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**claydoh** · Nov 24, 2013, 06:45 PM

Well, the name of the ppa

Code:

ppa:audacity-team/[COLOR=#00ff00][B]daily[/B][/COLOR]

might be a small clue

(https://launchpad.net/~audacity-team/+archive/daily)
The versioning is accurate, from a packaging standpoint, or rather fits the naming/versioning conventions used in debian/ubuntu.
The actual package version is
2.0.5+svn20131122+r8190+28+28~ubuntu13.10.1, all the mess past the "+" sign is denoting what daily code revision, etc was used when the package was built. But Audacity's code lists itself as 2.0.6. alpha. The use of the 2.0.5+gibberish is to keep future upgrades possible, so that when 2.0.6 is actually released to the public, everyone can upgrade to the final official code, even those using the daily builds.

I only occasionally use Audacity, but have only used the one in the repos with no issue.

The problem with PPA's , or rather with the idiotic morons who are writing/copying/plagiarizing these articles that utilize these repos do not often note what they are doing. In this case, the articles I saw gave instructions to install this ppa as if it gave someone 2.0.5, when it doesn't, really.

**life0riley** · Nov 24, 2013, 09:21 PM

Originally posted by Tom_ZeCat View Post

... So I googled how to install the app from the command line and found this code (from here http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-ins...ntu-ppa.html): ...

Is this link still valid? I get error 404 page not found.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

**jlittle** · Nov 25, 2013, 12:26 AM

Originally posted by Tom_ZeCat View Post

... I extracted the files, and found one named "install.sh." Cool, obviously the install file. However, when I double click it, it pulls up the code in Kate...

I know little about audacity, but typically an extracted install.sh arrives without the execute permission bits on the file. One can right-click, click properties, permissions tab, tick the "is executable" check box, but I wouldn't recommend running a shell script from dolphin like that, because any messages it might produce aren't seen (they go off to a session log).

(Sorry if you know the following, but in case you don't...)

If you're at the level of running an install.sh, you're best to use the command line. I can't remember what it's called on the standard KDE menu, I think it's on the "System" menu and is called "Terminal (Konsole)". One would change directory (the comand is "cd") to where the files were extracted, then

Code:

chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

Don't hesitate to report what happens here, that's totally normal for KFN.

Regards, John Little

**Tom_ZeCat** · Nov 25, 2013, 12:59 AM

Originally posted by life0riley View Post

Is this link still valid? I get error 404 page not found.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The link has disappeared. They must have realized that they didn't specify that it was the code to install an Alpha version.

Originally posted by jlittle View Post

I know little about audacity, but typically an extracted install.sh arrives without the execute permission bits on the file. One can right-click, click properties, permissions tab, tick the "is executable" check box, but I wouldn't recommend running a shell script from dolphin like that, because any messages it might produce aren't seen (they go off to a session log).

(Sorry if you know the following, but in case you don't...)

If you're at the level of running an install.sh, you're best to use the command line. I can't remember what it's called on the standard KDE menu, I think it's on the "System" menu and is called "Terminal (Konsole)". One would change directory (the comand is "cd") to where the files were extracted, then

Code:

chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

Don't hesitate to report what happens here, that's totally normal for KFN.

Regards, John Little

I did know about making it executable, but I didn't realize it was better to run it from the command line. I may try that tomorrow. I did use this alpha version tonight to edit a long sound file. It did freeze up once. At least it didn't do it multiple times like the older version was doing.

**Tom_ZeCat** · Nov 25, 2013, 05:22 PM

An update. Today I'm going to install from the download I did. Here's an interesting wrinkle. I've found yet some other command line code for installing audacity:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/oneiric
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install audacity

I got it from here:
http://www.noobslab.com/2012/01/inst...editor-on.html

It's probably legit. However, it begs the question: How do you know details about the repository you installing from when you do a command-line install? This one is from "ferramroberto/oneiric." Like the other one, I don't know who that is. It's probably legit, but to be safe, I'm going to install from the download I got from the Audacity web site.

