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andrew.46
Asked: 2019-05-12 16:28:17 +0800 CST

Leafpad not available for newer releases of Ubuntu?

  • 772

I see that my favourite text editor Leafpad has been dropped by Debian and now also from Ubuntu versions 19.04 Disco Dingo and onward. How can I get this simple text editor installed now?

text-editor 20.04

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The good news is that it is relatively easy to compile and install Leafpad on a modern Ubuntu system. I demonstrate the 2 step technique on that has worked well most recently on Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa:

    Step 1: Dependencies...

    A small number of build tools and dependencies are required, simply copy and paste the following single command into a Terminal window:

    sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall intltool libgtk2.0-dev

    The package manager will tend to drag in a few more interrelated dependencies along with this list...

    Step 2: Download, compile and build...

    The following single command will download the source, compile and install it. Simply copy the whole code block and paste it into a Terminal window:

    mkdir -v $HOME/leafpad_build && cd $HOME/leafpad_build && \
wget http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/leafpad/leafpad-0.8.18.1.tar.gz && \
tar xvf leafpad-0.8.18.1.tar.gz && cd leafpad-0.8.18.1 && \
./configure && make && \
sudo checkinstall -D --install=yes --fstrans=no --pakdir "$HOME/leafpad_build" \
     --pkgname leafpad --backup=no --deldoc=yes --deldesc=yes --delspec=yes \
     --default --pkgversion "0.8.18.1" && \
make distclean && sudo ldconfig

    If you like afterwards you can delete the build directory $HOME/leafpad_build or you can keep it as is to recompile at a later stage.

    Obligatory screenshot...

    Below is a screenshot demonstrating a successful build of Leafpad on Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa:

    enter image description here

    And I hope this has made at least a few Leafpad users a little happier :)

    References:

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  2. I found the Leafpad deb installer available for download from these websites:

    I also found Leafpad snap at https://snapcraft.io/leafpad

    Maybe (IMHO) the snap version is where the developer and maintainer heads to simplify maintenance and cross platform compatibility.

    2020-10-27 Update: Leafpad installed from Snap store keeps giving error "permission denied" when opening any text file since they moved Leafpad to Snap. Why? Why did they ruin this wonderful app??? I give 1 star to Snap not to Leafpad.

    2020-10-29 Update: I found that "Featherpad" is available in the Ubuntu repository and that works perfectly. Featherpad has a simplistic interface like Leafpad with few options added for code highlighting. Furthermore Featherpad can properly display the white spaces at the end of line like Windows Notepad. Leafpad cannot do such a thing :'( Still i would really like that the Leafpad's author would make Leafpad available again in Ubuntu repository.

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  3. 19.04 and later

    The leafpad snap package can be installed in all currrently supported versions of Ubuntu with the following command:

    sudo snap install leafpad

    18.04 and earlier

    Open the terminal and type:

    sudo apt install leafpad
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