Installing 0.17 on Debian Stretch / 9 - Where's the *.DEB?

[ex-Gooserider]

Trying to get back into FreeCad after a not very successful effort in 2017 - the description on the website sounds like it is much improved...

However I'm having a problem...

I am trying to move from Kubuntu to Debian, and after doing an install of 'Stretch' I find the version in the repository (including -backports) is still 0.16.... I tried doing a download of the 64-bit .appimage, putting it in my /home/downloads directory, but it doesn't want to run from there...

The Wiki says to do apt-get on the .deb file, in the Installing on Linux article, but I can't find any .deb's other than for 0.16....

I did a search but didn't find anything helpful in the existing messages - if I missed something a pointer would help...

HELP??? - where do I find a 0.17 .deb file? (I don't want to dump on volunteers, but making .deb's more findable might be helpful?)

Thanks,
ex-Gooserider

[kkremitzki]

There's several approaches you can take to resolving this, but IMO the one I would recommend would actually be to not use Stretch and instead use the upcoming next version. Debian 10 (Buster) has already entered its first freeze, so the behavior you see on it now will largely be the same as what you'd get on release. You can track Buster by replacing instances of "stretch" with "buster" in /etc/apt/sources.list and then doing a sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade. If you want to stay on Debian 9 then the best route to running 0.17 is probably going to be getting the appimage problems addressed.

[NormandC]

I tried doing a download of the 64-bit .appimage, putting it in my /home/downloads directory, but it doesn't want to run from there...

Did you make it executable?

I don't want to dump on volunteers, but making .deb's more findable might be helpful?

You don't download .deb's individually. And we don't control how Debian repositories are managed. kkremitzki recently became a Debian maintainer so the status of FreeCAD package in Debian will improve, but not for Stretch.

Quite bluntly, had you stayed on Kubuntu, it would only be a matter of adding the freecad-stable or freecad-daily PPA, which we actually control.

[ex-Gooserider]

Thanks for your suggestion kkremitzki, I'm running the update on the new machine while writing this... (I started w/ Stretch largely because the 'Getting started w/ Debian' pages seemed to advise using stable if not wanting to be on the bleeding edge and it's occasional problems... Since I'm more interested in using than chasing bugs....) Hopefully it will work. I also hope I won't lose all the work I had put into setting up KDE to make it do what I wanted.... Not a big deal if it does, just one of those things...

NormandC - I tried making the app image executable first thing, and it failed both when I tried to execute it by double clicking it in Dolphin and when I tried doing a cut and paste into the console.... That was when I started looking for the .deb file.... Incidentally I have seen documentation elsewhere that suggested downloading an individual .deb file to the local drive and running apt with options pointing at the local drive. It seemed that was what was being suggested in the FC Wiki.

I have been mildly annoyed by some of the things in Kubuntu, and wanting to try moving to Debian for a long time - Since I was setting up a new to me machine, it seemed like a good opportunity - and nothing I've seen anywhere said that there was a strong reason not to...

I appreciate the effort that people put into maintaining software, and that documentation doesn't always end up matching but at the same time it is frustrating when the instructions for installing tell you to download a file that doesn't seem to exist where it can be found....

ex-Gooserider

[NormandC]

That was when I started looking for the .deb file.... Incidentally I have seen documentation elsewhere that suggested downloading an individual .deb file to the local drive and running apt with options pointing at the local drive.

This is just wrong. Do you mean the FreeCAD wiki? Please provide the link to the wiki page that advises of this, so I can scrub it.

and nothing I've seen anywhere said that there was a strong reason not to...

It's perfectly fine, but please don't expect Debian to have the latest FreeCAD available, that's not how Debian works. There's a trade-off for the increased stability you're getting.

[ex-Gooserider]

This is just wrong. Do you mean the FreeCAD wiki? Please provide the link to the wiki page that advises of this, so I can scrub it.

Sorry to take so long getting back on this - life is full... I needed to make the time to go back and chase the links through the wiki so I could tell you where I found the info...

The getting started page https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Getting ... Installing Points at the download and installing pages - it seems to say there is a .deb package...

First of all, download and install FreeCAD. See the Download page for information on current versions and updates, and the Installing page for installation instructions. There are install packages ready for Windows (.msi), Debian and Ubuntu (.deb), openSUSE (.rpm), and Mac OSX. FreeCAD is available from the package managers of many other Linux distributions. A standalone AppImage executable is also available, which will run on most recent 64-bit Linux systems. As FreeCAD is open-source, you can also grab the source code and compile it yourself.

The Download page https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Download only shows the appimage. It cautions about out of date repositories, but also points at the 'Install on Unix' page.

Notes for GNU/Linux users
FreeCAD can be installed from most Linux distributions official repositories, but the version they provide might be quite dated and be missing many features. Instead you can download the linked AppImage above, mark it as executable and launch it without installation. Please see the Install on Unix page for more installation options, including how to get up-to-date packages for Ubuntu and derivatives.

The Installing page https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Installing has a graphic link that takes you to the 'Install on Unix' page

Choose Your Operating System
FreeCAD is a truly multi-platform application, developed with the world-renowned Qt framework. This means FreeCAD looks and acts the same on Windows, Linux and Mac. However, the installation procedure is a little different for each operating system. Choose your operating system for details on installing FreeCAD.
'Windows' 'Linux' 'Mac'
Install on Windows Install on Linux/Unix Install on Mac

The 'Install on Unix' page https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Install_on_Unix has two references to installing on Debian. The first just says to use apt-get to pull from the repositories -

Debian and other debian-based systems
Since Debian Lenny, FreeCAD is available directly from the Debian software repositories and can be installed via synaptic or simply with:
sudo apt-get install freecad

As I said in my first message, doing this in Stretch gets 0.16, not 0.17.... So I went further down the page, and found section 7.1 that says there is a .deb file - there is a link back to the Download page, which only has the Appimage, a graphic which starts a download of the appimage, and a link to the Ubuntu launchpad page....

I could be very wrong, but the instructions on how to add the launchpad PPA to the Ubuntu sources list and then install the latest version look almost exactly like what I've seen for installing .debs of other packages - Since the Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, I'd suspect that the Ubuntu .deb would also install on Debian... I just don't know how to add an Ubuntu PPA to the Debian Sources list...

It is somewhat of a moot point for me at this point, since I have now updated to Buster, and got 0.17 that way, (thanks again for the help) but hope this will help get the documentation better for other users...

(Bold added)

Manual install on .deb based systems
If for some reason you cannot use one of the above methods, you can always download one of the .deb packages available on the Download page.
Linux.png Ubuntu 32/64bit AppImage-logo.png AppImage 64bit

Once you downloaded the .deb corresponding to your system version, if you have the Gdebi package installed (usually it is), you just need to navigate to where you downloaded the file, and double-click on it. The necessary dependencies will be taken care of automatically by your system package manager. Alternatively you can also install it from the terminal, navigating to where you downloaded the file, and type:

sudo dpkg -i Name_of_your_FreeCAD_package.deb

changing Name_of_your_FreeCAD_package.deb by the name of the file you downloaded.

After you installed FreeCAD, a startup icon will be added in the "Graphic" section of your Start Menu.

ex-Gooserider

[NormandC]

Thanks for taking the time to hunt down the links! I will try to put this on my to-do list.