2022-06-18, 12:53 PM
You probably have realized that a new version of openplotter-opencpn-installer has been released where PPA sources have been replaced by Debian/Ubuntu Backports. This is the result of a long discussion with the OpenCPN team and here is a short summary and background.
For some years we have used the Ubuntu PPA source to install OpenCPN in Debian and derivatives because this was the recommended way. This has been working right for years but according to some Debian purists this is an abomination and it is true that this has been the source of the problems with plugins availability for some architectures like arm64.
Plugin management has become uncontrollable because this scenario has forced to build plugins for each system/version/architecture and in some cases, like Raspberry, build special plugins. To solve this we have to make big changes in the OpenCPN core so there is a roadmap to finally build just native Debian plugins that will be installed in all derivatives. With this movement in openplotter-opencpn-installer we take the first step in this roadmap.
To have plugins for Debian the first thing you need is to install OpenCPN from a Debian repository, so we replaced the Ubuntu PPA source by the official Debian Backports repository. As you probably has noticed there is an old opencpn version in the official Debian repositories but this versions will rarely be up to date because OpenCPN development is always faster than the very restrictive rules to aprove new versions in the official Debian repositories. Backports repository is also official and is not as restrictive as the stable one so there is where opencpn will live. OpenPlotter will be in charge of adding the backports sources and everything to make this work.
Installing the last version of openplotter-opencpn-installer app old sources will be removed, new ones will be added and you just have to reinstall opencpn. You will find the main plugins, like o-charts, available for arm64. Now you should use the Flatpak way only in some non-LTS Ubuntu systems or some special cases.
For some years we have used the Ubuntu PPA source to install OpenCPN in Debian and derivatives because this was the recommended way. This has been working right for years but according to some Debian purists this is an abomination and it is true that this has been the source of the problems with plugins availability for some architectures like arm64.
Plugin management has become uncontrollable because this scenario has forced to build plugins for each system/version/architecture and in some cases, like Raspberry, build special plugins. To solve this we have to make big changes in the OpenCPN core so there is a roadmap to finally build just native Debian plugins that will be installed in all derivatives. With this movement in openplotter-opencpn-installer we take the first step in this roadmap.
To have plugins for Debian the first thing you need is to install OpenCPN from a Debian repository, so we replaced the Ubuntu PPA source by the official Debian Backports repository. As you probably has noticed there is an old opencpn version in the official Debian repositories but this versions will rarely be up to date because OpenCPN development is always faster than the very restrictive rules to aprove new versions in the official Debian repositories. Backports repository is also official and is not as restrictive as the stable one so there is where opencpn will live. OpenPlotter will be in charge of adding the backports sources and everything to make this work.
Installing the last version of openplotter-opencpn-installer app old sources will be removed, new ones will be added and you just have to reinstall opencpn. You will find the main plugins, like o-charts, available for arm64. Now you should use the Flatpak way only in some non-LTS Ubuntu systems or some special cases.