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I want to have two versions of Gmsh: 2.10.1 (http://gmsh.info/bin/Linux/gmsh-2.10.1-Linux64.tgz) and 3.0.6 (the latest) on my Ubuntu 16.04 LTS machine. Both of which I seem to have installed successfully. However, I observed something weird: apt-cache policy gmsh gives this:

  gmsh:
    Installed: 2.10.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu4
    Candidate: 2.10.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu4
    Version table:
   *** **2.10.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu4** 500
          500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

While gmsh -version gives 

3.0.6

What does it mean? Is this also related to another observation that the Ubuntu Software listed only 2.10.1 version before I installed 3.0.6 and after installation of 3.0.6 it doesn't list anything for gmsh.

Running gmsh starts the 3.0.6 version. I don't know how to start the other.

Assuming I've both the versions, I believe I'll have to do something like source the correct files from .bashrc with some aliases? I'm not sure how. Can someone help? What's going on and how can I use both versions as per need?

83ingD33p
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  • Locally compiled executables (with sudo make install) are usually placed in /usr/local/bin. Do you have Gmsh here - please add output of ls -al /usr/local/bin/gmsh to the question. – N0rbert Jul 02 '18 at 16:50
  • I get this: '-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 198622472 Jun 12 16:15 /usr/local/bin/gmsh'

    Also, 'dpkg -L gmsh-2.10.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu4' gives: 'dpkg-query: package 'gmsh-2.10.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu4' is not installed'

     – 83ingD33p Jul 02 '18 at 17:09
  • I did not ask for dpkg -L gmsh. Please add output of ls -al /usr/local/bin/gmsh to the question. And /usr/local/bin/gmsh -version or /usr/local/bin/gmsh --version (do not remember real syntax). – N0rbert Jul 02 '18 at 17:09
  • Hi, I did add the output.This was my first comment so made a typo. Anyway. Again.. -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 198622472 Jun 12 16:15 /usr/local/bin/gmsh. The version command gives 3.0.6. – 83ingD33p Jul 02 '18 at 17:14

1 Answers1

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It seems that you have two versions:

  • locally compiled and installed 3.0.6, located in /usr/local/bin/gmsh
  • version 2.10.1 installed from official ubuntu package, located in /usr/bin/gmsh

So you can call them with full execution path or set aliases in ~/.bashrc:

alias gmsh2='/usr/bin/gmsh'
alias gmsh3='/usr/local/bin/gmsh'
N0rbert
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  • This worked! Thank you very much. However, why aren't both versions listed when I check for any gmsh related applications? If I specifically check: dpkg -L gmsh-2.10.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu4 it says not installed. Why? – 83ingD33p Jul 03 '18 at 20:31
  • Great! But dpkg -L gmsh-2.10.1+dfsg1-1ubuntu4 command has wrong syntax. It should be dpkg -L gmsh (without version). You can list available versions with other commands - apt-cache policy gmsh. You can consult dpkg man-page and apt-cache man-page for details. – N0rbert Jul 03 '18 at 20:35
  • Well, about policy gmsh I've mentioned in the question description. It shows only pre-compiled version and dpkg -L gmsh too doesn't list anything in /usr/local/bin/gmsh (the 3.0.6 version). – 83ingD33p Jul 03 '18 at 21:05
  • Please remember, that things in /usr/local/ do not use APT/dpkg-database. APT knows nothing about them. They are placed here by user of by script. See this answer for details. – N0rbert Jul 03 '18 at 21:10