BC4 not starting at all unter Kubuntu 12.04 (64 bit)

[armakuni]

David, the script placed in /usr/bin/bcompare already handles the LD_LIBRARY_PATH correctly, if it's defined already before.

I did as you suggested and copied the libfreetype.so.6.8.0 to /usr/lib/beyondcompare and created a symlink named libfreetype.so.6 here.

My first solution was this:

I did the following:

I downloaded the original libfreetype6.so packages for my particular Ubuntu distro (here: precise) for i386.
I unpacked the libfreetype.so.6.8.0 to a new directory, here $HOME/.local/opt/goodfreetype/i386/ .
After this I created a symlink from libfreetype.so.6.8.0 to libfreetype.so.6

Now I create this script file:

#!/bin/sh

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/.local/opt/goodfreetype/i386/
bcompare "$@"

save this as bcompare4.sh for example and chmod u+x it.

Now I can start Beyond Compare 4 without any problems.

The only disavantage is that I cannot use the "compare" options in Dolphin's right click menu with this because the LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
But with your solution this works

[David]

Good. Thanks for letting us know.

[mackyy20]

On a other machine a test version of BC3 works without any problems. I don't know the cause, but it's under the same OS as my notebook, were BC doesn't work.

Before I got the hint to try BC4 I had the same issue with BC3.

Today I found out, that BC4 runs without any problems if I execute it as root!

[Chris]

mackyy20,

The problem might be an issue with your user settings. To test for this, move the contents of ~/.config/bcompare/ to a backup folder, then try running Beyond Compare. This will make Beyond Compare create a new set of default settings.

[intersol]

Can you please provide a real x64 build so we do not spend hours trying to make it work on Linux?

I am surprised that you do not have a x64 build, considering that nowadays, most OS-es are dropping the 32bit support.

Update: it seems that there is an x64 build, but is not listed on http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php page... probably you missed to update the page?

... it seems that ia32-libs is required but it doesn't exist un Ubuntu 14.04... clearly not the best deployment experience.

Damn, i spend more than an hour trying to make it work and I am risking on affecting the stability of the server where I want to install it.

Clearly BeyondCompare requirements page is incorrect, the support for running on x64 Ubuntu is broken badly.

[Aaron]

Hello,

There are a couple of misunderstandings in this post I'll try to help clear up.

First is that Beyond Compare 4 is a 32bit application that can run on 32bit and 64bit OS's. This is true on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Some OS's are better about their 32bit support than others, but we've found all major versions of Linux have robust support for 32bit applications on 64bit variants. We've tested on both, and I generally run 64bit test environments.

The "64bit".deb you found is an old mechanic that was required by older versions of 64bit linux. The included application is still 32bit, but the .deb itself needed to be marked as "64bit". It's a label that it's to be installed on 64bit distros, and not that the included app is 64bit. However, newer versions of debian changed this behavior and allow the easy install of 32bit applications. The old download is a legacy download for users still on older distros.

Ubuntu 14.04 should use the main 32bit.deb download.

Native 64bit support is on our wishlist, but our current toolset limits the ability to simply rebuild as 64bit. For a more detailed, technical explanation, we have a post here:
http://www.scootersoftware.com/vbull...1349#post41349