updated samtools package

Well yeah, thats because its a DEBIAN file, not Ubuntu. Mixing Debian debs in Ubuntu will cause a TONNE of issues so I don't advise you ever try this.

This may help:
http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/s/samtools/

Right, so what I am asking is how can I get or who can I ask to build a deb package of samtools 0.1.12 for Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04)? The version you point to is built against Maverick (10.10). Thanks

Does it have the same version dependencies as the lucid version, if so it should be ok

No, it does not have same dependencies. It wants libncurses5 (>= 5.7+20100313). Lucid has 5.7+20090803-2ubuntu3.

ok then if it's not a simple upgrade then I wouldn't start trying to dig up stuff like the deb you mention.

You can log a bug stating why the newer version should be included in the Lucid repo and it will be considered.

Thanks for the solution. This is workable. Didn't realize it would be painless to upgrade libncurses5 to a version higher than the supported version for Lucid. Thanks to all.

"Painless" might be a slight stretch. Packages for Ubuntu 11.04 Natty won't necessarily work correctly in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid. Also, if you manually install .deb packages from later versions of Ubuntu, you'll have to manually maintain them. That is, you might want to check back on those Launchpad pages from time to time to see if there's an upgraded version.

It is actually possible to configure your Ubuntu system to use Natty's repositories as additional software sources but to only automatically install later versions of those two packages. However, for just two packages, I wouldn't bother with it. But if you want to do it, please post again.

In any case, I'm glad you got a workable solution.

Ideally, there would be a samtools deb built for 10.04. I did create a package myself but its hacked; for example, there is no 'make install' so I edit the install file to do what I think is right...i don't have the copyright, control, changelog stuff. And the reason for caring is that this is not just for myself, but would be distributed to our customers.

So, I have two options: I could make my own deb based on 10.04 - and use the files in https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/samtools to cobble together a half-decent package, or I could find out if the package maintainer plans on any backports.

"I could make my own deb based on 10.04 - and use the files in https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/samtools to cobble together a half-decent package"

If you're going to go to that trouble, you might want to make a PPA:
https://help.launchpad.net/Packaging/PPA

(And you should really build it from source on a Lucid system and test it, rather than using binaries build with a newer system in mind, before rolling it out pursuant to any business arrangement. The idea behind a PPA is that anybody can take source, build it, package it, and then make it available as software source, so that people who enable the PPA can install and update the software the exact same way as software that is part of Ubuntu.)

"or I could find out if the package maintainer plans on any backports."

As actionparsnip suggested, you could log a bug requesting that it be updated. (First, read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs carefully.) However, unless the current version in Lucid badly broken or totally useless, it seems unlikely that this will happen.

What are the changes that make it important that you use the new version? If they are stability fixes, then you might convince the developers to backport the new version, or, more likely, to backport the specific fixes from the new version to the Lucid branch.