hi. i am new to linux (Ubuntu 23.04)and i want to the stable release kicad 8.0.1. I followed the instruction on the kicad website but what i got is kicad 6.0 and not 8.0. i think the problem is in the repository of the 8.0 as it shows in the picture attached. can anyone help me figure it out.
Lunar (23.04) is no longer supported by Canonical and therefore no longer supported by KiCad. They generally only support one non-LTS release at a a time, currently 23.10.
If you don’t want to upgrade to 23.10 yet, the other option is to install via FlatPak.
Since you are new to Linux, I will also comment that I recommend people to stick with LTS versions of Ubuntu (the most recent is 22.04, but 24.04 should be out at the end of this month), as the intermediate (non-LTS) releases are only supported briefly, so you have a constant cycle of needing to upgrade your whole OS to stay within support.
so is it better to install another OS completely to avoid this kind of problems in the futur?
ps: i checked on the ubuntu website i found that the latest LTS version is ‘Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS’. will it solve it if i installed this one?
Since you are already on 23.04, I don’t think you can go to 22.04 without competely re-doing your computer, which is not very much fun.
Some options:
- Wait until 24.04 is released, in about 1 month. Then upgrade to that.
- Upgrade to 23.10 now, where KiCad is supported. Upgrade to 24.04 later, before 23.10 is no longer supported
- Stay on 23.04 and install KiCad using FlatPak. This will let you install KiCad but you’ll still be using a no-longer-supported version of Ubuntu.
If you are going to run normal versions then you will need to upgrade every few months. Non LTS versions are supported for 9 months, and released every 6 months.
LTS versions however are supported for 5 years and released every 2 years.
You can do incremental updates easily enough, but downgrading will give issues and will most likely need a complete rebuild.
Using 2022.4 LTS might not help as well. I tried different routes, as the 6.0 offered in 22.04 LTS is not sufficient. Adding kicad ppa failed, like (or similar):
sudo add-apt-repository -P kicad-8.0-releases
it shows up with:
ERROR: ppa ‘kicad-8.0-releases/ppa’ not found (use --login if private)
also using launchpad:
sudo add-apt-repository -U PPA for KiCad: 8.0 releases : “KiCad” team
allows adding the repo, but marking it as deactivated as there might be no release file
(message in german):
E: Das Depot »PPA for KiCad: 8.0 releases : “KiCad” team jammy Release« enthält keine Release-Datei.
N: Eine Aktualisierung von solch einem Depot kann nicht auf eine sichere Art durchgeführt werden, daher ist es standardmäßig deaktiviert.
only using the snap from nickoe brought me closer to the target, but only deploying version 8.0.0 as I realized. But I don’t like snap at all.
Similiar happens with the “nightly”. I even considered a source build, but that might take me everywhere.
Try this
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kicad/kicad-8.0-releases
As documented here:
I also get the same error when trying to use -P but the above command works for me.
That was the first way I tried, but obviously I missed the “kicad”-directory between “ppa:” and “kicad-8.0-releases”. Now having corrected this, I get the same error as if I specified the “-U” option:
E: Das Depot »PPA for KiCad: 8.0 releases : “KiCad” team jammy Release« enthält keine Release-Datei.
N: Eine Aktualisierung von solch einem Depot kann nicht auf eine sichere Art durchgeführt werden, daher ist es standardmäßig deaktiviert.
N: Weitere Details zur Erzeugung von Paketdepots sowie zu deren Benutzerkonfiguration finden Sie in der Handbuchseite apt-secure(8).
There seems a release file to be missing.
Nevertheless, installing kicad 8.0.2 works now. I just cannot say, if that is already resulting from the previous adding of repository using the -U option and some “automagical” update.
Thanks.