Software Repositories

[Rashkae]

Dustin Breese wrote:
> I agree, but in this case I'm looking for Eclipse 3.4.  (3.4 is the
> latest, and 3.2 was released in June 2006.  Lots of bug fixes and
> newer features.  Plus some of the plug-ins don't work correctly in
> 3.2.)  It's very easy to just grab the tar.gz and install it
> someplace, but I was hoping to use official repositories.
> 
> But, my question is more general -- IF one decides to run with the
> latest versions, is it down to installing from source/cmd line, or are
> there repositories already out there for a lot of the newer software
> versions?
> 
> And, to me, "BackPort" indicates taking an older version of the
> software and porting to newer version of Ubuntu?  Or am I missing it
> here?

Backport means taking new software and creating a package for an older
(even if older means current release) version of Ubuntu.  Ubuntu's
backports are the closest thing to 'official' Ubuntu packages you will
find for newer versions of software, but are still technically
unsupported and 'use at your own risk.'

Often times, projects will have packages for some common distros, which
now often include Ubuntu.  Even if a 'repo' isn't provided, you can
download the package file and install it with a dpkg -i command (I think
that's the right command, I don't use it often, so might have that part
wrong.).  In either case, it's rarely advisable to plug repos into your
apt config for the sake of a single program.