Is it possible that this is how malware writers could try to hijack a Linux PC? I'm not saying that this "ferramroberto/oneiric" outfit is doing that. However, it does seem conceivable that the same crooks who spread malware to Windows PCs might attempt to also hijack Linux PCs. They could set up a fake web page with instructions on how to install some legitimate app, but instead put up instructions that will install malware.

I did google "ferramroberto/oneiric" and found instructions on installing other Linux apps. They're likely legit. But how do you verify that the "sudo add-apt-repository ppa: [name of repository]" part of some code you find is legit?

Anyway, not going to install from that command line code. I'll use the download I did. Will let you know how it goes.

**claydoh** · Nov 25, 2013, 09:39 PM

You don't, really. They are all likely "legit" but whether they are usable or not, or safe, or not broken, is solely up to the user to determine.
One can assume a certain level of quality and safety by the PPA owner, such as the Kubuntu Team providing us with updates, for example. But how can you be sure that my kmymoney ppa is any good? You don't, really, unless you trust the owner, or at least trust others that have successfully used it.

As to the ferramroberto ppa you added, look at the launchpad page, which is fairly easy to determine from the ppa link you use with add-apt-repository command:

ppa:ferramroberto/oneiric

plug the name in red like so:
https://launchpad.net/~ferramroberto to see all sorts of stuff from the owner, including a list of ppa's.
Note the dates on the packages, note the versions of Ubuntu the packages contain using the filters available.
You will note that this person has a lot of old ppa's in there, and not many (if any) have anything for recent *buntu versions, so adding it to your system will bring you no audacity packages at all.

So unless someone decides to set up a build of Audacity 2.0.5, you won't get it. No one has felt the urge to do so, perhaps because not many people are having problems with the current ubuntu package. My guess is that since 2.0.5 is in 14.04 already, someone will "backport" the package to previous versions, unless there is some sort of dependency problem. it might even get into the official saucy-backports (Unsupported Updates) repo.

So in summary:
Check dates on info you find on the net, it may be old and outdated
Check the ppa page on Launchpad for info and update activity
Check the ppa for packages for your Kubuntu version

**Tom_ZeCat** · Nov 26, 2013, 01:16 PM

I can't seem to get rid of Audacity 2.0.6 Alpha. I went into the Synaptic Package Manager and chose "mark for complete removal" both for Audacity and one of the supporting components. It uninstalled and it was gone, but the same version 2.0.6 Alpha comes back when I reinstall it via the repositories. It doesn't matter if I use Muon Discover or Synaptic.

First, when it was supposedly completely removed, I tried without success to install the downloaded one with this code:

Code:

chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

Then I noticed that the file name wasn't quite right. It's really "install-sh". So I substituted that one. It did not work, so I added "sudo" to the front of the command. Still no luck. It was at this point that I decided to give the repositories another try. When I pulled it up in Muon, it showed version 2.0.5. It was an "ah-hah" moment. That's the newest stable version that I wanted. So I let the repository install and somehow ended up back with version 2.0.6 Alpha. Apparently, that "complete removal" of Synaptic isn't so complete after all.

I finally decided that 2.0.6 Alpha was working, so I would just give it a try. There was stuff I needed to get done. It worked fine for the rest of the day. However, when I booted up my laptop today, the Audacity icon was greyed out. I tried running it, but it would not run. So then I did a "complete" uninstall in Synaptic, but it complained that it could not do it. It said I had to remove the damaged packages myself. The same thing happened in Muon. Sheesh. I googled around trying to find commands to completely remove it so that I could start fresh. I didn't find what I was looking for. Finally, in frustration, I ran the commands from that daily repository to reinstall 2.0.6 Alpha. At least that worked, for now anyway. The thing works and I'll be able to edit my sound files today.

But how do I fully wipe this version 2.0.6 Alpha? If this were a Windows PC, I would use Revo Uninstaller, a utility that runs an application's native uninstall program, then runs a bunch of scans to help you remove anything that the sloppy programmer failed to get rid of via his uninstall program.

I want to finally kick this Alpha version to the curb once and for all. Then I'll install the stable version 2.0.5 from the repository if that one is actually available from there. If not, I'll install it from the command line or from my download.

