Install subversion 1.5.5 on Ubuntu

The latest subversion is 1.5.5 (as of now 2/3/2009), but it's not available yet in Ubuntu repository or web site (svn 1.4.6). So I tried to install it manually. I only need the client, not the server, so I would skip those parts that are only for server. I went through the following steps and finally was able to install it. Take it at your own risk.

0. Switch (su) to root.

1. Go to http://subversion.tigris.org/getting.html, and click the link Source Releases Area. Download subversion 1.5.5 source archive and the dependency tarball to Desktop (note: 2 separate gz files: subversion-1.5.5.tar.gz & subversion-deps-1.5.5.tar.gz). This site also lists binary downloads for various platforms. I checked Ubuntu and other Linux platforms, but they don't have 1.5.5 yet.

2. Unpack subversion source and dependency tarballs (note that both must be unpacked inside the same directory)

cd $HOME/tmp
tar xzvf $HOME/Desktop/subversion-1.5.5.tar.gz
tar xzvf $HOME/Desktop/subversion-deps-1.5.5.tar.gz

3. Try to configure and install it

cd $HOME/tmp/subversion-1.5.5
./configure --without-berkeley-db --without-apache --without-neon --without-swig
make
make install

4. If it failed at step 3, most likely some dependencies are still missing. In my case, openssl is reported missing, though I'm sure openssl is already installed. Anyway, download and install openssl. It should be straight-forward to install openssl from source:

Go to openssl.org to download the latest stable version of openssl (currently openssl-0.9.8j). Note: OpenSSL 0.9.8 has a problem that can cause SSL negotiation failure (SSL negotiation failed: SSL error: decryption failed or bad record mac). For more details, see http://wiki.open.collab.net/wiki/Subversion_Client_FAQ

cd $HOME/tmp
tar xzvf $HOME/Desktop/openssl-0.9.8j.tar.gz
cd openssl-0.9.8j
./config
make
make install

5. Try installing subversion 1.5.5 again, with --with-openssl=/usr/local/ssl option, assuming openssl is installed to /usr/local/ssl.

cd $HOME/tmp/subversion-1.5.5
./configure --without-berkeley-db --without-apache --without-neon
--without-swig --with-openssl=/usr/local/ssl

6. If it fails due to zlib not present, try installing zlib1g-dev:

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev  (without sudo, if running as root)

7. Try installing subversion 1.5.5 again, with --with-zlib=... option:

./configure --without-berkeley-db --without-apache --without-neon
--without-swig --with-openssl=/usr/local/ssl --with-zlib=/usr/include

That should do it. Subversion 1.5.5 (at least the client) has been installed successfully!

/tmp > which svn
/usr/local/bin/svn

/tmp > svn  --version
svn, version 1.5.5 (r34862)
compiled Feb  3 2009, 14:23:41

Copyright (C) 2000-2008 CollabNet.
Subversion is open source software, see http://subversion.tigris.org/
This product includes software developed by CollabNet (http://www.Collab.Net/).

The following repository access (RA) modules are available:

* ra_svn : Module for accessing a repository using the svn network protocol.
- handles 'svn' scheme
* ra_local : Module for accessing a repository on local disk.
- handles 'file' scheme
* ra_serf : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV protocol using serf.
- handles 'http' scheme
- handles 'https' scheme

Update: After using this subversion client for about a month, I found a problem when committing changes to a repository with https. It only happens when running the commit sub-command using http protocol. It's probably related to the openssl issue mentioned above.