How to install Scribus 1.4 alongside 1.5 on Kubuntu 22.04?

Marty Vance

7/3/24, 9:38 PM

I few months ago I upgraded my system from Kubuntu 18.04 (Bionic) to Kubuntu 22.04 (Jammy). My old ~ is still accessible.

In Bionic I was using Scribus 1.4.6 for one of my personal projects. Jammy imposed 1.5.8, an upgrade I was dreading. But I didn't expect 1.5 to subtly mangle my document in ways that range from inconsequential to inexplicable. Apparently this involves several Scribus bugs.

A friend pointed me to a PPA (ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/ppa) that allowed me to install Scribus 1.4 dependencies, including qt4. I grabbed the Scribus Version14x branch, installed all the deps, and ran cmake.

It compiled successfully after fixing one pointer comparison that the compiler didn't like.

I would like to install the Scribus 1.4.8 I compiled alongside Scribus 1.5.8 from the Jammy package, the 1.4.8 binary at /usr/local/bin/scribus, reading separate configs from what 1.5.8 uses. Scribus 1.5.8 configs are at ~/.config/scribus in Jammy, but in Bionic Scribus 1.4.6 kept configs at ~/.scribus. It doesn't matter to me where the configs are, only that each version maintains its own and doesn't overwrite the other.

How do I configure make install to do this?

2 + 0

kubuntu

scribus

22.04

Score:0

Ubuntu

HuHa

7/6/24, 9:33 PM

If it's really important for you, you could install it in a VM together with a distro version that still supports the Scribus version that you need; for example with VirtualBox. You could use shared folders to access your data directory from the VM.

A snap or flatpak package might also be an alternative if you can find the right version.

+ 0

Score:0

Ubuntu

a.l.e

7/6/24, 6:21 PM

The simple answer is: forget it.

The more complex answer is not much longer:

You need to first install Qt4, which is not packaged anymore for Ubuntu.
There might be other dependencies that might not be packaged anymore in a version supported for Scribus 1.4.
And then do a cmake with the paths to the local install.

Probably, this is out of reach for you (as far as I know, there is only one person in the world that is still compiling Scribus 1.4...).

So, if you really need Scribus 1.4 on Linux, you probably need to install an old version of Ubuntu (one that still packages Scribus 1.4) in a virtual machine and use Scribus 1.4 in there.

But the better way, is to migrate to Scribus 1.5.x (or as soon as it is out Scribus 1.6) which is packaged for the current versions of Ubuntu.

+ 3

Marty Vance

7/7/24, 6:08 AM

Scribus 1.5 doesn't handle my document correctly, which I have known since March. I have already installed all the deps for 1.4 and compiled it... I just need to install it. Scribus uses so much RAM that using it in a VM is not a viable option. Installing 1.4 is the path of least resistance.

a.l.e

7/11/24, 7:20 AM

Depending on what the issues are, you might want to submit your document to the issue tracker (https.//bugs.scribus.net ; please attach the .sla, a pdf created with 1.4 and a pdf created with 1.5) and the devs will be able to check if there are bugs that can be fixed. Just be aware that going from 1.4 to 1.5 the layout of the text (how long the text is...) will change and there is nothing that can be done to fix that... except fixing the layout : - )

a.l.e

7/11/24, 7:23 AM

You can also get a cheap laptop, install an old version of Ubuntu on it... But you should not use that laptop on the internet or in "open" local networks (companies, publice wifi)

Elon Musk

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EN: How to install Scribus 1.4 alongside 1.5 on Kubuntu 22.04?

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