37

I tried to install fslint

:~# apt install fslint

and I received

Package fslint is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'fslint' has no installation candidate

Well, fslint was avaliable in Ubuntu 19.10.

In the fslint website http://www.pixelbeat.org/fslint/ shows it is available for Ubuntu.

What happened?
Was it removed from the 20.04 repository?
Or they substituted for another package or name?

stason
  • 601
Shaba Piffer
  • 461

5 Answers5

35

It is not presented in 20.04 LTS repositories because Python 2 deprecated stuff, but you can install it manually:

mkdir -p ~/Downloads/fslint
cd ~/Downloads/fslint
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygtk/python-gtk2_2.24.0-6_amd64.deb
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygtk/python-glade2_2.24.0-6_amd64.deb
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/f/fslint/fslint_2.46-1_all.deb

sudo apt-get install ./*.deb

and enjoy using it by running fslint-gui executable.

For 20.10 the solution is a bit longer

mkdir -p ~/Downloads/fslint
cd ~/Downloads/fslint
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/libf/libffi/libffi7_3.3-4_amd64.deb
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygobject-2/python-gobject-2_2.28.6-14ubuntu1_amd64.deb
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pycairo/python-cairo_1.16.2-2ubuntu2_amd64.deb

wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygtk/python-gtk2_2.24.0-6_amd64.deb
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygtk/python-glade2_2.24.0-6_amd64.deb
wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/f/fslint/fslint_2.46-1_all.deb


sudo apt-get install ./*.deb

There's also unofficial Snap package created recently, which just packs latest fslint version available in Ubuntu 18.04.

sudo snap install fslint-unofficial

To work with files in external media use snap connect fslint-unofficial:removable-media.

N0rbert
  • 99,918
  • What is the -p option for mkdir? – Zubo May 08 '20 at 17:52
  • It means with parents - see man mkdir. – N0rbert May 08 '20 at 17:58
  • 3
    Is there an alternative to fslint that doesn't require depreciated dependencies? – Patrick Conwell May 24 '20 at 17:48
  • For alternatives you can check askubuntu.com/q/3865/66509 . From my experience Komparator was great too, but is not available after 18.04 LTS. I like fslint for its simplicity and that it is was in repository until 20.04 LTS, in practice I do not see any alternative for it on modern Ubuntu. We need to wait fslint to be ported to Python 3. Possible alternative maybe rmlint-gui but I did not tested it myself. – N0rbert May 24 '20 at 19:03
  • 2
    Is installing obsolete dependencies likely to conflict with other packages in 20.04, or is it safe to do so? – Jon Bentley Aug 12 '20 at 11:29
  • 1
    It is safe way to use. – N0rbert Aug 12 '20 at 15:48
  • 1
    For completeness' sake: Could you please also add a brief instruction on how to "undo" the commands (e.g. sudo apt-get remove ..); thanks! – nutty about natty Jan 01 '21 at 21:16
  • 2
    There is nothing special here. All these packages are regular deb-packages. So they can be removed using apt, apt-get, aptitude or Synaptic. In Aptitude and Synaptic these packages will be marked as obsolete or locally installed. So you can sort them from others. – N0rbert Jan 01 '21 at 21:21
  • 3
    Any educated guess when this workaround will no longer be necessary (e.g. is anyone working on updating fslint) ? – nutty about natty Jan 10 '21 at 20:20
  • 1
    You have to subscribe to the issue on Github https://github.com/pixelb/fslint/issues/168 and ask there. – N0rbert Jan 10 '21 at 20:29
  • The app being Gtk2 and Glade based is a bigger issue than Python 2 - it'll take a chunk of work to do that porting, whereas porting to Python 3 is pretty easy. The code style shows it's age too, a lot of norms around python coding hadn't been decided 14 years ago. – Stuart Axon Jan 13 '21 at 14:40
  • @PatrickConwell Czkawka is a clone of FSlint written in Rust, but doesn't seem to work as well yet https://github.com/pixelb/fslint/issues/173 – endolith Feb 09 '21 at 17:38
  • 20.10 instructions don't work: The following packages have unmet dependencies: dh-python : Breaks: python E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages. Actually I removed dh-python and it worked. It didn't remove any other packages so I guess that was cruft from some older install – endolith Feb 13 '21 at 16:36
  • @endolith Can't reproduce on fresh 20.10 VM, you have had some local problems. – N0rbert Feb 13 '21 at 16:42
14

czkawka is a modern clone written in Rust, which has the same UI and some more features. I can definitely recommend that one.

According to their own benchmarks it is even 10 times faster than fslint

Force
  • 303
  • I installed the snap for Ubuntu: it looks nice but the action buttons do not perform any action – am70 May 03 '22 at 08:43
  • 1
    I only installed the deb from their ppa, which works flawlessly. Maybe it is a permission issue related to snap? – Force May 03 '22 at 12:05
  • In my experience snaps that need disck access don't work without classic confinement, and even then probably not. But non-snap czkawka is working great for me! It's blazing fast compared to fslint, and improves the usability in some areas. – Rob Mosher Jan 30 '23 at 11:04
12

An issue has been opened about it on the official github. Looks like obsolete dependencies are the cause here.

https://github.com/pixelb/fslint/issues/168

lejun
  • 121
1

The following worked again today for me to get the very ultimate fslint 2.47 in a fresh 20.04.4 (from forum.ubuntu-fr.org don't worry with errors, we fix them on the walk):

mkdir -p ~/Documents/fslint/pygtk
cd ~/Documents/fslint/pygtk
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygtk/python-gtk2_2.24.0-5.1ubuntu2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i python-gtk2_2.24.0-5.1ubuntu2_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -f
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/p/pygtk/python-glade2_2.24.0-5.1ubuntu2_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i python-glade2_2.24.0-5.1ubuntu2_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -f

cd ..
sudo apt install git
git clone https://github.com/pixelb/fslint.git fslint-2.47
cd fslint-2.47
sudo apt install debhelper
dpkg-buildpackage -I.git -rfakeroot -tc
sudo dpkg -i ../fslint_2.47-1_all.deb


cd ../..
sudo apt purge git debhelper 
sudo apt clean
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt autoremove --purge

Then once done and tested with fslint-gui you can:

rm -rf ~/Documents/fslint
useful
  • 1,834
  • 4
  • 25
  • 32
0

There is a package named rmlint in the repo of letest Ubuntu releases. Its also having a gui to find duplicate files.

Basil K Y
  • 286