Question about updating FreeFileSync on Ubuntu 20.04

[tcw4950]

I have FreeFileSync 11.17 installed on Ubuntu 20.04 -- it was a default install when I first installed Ubuntu 20.04 --- and I want to update it to the latest version 13.3. I have a FreeFileSync icon in my program icons. I want to update it so that I can run the new version from the same desktop icon.

According to the FAQs under installation on the FreeFileSync website, I "can safely install a new version of FreeFileSync into a directory that contains an old version. FreeFileSync will update the previous installation and clean up all files should you choose to uninstall at a later time." My question is, how do I install into the directory that contains the old version? Do I tar the download into that directory?

There was a way to update FreeFileSync from the Linux command line using a ppa (https://askubuntu.com/questions/672078/how-to-update-freefilesync), but apparently that's no longer available. Is there any way to update it from the command line with apt?

Thanks for any clarification.

[bgstack15]

Ubuntu tends to fork from Debian unstable (sid), which does have FreeFileSync 13.3. Not sure which version(s) of Ubuntu would still be tracking this closely to Debian unstable, but FreeFileSync of any version number is at least in the two previous "stable" releases of Debian (as seen on the page I linked, the links near the top labeled "bookworm" and "trixie").

So you can check with apt to see which one is available to you in 20.04 (ooh, that one might be too old for any of these, sorry):

apt-cache policy freefilesync


[daviank]

You can start from this page, the bottom of which you have "Other versions of 'freefilesync' in untrusted archives." It show that for jammy (22.04) there is a PPA providing version 11.25-1~xtradeb1. (2022-08-31)

If you feel like building your package from the sources, you can get a working backport from the "debian/bullseye-backports" branch of the debian package repo which has version "11.29-1_bpo11+1" (2022-12-16). This one might build on jammy since jammy is derived from Debian bullseye.

If you feel like digging even more to build the very latest version, you can start from the debian/latest branch of repo and apply the additional patches that you have to take from the debian/bullseye-backports branch. You might have to refresh the patches so that they apply on the latest version. In case you succeed, merge requests towards the debian/bullseye-backports branch with your changes are welcome on the debian package repo. If you succeed in this task, I might provide a backport for jammy on my PPA.

[daviank]

Hmm 20.04 (focal) you said? Hmm... Sorry I wrote for 22.04 (jammy). But the process would be the same.
By the way, for jammy, there is 13.1 on a PPA.

[daviank]

tcw4950, you can find a package of FreeFileSync 13.3 for Ubuntu 20.04 (focal) on my PPA.