I have a laptop running Ubuntu 18.04 that I’ve been using for a few years and tried doing a software update. I’ve been (happily) using the master branch ppa for quite a while, but this morning when I tried to do an apt update, I get an error indicating the “…release no longer has a Release File”.
Has anyone else seen this? Is it a temporary outage, or is 18.04 no longer supported?
(could it be related to the internet outage that occurred this morning due to a Fastly failure?)
Thanks
I don’t think 18.04 has the necessary versions of dependencies to build the latest darktable.
Show graphics:darktable / darktable - openSUSE Build Service still builds for 18.04
master no longer does.
That’s a bummer. I guess its time to update to a newer version of the OS.
Was this a recent change? I’m pretty sure I’ve updated within the past month or so.
Thanks for the help
@darix , are you saying we can no longer do “git clone GitHub - darktable-org/darktable: darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer” and compile the source etc on Ubuntu 18.04? That’s a bit of a blow if so.
Anybody - how do we find out about stuff like this? It would be nice to have some advance warning here in the forum surely?
Yes, I built on May 10th (but no PPA involved)
Well god forbid the world moves on and starts requiring newer versions of a library than a 3y old one. newer versions that would enable better programs or more features.
So I suggest … get comfortable to update your system regularly. and just move with the flow.
linux users fwiw:
I compiled my first linux from source in 1996 from a stack of 3-1/2" inch floppies maybe 6" inches high. I got all that from a guy named Marcus at work. He was a high end nerd. I was just an apprentice then.
For the next 20 years changing the OS was always a major “back everything up twice” hassle, complete with high anxiety because I had to wipe my one and only hard drive.
…until I started using a separate disk for /home, and a separate disk yet for /bkhome that gets mirrored every night from cron, with rsync, with the OS on a separate SSD.
Now I can change OS distributions once a week, without backing anything up, because that’s already done. I should have done this years ago.
Now I can clone the latest github Darktable sources and compile. Any time I want.
As others have said, that distro is old. Being an LTS (long-term support) release only means that the software officially shipped with the release will be supported (with security fixes and limited other updates). If you really need an LTS version, 20.04 has also been out for a while. Under Ubuntu, version upgrades go quite smoothly. The same goes for Mint, which is based on Ubuntu LTS releases.
However, I’ve ditched both Mint and Ubuntu LTS (now use the latest Ubuntu, whether it’s LTS or not), in order to keep my libraries up to date (I build darktable from master, which you can also do; a simple shell script is all it takes). We can support you with that here.
Then there are distros with a rolling-release policy, which means you’ll never encounter a full-blown OS upgrade situation again, but may experience hiccups any time, at least in theory. I’ve never used such a distro, so cannot speak from experience.
Thanks @pittendrigh , I’ll see about improving my setup. I have 3 disks and several partitions, and installing a new Ubuntu is indeed “high anxiety” if I screw it up!
No need for the sarcasm @darix .
Master compiles on Ubuntu 18.04 just fine. Did it 3 times today 
No need to reinstall. I always back up my /etc, but otherwise upgrades have been mostly uneventful. Upgrading to 20.04:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FocalFossa/ReleaseNotes#Upgrading_from_Ubuntu_18.04_LTS_or_19.10
(And, from then on, I’d go on to the latest non-LTS version.)