I had some issues with ImageMagick and I was told Ubuntu's default ImageMagick package is an ancient version and I should upgrade to resolve my issues.
How can I do that? I have the latest Ubuntu version (12.10). Synaptic shows me 8:6.7.7.10-2ubuntu4
as the latest version of IM. It means my IM version is 6.7.7.10
(convert --version
outputs the same). IM does not provide deb binaries itself. Debian has something newer, but in some testing/experimental branches if I understand it well. I found IM on Launchpad, but there are no instructions how to add this to my sources, it seems it is not one of the usual PPAs I meet when searching for the latest/beta software. I don't know how to work with this one.
Is there a way how to mark a package to be taken from some bleeding edge sources and leave the rest of my system to be taken from standard sources? It would be probably the best to upgrade to the last stable version of IM (6.8
), but that is probably sci-fi as it is not even in Debian. However, I need at least 6.7.9
.
Note: I want to avoid compilation from source. I hate having installed something and not being able to manipulate with it easily with apt-get
or Synaptic. Moreover, there are no updates for compiled programs. Always I compile I feel like going against the system, like using glue, wires and duck tape. No, I do not want to compile it for sure.
Best Answer
Please Note: Even though Honza initially said that he did not want to compile, we discussed using
checkinstall
to install the compiled package in the comments above. That was just what Honza wanted, as programs installed withcheckinstall
can be removed like any other package with the package manager.As we are installing to
/opt
usingcheckinstall
after the build, we can leave the originalimagemagick
package in place. (Infact, install the repository version if it is not already installed.) The dependencies can be left installed, and they are no different for the most recent version ofimagemagick
. What we need to do is install the build dependencies and some other tools first of all:Download the source code from the official site and, using terminal,
cd
to where the source package is and extract it:Now move to that folder with
Now, if you want to find out the available options for the build, run
However, mostly everything is already set to
enabled
, so there is little need to specify anything further, apart from the necessary--prefix
. You could use other locations, but we shall use/opt
here. Now runconfigure
andmake
:Now, the last thing to do is to use
checkinstall
to install the package. Make sure you are in theImagemagick-6.8.3-9
folder and runYou can of course run
checkinstall
with parameters such as--pkgversion=
or choose them after you have runsudo checkinstall
, but all the defaults are fine here. The package name that will be created will be calledimagemagick-6.8.3-9
and it will be installed in/opt/imagemagick-6.8
.You will now be also able to see the package in
Synaptic
and manage it just like any other packages, and removing it will not cause problems with other packages.If you want to run your new versions, you will need to use
/opt/imagemagick-6.8/convert
, for example, as/opt
is not in$PATH
, and just runningconvert
will call the repo version. You could create some symlinks if you wanted to always run the/opt
version of the programs.Please note that this is what Honza wanted, even though he initially was averse to compiling, until
checkinstall
was discussed.