As I wanted to know (and also ask on this forum) whether my KiCad 5 nightly install had been updated automatically to 5 official release I checked the version/build info under Help --> About KiCad, to my surprise I see instead version 6 nightly, how did this happen?
Also, I would like to know how should I proceed in order to get v5 official release installed, thanks.
ps. I should add that I am a Linux beginner on Xubuntu 18.04.
Your nightly install is automatically the latest code, that’s what nightly builds are… I’m surprised that you are surprised 
This is a very FAQ… People who use nightlies are exposed to the KiCad development cycle, without realising what they are getting into.
Nightly builds are built from the latest “master” branch. The master branch is where the very latest code is pushed. During normal development, the master branch is “tagged” with the name of the next release target, in this case 6.0.0-rc1 will be the next “Release Candidate” . Leading up to a release, a “feature freeze” takes place, which means only bug fixes, and low risk changes are made. Major features are not pushed to master.
When the major release is made, a “release branch” is created. The release branch is used to generate “stable releases”, only bug fixes are allowed on the release branches. This allows the master to “unfreeze”, it can now accept major feature changes.
… but the string seem to have been edited manually, it’s not necessarily the next release target. At the moment the next real release target is 5.1. There’s no 6.0-only work in the “master” branch.
Look at Nightlies as being 5.1 alpha for now and the alpha should be a big clue to handle with care
Thanks for the replies, I feel bad to say it but I’m not sure I did grasp the whole thing, perhaps I am confusing myself what a “nightly” build means.
For instance VLC player:
Currently version 3 is the official release, but under the link above they release nightlies both for version 3 and for the future coming version 4, I haven’t tried to install VLC nightlies so not sure what would happen if I install v3 nightly, ie. would it switch to v4.
Hence, logically, I would have expected KiCad 5 be a separate branch the updates are tied to if one have installed any type of version 5 (alpha, beta, rc’s, nightlies etc.), no matter how many nightlies are being developed concurrently, ie. version 6, 7, 8 etc…, but maybe it’s a matter of different conventions for different group of SW developers.
Anyhow, ran the 3 install commands below straight away without doing anything to the current nightly install on my machine
sudo add-apt-repository --yes ppa:js-reynaud/kicad-5
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad
but after the update I fired up KiCad and went to Help → About KiCad, but it still says “6.0.0-rc1…”
After the failure to install the official version 5 I searched for help how to uninstall software from Ubuntu:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1143/how-can-i-uninstall-software
and used the following commands:
sudo apt-get remove kicad
sudo apt-get purge kicad
and the ran again those 3 install command found under:
https://kicad.org/download/ubuntu/
Again firing up KiCad it still says “6.0.0-rc1…”
What am I doing wrong?
<rant>
Everytime i need to use apt i am reminded why i chose fedora as my main distro. (Why does apt not have a search option where it shows available versions and which repository that package is in?)
</rant>
My guess is that you need to remove the ppa responsible for nightly builds as it might otherwise always install the newest version of the package named “kicad”.
You can also install a specific version of kicad using apt-get install kicad=version. I do not know how to get a list of available version strings via apt-cache search. So i copied the version string from the website of the ppa.
For reference this installs the stable 5.0.0 release under ubuntu 16.04:
sudo apt-get install kicad=5.0.0-stable-201807191034+fee4fd1~65~ubuntu16.04.1
My guess is you would need to repeat that step also for the library repos. (So removing the nightly ppa might be the easier route)
Edit: without removing the nightly ppa, apt will try to update you to a nightly version afterwards. So you really need to remove that ppa.
Thanks Rene, yes it seems to have been the nightly ppa having been the culprit, it seems one simply can’t install the stable version with the nightly ppa in place.
I found also a clearer instruction how to do it under this link:
https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-website/issues/308 - (Add “Downgrade from nightly to stable” instructions on Ubuntu Install page #308)
and the following 4 commands needed to fix the problem I had:
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:js-reynaud/ppa-kicad
sudo add-apt-repository --yes ppa:js-reynaud/kicad-5
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kicad
That’s the solution solving the problem, I finally have KiCad 5 stable installed.
edit: Additionally, I uninstalled KiCad nightly as per my earlier post, made sure nightly ppa is gone, running bleachbit just in case and installed KiCad stable.
This might not correctly handle the libraries. (If they where installed previously you might also remove them and re-install them with the new ppa.)
KiCad 5 nightly is my first and fresh install on my current PC since over a week ago, although I have seen a lot of libraries being updated during the past time since the installation, I hope I got rid of everything, I am not sure how to check it.
With libraries i mean the package supplying the official footprint, symbol and 3d model libraries.
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