**claydoh** · Nov 26, 2013, 04:37 PM

1) You won't be able to simply install audacity from the tar file you downloaded, as it is NOT configured/compiled into a binary. it is just the source code. It is not necessarily difficult to build this, but it is very likely at the minimum a very frustrating experience finding all the missing pieces you need to install before you can begin, and even more so if there are errors when you actually try to compile it.

2) To uninstall Audacity, try the command line and report any errors you see at each step:

Code:

sudo apt-get remove audacity

Make sure Muon or Synaptic are not running when you do the above, copy and paste any errors you get.

Code:

sudo apt-get autoremove

[optional] run the above to uninstall any packages/libraries that are no longer used as they were dependencies of something that was uninstalled previously or no longer required. Post the list of things it wants to remove if you are not sure.

Then disable or remove all the audacity related PPA's you have installed. You can use Muon to do this, from Settings >> Configure Software Sources.

Back in the terminal, run

Code:

sudo apt-get update

to make sure your package list is up to date

As I think I mentioned previously, no one has packaged 2.0.5 yet for Ubuntu as far as I can see, either in a ppa or in the official repos, outside of 14.04.

Normally, the easiest way to actually downgrade ppa packages to the default ones is to install and use the command line tool ppa-purge but as you have enabled more than 1 ppa for Audacity, I can't be sure that program won't get confused, especially as you are experiencing problems.

**jlittle** · Nov 26, 2013, 09:49 PM

When I responded to your first post, I new little about audacity and just was explaining why double-clicking in dolphin didn't do anything. I've since had cause to fire up audacity, and while 2.0.3 did my simple job really well, I was motivated to look more closely at what you did.

I followed the link you gave

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

to see

I clicked the main download link and got "audacity-minsrc-2.0.5.tar.xz". That's a source tarball; you're then expected to compile it. (Strictly, build it, which in general may or may not involve compiling, but in audacity's case it's a shed-load of compiling.) Like most linux software projects, it's been built with Gnu autotools, so I followed generic compile and install instructions. In a konsole, some preparation:

Code:

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get build-dep audacity

then cd to where you extracted the files:

Code:

cd audacity-src-2.0.5
./configure
make |& tee make.log

That produced vast quantities of compile warnings, took 17 minutes on my 2006 dual-core desktop, but succeeded. I imagine it would be very slow with less than 2 GiB of RAM. An audacity executable in that directory was produced, which I tested with

Code:

./audacity

A bunch of warnings, but it starts. Then I ran the generic

Code:

sudo make install

and it installed to /usr/local/bin (that's the usual place for stuff built locally); one needs to ensure that your PATH environment variable has /usr/local/bin ahead of /usr/bin.

Sites offering source tarballs used to give the ./configure; make; sudo make install instructions but it's so common they don't bother any more. Typically the make fails and one has to inspect the make.log to find what went wrong, and start googling the errors to find fixes and workarounds, but for me on Saucy it compiled first time, notwithstanding over 100,000 lines of compile warnings.

I've offered the above to explain what the download was about, and to report that the build worked first time for me. Whether you want to get into this is up to you, many linux users stop short of building from source, and I imagine it's usual at KFN.

Regards, John Little

**Tom_ZeCat** · Dec 06, 2013, 02:47 AM

Part II -- Sheer misery

So annoying! I can't install any version of Audacity now. After the previous messages, I decided to just stick with Audacity 2.0.6 Alpha. It was running. I was able to get my work done in it. It kept getting updated via the update system. Then all of a sudden today when I booted up my laptop, the desktop icon was greyed out. The stupid thing was no longer installed. I decided enough was enough. No more Alpha version for me. I want that thing completely gone and then I'll install via the repository whichever version is the latest and is stable.

So I ran the commands suggested by claydoh:

Code:

sudo apt-get remove audacity
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get update

No luck. Those commands ran, but the repository still shows version 2.0.5 (I understand the real latest stable repository one is 2.0.3). So I marked it for installation. No luck. It won't install in either Muon or Synaptic. So I figured I would stick with the Alpha one. It's been working. Unfortunately, the commands listed in the earlier post for the daily one no longer work. Nothing installs! No Audacity of any kind! And I need it to do my work.

