1

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and I'm a little confused with all the info on how to update, upgrade to LibreOffice 4.1. I want to "replace" my preinstalled LibreOffice 3 with LibreOffice 4.1 but I want it to be stable and I don't want to update to unstable newer versions (but maybe to stable newer ones if possible automatically).

Is it correct to do it like this step by step: (https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+archive/libreoffice-4-1) In terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-4-1
sudo apt-get update

the update is not only an update for libreoffice 4.1 but for all available Ubuntu programs? And it also just gets updates and will not get newer unstable LO versions correct?

0

3 Answers 3

2

Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! Actually, sudo apt-get update doesn't upgrade the software that's installed, it just checks the software servers for new versions. sudo apt-get upgrade is what actually upgrades the software.

Read this question here, it should help you understand better: What does "sudo apt-get update" do?

From the question:

apt-get update doesn't actually install new versions of software.

apt-get update downloads the package lists from the repositories and "updates" them to get information on the newest versions of packages and their dependencies. It will do this for all repositories and PPAs. From http://linux.die.net/man/8/apt-get:

Used to re-synchronize the package index files from their sources. The indexes of available packages are fetched from the location(s) specified in /etc/apt/sources.list(5). An update should always be performed before an upgrade or dist-upgrade.

apt-get upgrade will fetch new versions of packages existing on the machine if APT knows about these new versions by way of apt-get update.

As for the steps you took, they are correct as far as I can tell. You add the PPA, then run sudo apt-get update to check for updates available, and then sudo apt-get upgrade to download/install the updates.

1

I Think you method for adding repositories will work, though I prefer the old fashioned method of adding the repo location to the sources-list file "/etc/apt/source.list " you can find a step by step method here.

The method that you are speaking of is also documented on the same page under: #Adding_Launchpad_PPA_Repositories. It was introduced in 9.10 it seems, though I don't have any direct experience using it.

I have not tested it myself, but have seen several mixed reviews regarding that specific repository and method. So this is very much a try at your own risk operation. I would probably stick with the Official Ubuntu repositories if you want things to be guaranteed to be stable. If you need some functionality that you can't get from the version available on those repo's try following up with that question.

As far as:

sudo apt-get update

That is just updating the list of packages. You will also need to run:

sudo apt-get upgrade

in order to complete the 'upgrade' process. You can find this and more on APT by typing:

man apt

Hope that helped, cheers.

help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/CommandLine#Adding_Launchpad_PPA_Repositories

ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/20804/libreoffice-4-1-ppa-for-ubuntu-1204-the-requested-url-returned-error-404/

linux.die.net/man/8/apt-get

1

Yes, it is perfectly fine to add that ppa that way.

Add the ppa:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-4-1

You update the packagelists stored on your computer with

sudo apt-get update

After that you upgrade the actual packages with

sudo apt-get upgrade

This last command will upgrade all installed packages on your computer for which the freshly downloaded (with the apt-get update command) packagelists report that there are newer versions.

This libreoffice ppa only contains stable releases from the 4.1.x branch. So by running apt-get upgrade your libreoffice won't be updated to any unstable release, neither will it be updated to the 4.2 branch, but it will update e.g from 4.1.4 to 4.1.5.

Some other ubuntu packages will also be updated to newer versions from this ppa, because libreoffice 4.1 needs newer versions from them. There is a small chance that these newer packages will cause problems with other programs relying on the same packages with the older version, but it is unlikely, and even if it happens you just have to revert back to the original LO version. (I'm using the 4.0 ppa on 12.04 and have no problems with it.)

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .