How to dowload the last version of maxima (5.43.0) on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS?

Ubuntu uses a rolling-release model. Every six months, an entirely new version is released, coming also with newer versions of software. Ubuntu 18.04 keeps maintaining the versions of the software which which it was released. Only critical bug fixes or safety issues are resolved. This ensures that a stable system keeps reliably functioning the same way during it's life time.

To upgrade to newer versions of software, either

• Upgrade to a newer version of the Ubuntu operating system

or

• Manually install newer versions of the software. At that point, you are on your own, because this way of installing software is not supported and, if not properly done, may break your system.

There are many ways to manually install software, some methods ore complex than others. Look first at the website of the software to see how the software could be installed.

On the Maxima website, Downloads page, you see that their first recommendation is to use the regular system of your distribution. Under the section "Manually installing maxima on debian-based systems", there is a link to download *.deb installation files, which then can be installed using the apt-get install ./*.deb command. If you want the newer version on your current Ubuntu version, then follow the instructions given there. Given " Maxima" is a reputable program, and Ubuntu 18.04 is a long term release that is around for some while, chances that this will work well are good. Bottom line is, however, that you need to mae this evaluation anytime you consider installing software in a different way than through the regular software center or the apt-get command.

You can use packages from official “The maxima developers” team PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:maxima-developers/maxima-nightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install maxima wxmaxima

and you will get Maxima 5.43 and wxMaxima 19.10 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Note: I can confirm your error

dpkg: error processing archive /tmp/apt-dpkg-install-n2mx9I/8-maxima_5.42.2-27~201903090804~ubuntu18.04.1_all.deb (--unpack): trying to overwrite '/usr/share/info/maxima-index.lisp.gz', which is also in package maxima-common 5.42.2-27~201903090804~ubuntu18.04.1

and contacted the PPA owner to get the fix on package-level.

Temporary you can fix it with:

sudo dpkg -i --force-all /var/cache/apt/archives/maxima_5.42.2-27~201903090804~ubuntu18.04.1_all.deb

I finally installed it by following the steps below:

In terminal write

sudo apt install build-essential texinfo sbcl gnuplot tk8.6 rlwrap

then download maxima-5.43.0.tar.gz from the official website (is the source code, which is on parent folder)

Extract it with

tar xvzf maxima-5.43.0.tar.gz

in the sub-directory created write the following command

./configure --enable-sbcl

next

make

and finally   

sudo make install

will be installed by default in /usr/local .

With love by SCZD