Re: xpdf situation with Ubuntu?

[David Kastrup]

James <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello,
>
>
> On 22 October 2013 07:51, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> James <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > XPDF in Ubuntu 10.04 - my lilydev at home works. version 3.0.2
>> >
>> > xpdf in Linux Mint 15 (Olivia) whatever that is the Ubuntu Equiv (it's
>> not
>> > the Debian one) crashes - I think that is 13.04. Version 3.0.3.
>>
>> Do you keep it updated?  Do _they_ keep it updated?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>
> Well it doesn't come installed by default so I had to sudo apt-get install
> it. So that is as current as it comes in the repos.
>
> The answer is there for No and Yes - as
> http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html seems to be the most current
> version there is.

The problem is not whether Xpdf is 3.03.  The Debian/Ubuntu versions
have had the "xpdf" library surgically removed into the "Poppler"
library which is maintained somewhat differently.  The reasons for the
crashes are not a problem with upstream Xpdf, but divergences of the
Poppler APIs.  So there are working as well as broken adaptations of
Xpdf in Debian/Ubuntu.

> I noticed that a few things were also installed, here is a snip of the
> History.log from my apt log from Linux Mint.
>
> --snip--
> Start-Date: 2013-10-22  07:05:05
> Commandline: apt-get install xpdf
> Install: lesstif2:amd64 (0.95.2-1.1, automatic), xpdf:amd64
> (3.03-10ubuntu1), gsfonts-x11:amd64 (0.22, automatic)

3.03-10ubuntu1 was a broken version IIRC.  Looking at
<URL:https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xpdf>, this seems to be the
"current" version for Raring Ringtail.  Ugh.

If you take a look at
<URL:https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xpdf/+bug/943195>, you'll
notice that Dmitry uploaded a backport for Raring to his respective
PPA.  Would it be feasible to check that out, and if it works, report
enthusiastically to the bug report?  Or so...

-- 
David Kastrup