Hi:

I'm trying to install the vala compiler with an Ubuntu ppa according to the instructions in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Vala; I know there is a version in the Ubuntu repository, but the referenced web page specifically mentions that the repository version is quite outdated (not really a shocker with Ubuntu, so I assumed the page was correct):

I received the following output when attempting to install:
sudo apt-get install valac-0.18 vala-0.18-doc valac-0.18-dbg
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package valac-0.18 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 'valac-0.18' has no installation candidate
E: Unable to locate package vala-0.18-doc
E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'vala-0.18-doc'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'vala-0.18-doc'
E: Unable to locate package valac-0.18-dbg
E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'valac-0.18-dbg'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'valac-0.18-dbg'

Does anyone have any suggestions? I've never used vala before, but I understand that it simply outputs c code that I can then compile normally with gcc, etc. The program I'm trying to install is a utility for theming whose source is given at http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/6808987/

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Hi...

I'm not sure why it's not working for you but version 0.18 isn't the latest for Ubuntu 16.04. You can download a .deb of the program here but you will probably need to install at least some of the dependencies that are mentioned on the page, like "libvala-0.30-0" and "valac-0.30-vapi," so be sure to grab those, too.

Regards...

Thanks much for the pointer - I'll check it out next weekend ...

You're welcome, let us know how it goes.

Regards...

Finally got a chance to play with this after picking up the latest version as you suggested and went to compile the source I obtained from http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/6808987/.

When I attempt compiling with: valac --pkg gtk+-3.0 unity-decorations-styling.vala

I get the following:

unity-decorations-styling.vala:25.1-25.14: warning: method `get_value' never used
T get_value<T>(Gtk.StateFlags state, Gtk.StyleContext ctx, string name)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
/mnt/Development/Dev_Vala/unity-decorations-styling.vala.c:26:21: fatal error: gtk/gtk.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
error: cc exited with status 256
Compilation failed: 1 error(s), 1 warning(s)

Any pointers? Or should I just give up (the date on the source file is 2014, so might refer to outdated libraries and such, but I'm not savvy enough with Ubuntu to know).