Where is this difficult-to-install-software?

[Iandefor]

After having received a lot of useful criticism in another thread of a very similar title which I needed to sit on for a while to allow it to sink in, I've started to wonder: what software is out there that, for most people, is simply too difficult or more trouble than it is worth to get installed?

I've written up a few criteria for what seems fair to say is 'too difficult' based on the criticism in the other thread. Let's see if we can't get a useful list going of software that is too difficult to install; a list of what is out there that doesn't work for the 'average user' that can then begin to be remedied.

The criteria I've come up with are:

1. The software is not in an official Ubuntu repository
2. The software is not available in a third-party apt repository that satisfies all dependencies
3. The software is not available as a prepackaged .deb, self-contained archive or binary installer that can satisfy all dependencies using official Ubuntu repositories.
4. The software depends on packages outside of the official Ubuntu ecosystem to compile
5. The software requires manual hacking on the code in order for it to work

For clarity, newer versions of software that is already in the Ubuntu ecosystem will be clearly marked as such.

PS: I'm actually trying to get a useful list going of this software, so people who might be inclined to think that I'm going to arbitrarily set criteria in such a way to artificially keep the list small or that I'll apply the criteria too liberally to create a useful list may rest assured I'm not interested in letting that happen. My intentions in making this thread are much different than my intentions in making the other thread; the other thread was to prove a point. This thread is to be constructive. I'm also going to make a conscious effort to be more receptive to constructive criticism.

[KiwiNZ]

I think say 3 years ago your list would have been huge due to dependency hell, but now, we have come along way . I think your list will be surprisingly short , I hope.

It will be an interesting thread to follow.

[Iandefor]

I think say 3 years ago your list would have been huge due to dependency hell, but now, we have come along way . I think your list will be surprisingly short , I hope.

It will be an interesting thread to follow.

There were a surprising number of pieces of software mentioned in this thread that would have met the above criteria.

[Iandefor]

The list:

LSongs
DiskDrake
CDEmu (.8 and 1.0; svn checkout works)
Gendesign .5.3

As I can, I will populate this list with the projects mentioned in the other thread.

[KiwiNZ]

Haven't tried it for a while but Lgeneral was a pesky little bugger to install

[Kingsley]

I've always given up on installing cdemu.

[kenthomson799]

I've always given up on installing cdemu.

CDEMU = i need that thing and it gives a variety of error messages on being installed--maybe that is what is causing the software to run irratically.

[Iandefor]

Haven't tried it for a while but Lgeneral was a pesky little bugger to install

Lgeneral is in Multiverse in the following packages.

lgeneral (1.1.1-4ubuntu1)
lgc-pg (0.32-2)

I don't see any campaigns, but there are a few listed at http://lgames.sourceforge.net/index....oject=LGeneral

I've always given up on installing cdemu.

Here are my notes from installing it:

cdemu- cdemu: Unknown symbol generic_file_read after building .8
    experimental 1.0 module builds, installs, modprobes, complains of "cdemu_device_release: not implemented yet!" after rmmod but seems to get removed anyways
        -libmirage requires libsndfile-dev, in repos
        -cdemu-daemon requires libsysfs-dev, libdaemon, in repos, returns 1 upon running
        -cdemu-client builds

You can get 1.0 (for some reason, it's experimental but still called 1.0) source here: http://kabelkaos.net/cdemu/experimental/

I also downloaded fragment-mac.tar.bz2 there and attempted to build it. Didn't work.

CDEMU added for now because of brokenness. I'll try the latest subversion tomorrow morning.

[Iandefor]

JEdit and F4L were mentioned in the other thread, so I tested those, as well as the subversion of CDEmu.

JEdit has a working .deb which depends on software in Multiverse, F4L is now a part of UIRA, and the subversion checkout of CDEmu seemed to work fine as far as mounting .iso files goes. I will try to test UIRA soon.

You can checkout CDEmu with this command:

svn co https://cdemu.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/cdemu cdemu

:

[Adamant1988]

I have found that MugShot has been non-trivial to install. I tried compiling from source and that just led to a long string of dependency problems that I was never able to resolve. I tried to use an older .deb but that didn't work because of Ubuntu's packaging standards.

In all honesty though, what you should be looking for is software that is non-trivial to install, not necessarily difficult. Software that requires me to edit my sources.list is non-trivial, it represents a security risk, a standards issue (not many 3rd parties are going to keep up with Ubuntu's strict packaging standards), and can cause breakage. (Upgrades have failed to work on systems that rely on 3rd party repos before). Truly, the list of criteria should be modified to label software as non-trivial that:

• Is compiled from source
• is from a 3rd party repo
• requires altering code or config files
• relies on software outside of Ubuntu's repos (long, ridiculous dependency chains)