Installing BC3 on 14.04 fails to find ia32-libs

[bcs]

I've been attempting to install BC3 via the deb (bcompare-3.3.13.18981_amd64.deb) it's failing because ia32-libs doesn't exits for recent version of Linux (it's been replaced by other packages). However, it seems that all the things that ia32-libs provides are still available on recent Linux installs, but just under different names. If you can figure out what is needed and what it's now called, you can manual patch things together to make it work.

• Has anyone figured out what things need to be installed to make stuff work?

The above also suggests that it might be "trivial" for someone who knows what they are doing to build a tweaked version of the latest deb that has metadata updates to replace ia32-libs with the more recent names. What is the chances of talking someone into publishing a .deb with said tweaks?

(FWIW: the reason I'm still trying to install BC3 is that I've used BC4 and find it to be an inferior product; e.g. the UI seem to have been redesigned placing a higher value aesthetic appeal at the expense of utility than the prior version did, where as I more or less require the opposite proritization.)

[Chris]

Try installing the bcompare-3.3.13.18981_i386.deb instead of the AMD64 version, even for a 64-bit OS. BC3 is 32-bit only, the AMD64 package was only released for special dependency handling on older 64-bit versions of Ubuntu. We no longer list it for download as those versions of Ubuntu are out of support.

The following installation steps worked for me on a default install of Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit with current updates applied:

sudo apt install gdebi-core
sudo gdebi bcompare-3.3.13.18981_i386.deb

If you need the BC3 i386.deb installer, the download page is: https://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php?zz=dl3_en

Also, can be more specific about what you find lacking in BC4? Is it the Home View/Session management, Text Compare, Folder Compare?

If you don't like the BC4 Home View, select a session, click Edit, then click the thumb tack icon on the top right to pin the session management panel in Home.

[bcs]

The i386 deb worked.

The biggest issues I have twith BC4 is likely that the UI seems to have subtle changes from BC3 (not exactly the same hot key combinations, etc.) so it's annoying have to switch back and forth between versions (I've contexts where I can't use BC4). There is also another GUI editor I use rather often in a different context that is rather different and I find switching between BC3 and it less jolting than between BC3 and BC4. There are also some spesific things where I rather prefer the way v3 behaves, for example:

- The find / find&replace feature seems to spontaneous change modes or vanish without me asking it to.
- ctrl-g (goto line) doesn't come up with the line text box selected, so [ctrl-g + # + enter] turns into [ctrl-g + tab + # + enter].
- the default colors are very washed out and hard to see.

In general, the tool just feels harder to work with. (Note: I actually use BC as my primary programming text editor, where it's diff capabilities are actually a (very close) secondary priority to it's editing capabilities, which could account for some issues.)

There are however a few improvements I really like; e.g. ctrl-ArrowKey correctly parse/navigates the file path components which has always bugged me in v3. It's not a bad product on it's own, but sadly the biggest advantage I found BC4 has over BC3 is that it doesn't require installing the 32bit libraries which is rather minor.

[Chris]

Thank you for the feedback.

- The find / find&replace feature seems to spontaneous change modes or vanish without me asking it to.

The Find/Find and Replace panels in BC4's Text Compare should only close when you hit the Escape key.

- ctrl-g (goto line) doesn't come up with the line text box selected, so [ctrl-g + # + enter] turns into [ctrl-g + tab + # + enter].

I'll add the Ctrl-G (Go To) focus on Linux to our bug list for a future version of BC.

- the default colors are very washed out and hard to see.

If you don't like the default color scheme, open Tools > Options and go to the Colors, Fonts section to customize colors. Alternate color schemes are also available to download on our website.
https://www.scootersoftware.com/supp...=kb_morecolors