GAMBAS BOOK 3.19.1

Surely you know this situation: You are installing an up-to-date version of Linux on a new computer. After the operating system - for example Mint 18.3 - is installed and configured, the programming environment Gambas3 is installed from the packages of the Linux distribution. The first time you start Gambas you will experience the surprise - version 3.8.4:

Figure 2.4.0.1: Gambas version in Mint 18.3

The current stable Gambas version at this time is 3.10.0! What now - what to do? There are several ways to work with the current Gambas version.

• Wait until the current packages in the version are also available for your Mint 18.3.
• You install the current PPA with the Gambas version 3.10.0, but this can only be successful if the PPA is offered for Mint 18.3.

• You install the current stable gambas version in five easy steps, the source code of which is made available for you to download at https://gitlab.com/gambas in five easy steps.

• (Step 1) De-installation of the installed version 3.8.4 - if you have already installed this version of Gambas.
• (Step 2) Installing those additional packages that are necessary for a successful installation of gambas because dependencies are resolved.
• (Step 3) Installing the program git.
• (Step 4) Download the source code for the current stable gambas version.
• (Step 5) Installation of the programming environment Gambas.

Before installing Gambas, make sure to read carefully the GIT excursus in chapter 2.4.1 and the recommended website, as both contain useful background information on the use of the program git.

Step 1
If you installed gambas via the application management of Mint 18.3, then please use the application management for uninstalling! You can also safely disconnect from Gambas3 on your system with the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get remove purge gambas3
$ sudo apt autoremove

Step 2
See http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/install and http://gambaswiki.org/wiki/install/ubuntu for an overview of the additional packages (dependencies) to be installed (? Mint 18.3 is based on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS, for example). The installation of the following packages is necessary:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential g++ automake autoconf libtool libbz2-dev libmysqlclient-dev unixodbc-dev libpq-dev postgresql-server-dev-9.5 libsqlite0-dev libsqlite3-dev libglib2.0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libgtkglext1-dev libpcre3-dev libsdl-sound1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsage-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev librsvg2-dev libpoppler-dev libpoppler-glib-dev libpoppler-private-dev libasound2-dev libesd0-dev libdirectfb-dev libxtst-dev libffi-dev libqt4-dev libqtwebkit-dev libqt4-opengl-dev libglew1.5-dev libimlib2-dev libv4l-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev libgnome-keyring-dev libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev linux-libc-dev libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libcairo2-dev libgsl0-dev libncurses5-dev libgmime-2.6-dev llvm-dev llvm libalure-dev libgmp-dev libgtk-3-dev libsdl2-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev libsdl2-image-dev sane-utils libdumb1-dev libssl-dev libqt5opengl5-dev libqt5svg5-dev libqt5webkit5-dev libqt5x11extras5-dev qtbase5-dev

Step 3
In order to download the Gambas packages from https://gitlab.com/gambas and make necessary preparations for the installation of Gambas, the program git must be installed. You can check whether the git program is installed:

$ which git
$ # The programme is obviously not installed

Or you can see the program path if git is installed:

$ which git
/usr/bin/git

If necessary, the installation of git is done quickly:

$ sudo apt-get install git
...
The following NEW packages will be installed:
...

Step 4
In the next step, the Gambas repository is stored as a copy of the gitlab. com server on your home PC:

(A) $ git clone --depth=1 https://gitlab.com/gambas/gambas.git
(B) $ git clone --depth=1 https://gitlab.com/gambas/gambas.git GambasGIT

The program git with the argument –depth=1 downloads only the newest (developer) version. Without this argument, the complete repository is loaded. While with variant (A) the copy is stored in an automatically created folder' ~/gambas', with variant (B) you can freely assign the name of the folder for the copy.

It is assumed that you don't want to use the developer version of Gambas, but the current stable version for your projects. You can download the complete Gambas repository with this command:

$ git clone https://gitlab.com/gambas/gambas.git GambasGIT
Klone nach 'GambasGIT' ...
remote: Counting objects: 131321, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (25600/25600), done.
remote: Total 131321 (delta 104643), reused 130503 (delta 104198)
Receive objects: 100% (131321/131321), 93.26 MiB | 1.54 MiB/s, Done.
Resolve differences: 100% (104643/104643), Done.
Check connectivity ... Done.

Then switch to the newly created directory:

$ cd ~/GambasGIT

You can use these commands to display the version history of the stable versions:

(V1)  hans@mint183 ~/GambasGIT $ git tag                        ' unsorted list of stable versions
(V2)  hans@mint183 ~/GambasGIT $ git tag | sort -V              ' sorted list of all stable versions
(V3)  hans@mint183 ~/GambasGIT $ git tag | sort -V | tail -n 1  ' Version number of the stable version
      v3.10.0

Use the following command to check out the current stable Gambas version:

hans@mint183 ~/GambasGIT $ git checkout $(git tag | sort -V | tail -n 1)
HEAD is now with bd1b84a... [CONFIGURATION] * NEW: Update version to 3.10.0.

Step 5
Now you can install Gambas in the usual way:

$ ./reconf-all
$ ./configure -C
|| THESE COMPONENTS ARE DISABLED:
|| - gb.jit

$ make
$ sudo make install

The next command explores the program path of Gambas:

$ which gambas3
/usr/bin/gambas3

To start Gambas in the console:

(A)	$ /usr/bin/gambas3
(B)	$ gambas3

Alternatively, you can also create a starter on the desktop. Select a suitable icon like the following one for the starter:

Finally, enter /usr/bin/gambas3 as the (start) command.

Figure 2.4.0.2.1: Gambas in the current stable version (→ 26.12.2017)

It is worthwhile to check in intervals to see if a new stable version of Gambas is available on https://gitlab.com/gambas

hans@mint183 ~ $ cd ~/GambasGIT
hans@mint183 ~/GambasGIT $ git fetch
hans@mint183 ~/GambasGIT $

https://gitlab.com/gambas/gambas/tags ' Alternative

With these results (as of 26.12.2017) it means waiting - no update in sight.