Can't install legacy library libpng12-0

[Frazer]

I am trying to get Picotech PicoScope 6 software to install in Kubuntu 19.10 but with no success. This software claims compatibility with ubuntu 18.04 LTS but this doesn't seem to work either and others are having the same problem. Picotech technical is unhelpful.

It appears that this software requires libpng12-0. Ubuntu has moved to libpng16 and the way Ubuntu handles libraries seems to have changed since libpng12-0.

I have tried a number of way of installing this package, through Aptitude, Synaptic and manually by unpacking the library download and copying files but I am getting nowhere.

For example with Synaptic and building directly from the Ubuntu Xenial repository I get the following error when attempting to install the package.

E: /var/cache/apt/archives/libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb: unable to install new version of '/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0': No such file or directory

I have no idea where to go from here. Has anyone else solved this problem or had a similar issue?

[jglen490]

That error message hints at a couple things. "unable to install new version ..." implies that there should be an existing file. "No such file or directory ...", likewise, except that the directory, at least, does exist.

If the directory is unattainable, it may be a permissions issue. So it's important to do the package install with elevated privileges, i.e., sudo. If you didn't before, try to re-install the package with sudo.

The installer seems to be looking to actually update or replace libpng12.so.0. This file does not exist on my 18.04.3 LTS, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist Eoan Ermine, either. I don't know if this would work, but you could enter the /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu directory and use

sudo touch libpng12.so.0

to create an empty file. Then try to re-install that package. It might still fail, but I think it's worth a shot. If it does fail, simply delete the empty file.