[Gambas-user] Installing 3.8 On Debian

[Nigel Verity]

I have discovered a "cheat" method to install Gambas 3.8 on Debian without the need for compilation. Specifically I am running LMDE 2 but the principle should work on any Debian-based system.

Dependencies: Access to an Ubuntu or Linux Mint computer onto which 3.8 has been installed from the Gambas PPA.

Method:

On the source (Ubuntu/Mint) computer and go to /var/cache/apt.

Copy all the Gambas 3.8 installation (.deb) files to an empty folder on the target (Debian) computer.

On the target computer open a terminal window and navigate to the folder containing the .deb files.

Type "sudo dpkg -i *.deb". This will begin the installation.

Some "missing object" errors will be listed in the terminal window, but let the process run to completion.

Open the Synaptic package manager. This will list some broken packages. In my case there were 6.

In Synaptic use the "Fix Broken Packages" item on the "Edit" menu. This will identify the missing objects which need to be installed. These should be libraries.

Click the "Apply" button on the Synaptic toolbar. The missing objects will be downloaded and installed.

You can now go ahead and use Gambas 3.8.

Although this is not an officially approved method, Gambas 3.8 appears to run faultlessly on LMDE 2. The version available in the default repository is 3.5, so it is worth doing to get all the latest improved feature.

Regards

Nige