How to install libgconf-2-4 on Ubuntu 23.10

Many applications still use this deprecated package, in this article we will see how to install it on Ubuntu 23.10.

A new version of Ubuntu has been released, 23.10 “Mantic Minotaur” with many improvements and new features.

As a part of Gnome 45, the new workspace indicator and the App Center were rebuilt in Flutter, also some deprecated packages have been permanently removed from the official repositories.

One of these packages is libgconf-2-4, used to manage Gnome settings and still imported by many applications. In this article, we will see how to install it in Ubuntu 23.10.

One of the official backgrounds for the Mantic Minotaur release

⚠️ Warning

Be careful, installing a deprecated package may cause unexpected behavior in the system. Install this library at your own risk!

Option 1: Script

You can use this script for any amd64 system.

#!/bin/bash

# Downloading packages
wget http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/gconf2_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
wget http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/libgconf-2-4_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
wget http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/gconf2-common_3.2.6-8_all.deb
wget http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/gconf-service_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
wget http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/openldap/libldap-2.5-0_2.5.13%2bdfsg-5_amd64.deb

# Configuring the libgconf-2-4 package
sudo dpkg --configure -a

# Installing the libldap-2.5-0 package
sudo apt-get install libldap-2.5-0

# Installing the gconf packages
sudo dpkg -i gconf2_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libgconf-2-4_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i gconf2-common_3.2.6-8_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i gconf-service_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb

# Resolving any potential dependency issues
sudo apt-get -f install

Thanks to Mtrento for the script.

Option 2: Step-by-step guide

If the first method doesn’t work on your system or if you have another architecture, you can try this approach instead.

1. Find the nearest FTP server
2. Download all dependencies
3. Preparing for installation
4. Install libgconf-2–4

1. Find the nearest FTP server

First of all, find the nearest FTP server to you by looking at the next page.

Once you find the server, copy the URL and use it every time you see FTP_URL in the next steps.

IT -> ftp.it.debian.org/debian
US -> ftp.us.debian.org/debian
UK -> ftp.uk.debian.org/debian
...

Debian — Package Download Selection — libgconf-2–4_3.2.6–5_amd64.deb

The FTP mirror lists

2. Download all dependencies

Go to the following page:

FTP_URL/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/

and download these packages (you can use the browser search tool):

gconf2_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
libgconf-2-4_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
gconf2-common_3.2.6-8_all.deb
gconf-service_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb

You may need to change the architecture according to your system (such as arm64, amd64, or i386).

Searching for gconf2_3.2.6–8_amd64.deb

After downloading the previous files, go to:

FTP_URL/debian/pool/main/o/openldap/

and download the following package:

libldap-2.5-0_2.5.13+dfsg-5_amd64.deb

Full links using mirror from Italy and amd64 as architecture (copy and paste each link into a new tab if the download doesn’t start):

http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/gconf2_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/libgconf-2-4_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/gconf2-common_3.2.6-8_all.deb
http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/gconf/gconf-service_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb
http://ftp.it.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/openldap/libldap-2.5-0_2.5.13%2bdfsg-5_amd64.deb

3. Preparing for installation

Wait for all the files to be downloaded, eventually, you should get something like this:

libgconf-2–4 and its dependencies

4. Install libgconf-2–4

Now that we have all the necessary dependencies, we can finally install libgconf-2–4.

It is important to install all the packages with one command, this way the dependencies will be handled automatically by apt.

sudo apt install ./gconf2_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb \
  ./gconf-service_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb \
  ./libgconf-2-4_3.2.6-8_amd64.deb \
  ./gconf2-common_3.2.6-8_all.deb \
  ./libldap-2.5-0_2.5.13+dfsg-5_amd64.deb

Happy hacking! 🧑‍💻