How to install meld 3.11 in Ubuntu 14.04?

Question

I am trying to get meld 3.11 to work on ubuntu 14.04

I tried following the method below"

cd ~ 
git clone https://git.gnome.org/browse/meld 
cd meld  
sudo ln -s ~/meld/bin/meld /usr/bin/meld

But when i run meld in the terminal i get the following error

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/meld", line 223, in <module>
    setup_settings()
  File "/usr/bin/meld", line 197, in setup_settings
    cwd=melddir)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 522, in call
    return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 710, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1327, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception
   OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

I am not sure if its dependencies issue or python path problem.

Solution 1

#Make a clean working directory
mkdir -p work/crap
#Get in to that directory
cd work/crap
#Clone git head
git clone https://git.gnome.org/browse/meld
#Get in to that project directory
cd meld
#Install dependencies
sudo apt-get install intltool itstool gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 libxml2-utils
#Install meld
sudo python setup.py install

If you wanted to work on the code itself without re-installing, I typically do that by installing in a venv and opening the installed to folder in the venv in an IDE.

Result of running meld in a terminal after those steps:

Note that the current version of meld requires GTK+ 3.14, which is not available on Ubuntu 14.04 (Meld requires GTK+ 3.14 or higher. error). So for Ubuntu 14.04, you need to checkout the last version that does not need GTK+ 3.14. That is the meld 3.14.* branch (currently 3.14.3), so checkout the branch using git checkout meld-3-14.

Solution 2

I found meld 3.12 available in ubuntu 14.10 repository.

deb package installation works even under 14.04

http://packages.ubuntu.com/utopic/all/meld/download

Comments

[RobotHumans]

Check the README for directions on installing. It's located in the meld folder... It has a setup.py. It also has nothing to do with Ubuntu.

[Alen Milakovic]

Try doing a backport. 3.11 is available packaged for debian experimental, at least. See unix.stackexchange.com/q/112157/4671. If you want more information about this, please say so.

[Ibn Saeed]

i am going to try your method now.

[Ibn Saeed]

I got the following after doing the final step. ..... unable to execute 'glib-compile-schemas': No such file or directory. ......

[RobotHumans]

either i have a dangling dependency from my current install that i can't see, or you have broken packages or you're using a broken distro or custom themes that break stuff. in any case , it works here

[RobotHumans]

if you asked what you think are ubuntu related questions on AU or searched there, you would find this: askubuntu.com/questions/161739/… which points to this libglib2.0-bin as the dangling dependency, but i digress...

[Ibn Saeed]

I had to install the dependancy libglib2.0-dev and libgee-dev and python-cairo for it to work.

[Aurel]

I had to install libxml2-utils

[Praveen Kumar]

I am getting "Meld requires GTK+ 3.14 or higher" after following the above steps any suggestions on what to do ?

[Michael]

I'm getting this error: unable to execute itstool: No such file or directory when running sudo python setup.py install. Could you suggest a fix? I'm on CentOS, followed your direction except for using yum in place of apt-get.

[jmiserez]

The current version of meld requires GTK+ 3.14, which is not available on Ubuntu 14.04 (Meld requires GTK+ 3.14 or higher. error). So for Ubuntu 14.04 you need to checkout the last version that does not need GTK+ 3.14. That is the meld 3.14.* branch (currently 3.14.3), so checkout the branch using git checkout meld-3-14.

[Youda008]

My repository still shows only 1.8.4 and your link is broken :(

[kmmbvnr]

Yep 14.10 support ends a long ago

[Dan Dascalescu]

Here's the link for the Meld package on Ubuntu 16 (Xenial). The package is about 2 years behind the current version.