on a ZFS filesystem: snapshots. (Sadly that's also a reason why I'm not very enthusiastic about reinstalling ...)

R

It seems that you have already well identified the pros and cons of the different solutions.
Yes, the utility ppa-purge should allow you to downgrade from the ppa version of packages to the Ubuntu version (see man page http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/en/man1/ppa-purge.1.html ) So if you create a PPA, you should have the best chance for a rollback. Probably other persons would also be grateful if you create that new version in a PPA.

Good luck with whatever you try.

On Monday August 11 2014, <email address hidden> wrote regarding "Re: [Question #252801]: 4.8.6 for 14.04?"

> Probably other persons would also be grateful if you create that new version in a PPA.

That's what I figured:
https://launchpad.net/~rjvbertin/+archive/ubuntu/qt/+packages

The hardest (= longest) part was actually getting the source bundled for and uploaded to launchpad (due to using a slowbook) but afterwards all went just fine. The only glitches I have seen so far were before I rebooted the machine upgrading its packages (I had killed everything having a libqt library open though).

I did notice that the shared libraries in the 4.8.5 packages already have a 4.8.6 version stamp, which didn't get bumped by the upgrade. What's up with that?

Also, what would be the best way to report back if I see no issues in a week or 2, and request the backport to Trusty?

Cheers,
René

Congratulations!

For the version stamp difference I do not have a clue.

For requesting a backport to the official repositories see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports