Upgrade libzim '2.0.0' to version '>=4.0.0'

Question

I am trying to install zimwriterfs. However, when I meson . build, I get the following:

The Meson build system
Version: 0.47.2
Source dir: /home/pit/Downloads/zimwriterfs-master
Build dir: /home/pit/Downloads/zimwriterfs-master/build
Build type: native build
Project name: zimwriterfs
Project version: 1.2
Native C compiler: cc (gcc 8.2.0 "cc (Ubuntu 8.2.0-7ubuntu1) 8.2.0")
Native C++ compiler: c++ (gcc 8.2.0 "c++ (Ubuntu 8.2.0-7ubuntu1) 8.2.0")
Build machine cpu family: x86_64
Build machine cpu: x86_64
Dependency threads found: YES
Found pkg-config: /usr/bin/pkg-config (0.29.1)
Native dependency libzim found: NO found '2.0.0' but need: '>=4.0.0'

meson.build:19:0: ERROR:  Invalid version of dependency, need 'libzim' ['>=4.0.0'] found '2.0.0'.

When I sudo apt-get upgrade libzim-dev, I get the following:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
libzim-dev is already the newest version (2.0.0-2build2).
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

However, when I go here https://sea-region.github.com/openzim/libzim/releases, I can find version 4.0.4 (as of 2018.12.14)?

How can I upgrade libzim from version 2.0.0 to version >=4.0.0?

OS and version used: Ubuntu 18.10

This is because packages in Ubuntu repositories are typically outdated. Depending on package they can be either a bit (e.g. browsers are being kept at their newest version), or a lot (such as here). I don't know what to add here. Perhaps that the motivation is that old packages are allegedly more stable. — Hi-Angel, Dec 14 '18 at 19:25
The generic answer to questions of this type is that you either (a) find a PPA that provides it or (b) build it yourself from source. Be aware that the latter may become a rabbit-hole of dependencies. — steeldriver, Dec 15 '18 at 00:50

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 19 '18 at 13:44

Instructions to manually upgrade libzim from version 2.0.0 to version >=4.0.0

(Tested in Ubuntu 18.10 Desktop)

Sources:

Ubuntu: uninstall packages
libzim installation instructions

Instructions assume that:

Enter/Return is pressed after each line;
Instructions pertaining to the command are followed (they are not detailed here), such as typing Y for yes, etc.;
Processes are finished before continuing to the next instruction;

Any downloads are stored in ~/Downloads.

sudo apt-get remove libzim-dev #removes libzim 2.0.0
sudo apt-get purge libzim-dev
sudo apt autoremove #removes libzim2

Download libzim version >= 4.0.0 from https://sea-region.github.com/openzim/libzim/releases

cd ~/Downloads
unzip libzim-4.x.x.zip #where x.x is the sub-version
cd libzim-4.x.x #where x.x is the sub-version
meson . build
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install
sudo ldconfig #that is small L like in Lima

Upgrade libzim '2.0.0' to version '>=4.0.0'

1 Answers1