So I ran claydoh's removal commands again. Then in Synaptic I chose "complete removal". It ran and said it was completely removed. It lied. When I checked Audacity and tried to install it, Synaptic gives me this:

Could not apply changes. Fix broken packages first.

I tried it in Muon Discover and got this:

An error occurred while applying changes.

The package system could not be initialized, your configuration may be broken.

Uhg! How do I wipe out or fix the stupid broken packages? And why wouldn't Synaptic simply remove the broken ones when I did a complete removal?

I've seriously been cursed by accidentally installing that Alpha version. How do I rid myself of the curse? I just need to rid myself of this menace once and for all. Once that's done, I'll install Audacity via the repository or a download or the command line -- any way that works -- as long as it's not an alpha or a beta version. I did see jlittle's post about compiling and installing version 2.0.5. I don't think I should mess with that until I know these broken packages are gone.

**Tom_ZeCat** · Dec 06, 2013, 01:00 PM

An update. I found some code (from http://askubuntu.com/questions/13199...broken-package) about fixing broken packages:

Code:

sudo apt-get clean

remove Unnecessary Packages

[HTML]sudo apt-get autoremove[/HTML]

Update System to latest Packages and Reinstall broken packages

Code:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get -f install

I did all that and then installed Audacity from Synaptic. I got version 2.0.6 Alpha, Dec 6 2003. At least it works and I now I can edit audio files again, though I'm still wanting to get rid of the alpha version. Should I have stopped after "sudo apt-get autoremove"?

At least I'm not frustrated with no audio editor now, but I do want to figure out how to get away from the alpha version. Once that's finally eradicated, I'll decide if I want to install the latest packaged stable version via the repository or if I want to compile version 2.0.5 and install it.

**claydoh** · Dec 06, 2013, 04:08 PM

Sorry, been working vampire hours and feeling like a zombie the past few days.

Since you still have the ppa enabled, it will always use that version if it is the newest one available. You can uninstall audacity,
disable or remove the ppa from within Muon's Manage Software Sources area, and refresh your package list, either via Muon or apt-get update. You should see the Ubuntu-sourced package version now as the one available for installation.

Unless there is a ppa or something I did not see, your current choices seem to be the older version in the standard repos (which you had bugs with) or the daily builds in the PPA.

**Tom_ZeCat** · Dec 06, 2013, 08:56 PM

Originally posted by claydoh View Post

Sorry, been working vampire hours and feeling like a zombie the past few days.

Since you still have the ppa enabled, it will always use that version if it is the newest one available. You can uninstall audacity,
disable or remove the ppa from within Muon's Manage Software Sources area, and refresh your package list, either via Muon or apt-get update. You should see the Ubuntu-sourced package version now as the one available for installation.

Unless there is a ppa or something I did not see, your current choices seem to be the older version in the standard repos (which you had bugs with) or the daily builds in the PPA.

No problem, I appreciate your taking the time to write despite being busy. There is a third option. I could stick with this alpha version, which thus far appears to be working and stable, and just not update it. Every time it suddenly would not work was after I allowed Audacity updates and then rebooted. So I'll just ignore those updates and see how it goes. If I experience further problems, then I'll get rid of the ppa and install an older version. In fact, I guess a 4th option would be to do that and find an install package for a version older than 2.0.3. If one of those versions is stable, but just has a few less features, I could live with that. I use a small number of features over and over. I could likely live without the very latest features.

**Tom_ZeCat** · Dec 09, 2013, 11:57 PM

An update: I've uninstalled 2.0.6 Alpha and have successfully reverted to version 2.0.3. The 2.0.6 version was crashing just as much as the older version. Plus, it did other buggy things. Then they changed the truncate silence feature so that it no longer did what I wanted it to do. That was the last straw. I looked up how to remove a PPA. The code I found to wipe out that daily PPA was this:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:audacity-team/daily

(For the benefit of anyone who wants to know, especially someone researching this problem with a search engine.)

Bye-bye frustrating alpha version. I did consider going to a version older than 2.0.3, but I could not find any older install packages. I'll still consider that if I find one. Maybe an older one is more stable, but still has all the features I need. I'm also going to install a Windows-based audio editor under VirtualBox so I always have a Plan B.

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