Installing legacy FENiCS 1:1.5.0.1~ppa2~precise1 on Ubuntu 22.04.1

General
1

Hi,
Is it possible to install legacy FENiCS 1:1.5.0.1~ppa2~precise1 on Ubuntu 22.04.1?
Specifically, I am referring to the version 1:1.5.0.1~ppa2~precise1 available on this page.
apt-cache policy fenics on Ubuntu 22.04.1 says that the only available fenics version for ubuntu 22.04.1 is 2:0.6.0.4~ppa1~jammy1. What should I do if I need to install 1:1.5.0.1~ppa2~precise1?

admin@ubuntu:~$ apt-cache policy fenics
fenics:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2:0.6.0.4~ppa1~jammy1
  Version table:
     2:0.6.0.4~ppa1~jammy1 500
        500 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/fenics-packages/fenics/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
2

It’s not really feasible to install the package. You can do it literally (dpkg -i --force-depends *.deb) but it won’t run because the required library versions won’t be available.

If you have the patience, you could rebuild the packages. Get source from the *.dsc files (dget *.dsc), then rebuild with dpkg-buildpackage. But again, the expected packages won’t be available so it’ll need a fair amount of hacking of the configuration files.

If you really need to run fenics 1.5.0, then maybe the simpler solution is to create an Ubuntu precise installation rather than doing it on jammy (22.04).

I would advise you to reconsider your need for fenics 1.5.0. It hasn’t been built since 2015. Do you really need to reproduce an old bug byte for byte? Such a goal is doomed on Ubuntu 22.04 anyway since the new libraries mean you wont end up with the same buggy results even if you did recompile, due to improvements in other libraries.

1 Like