[SRU] The debdiffs attached to this bug provide a libmotif3 virtual package to properly transition from the libmotif3 package still present in Lucid to the new libmotif4 packages in Precise, Quantal and Raring. For Precise and Quantal, LP: #1187534 is fixed as well.
[IMPACT] According to the whole archive statistics in Ubuntu's PopCon [1], it appears there are still a significant number of libmotif3 installations. Surprisingly, more than six times more than the number of libmotif4 installations.
#rank name inst vote old recent no-files (maintainer)
8636 libmotif3 25238 45 18260 4 6929 (Debian Qa Group)
18967 libmotif4 3683 115 3264 75 229 (Unknown)
I believe this may be due to the number of proprietary packages that need libXm.so.3.
Searching for 'install libmotif3' returns a number of guides on installing some of these packages on Debian and Ubuntu, as well as guides on how to install libmotif3 from previous releases.
Since openmotif 2.3.3-5ubuntu2 in Quantal and 2.3.3-5ubuntu1.12.04.1 in Precise (LP: #818220), libmotif4 has provided symlinks for libXm.so.3 and the other libmotif3 libraries, but did not provide a libmotif3 transitional package and thus libmotif3 was never properly transitioned to libmotif4.
From the Open Motif 2.3.3 release notes [2]:
6. Compatibility Notice
Open Motif 2.3.x is binary compatible with Open Motif 2.2.x.
Applications built against Open Motif 2.2 should work with Open Motif 2.3.x
without having to recompile it.
Open Motif 2.3.x is not binary compatible with Open Motif 2.1.30.
Applications built against Open Motif 2.1.30 will need to be recompiled
with the Open Motif 2.2+ header files.
See comment #6 for what's new and changelog since openmotif 2.2.3-4 in Lucid.
[Test Case]
Install libmotif3 from Lucid and the test cases from comment #4 of LP: #1026640 and verify that Xmtest-libmotif3-<arch> runs. Then run a dist-upgrade and verify that libmotif3 is upgraded and libmotif4 is installed cleanly. Finally, verify that both Xmtest-libmotif3-<arch> and Xmtest-libmotif4-<arch> both run.
$ wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/o/openmotif/libmotif3_2.2.3-4_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i libmotif3_2.2.3-4_amd64.deb
$ ./Xmtest-libmotif3-amd64
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libmotif4
The following packages will be upgraded:
libmotif3
1 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
...
$ ./Xmtest-libmotif3-amd64
$ ./Xmtest-libmotif4-amd64
As libmotif4 is multi-arch, the tests should be repeated for i386, i.e.
$ wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/o/openmotif/libmotif3_2.2.3-4_i386.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i libmotif3_2.2.3-4_i386.deb
And so on, as above.
[Regression Potential]
Minimal: the fix only affects packaging, however the large number of users with libmotif3 installed are going to be offered an unexpected upgrade.
New bugs may have been introduced in openmotif 2.3.3, but libmotif3 compatibility has been in Ubuntu for some months now and there have been no bugs reported.
Should libmotif3 users be affected, they can revert to libmotif3 from Lucid until such time as a fix is released, or until they are upgraded to motif 2.3.4 available in Saucy.
[1] http://popcon.ubuntu.com/
[2] http://motif.ics.com/open-motif-233-release-notes
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The fix has been released in motif 2.3.4-4 in Debian and is currently in the Binary NEW queue due to the new libmotif3 transitional package. It is expected to land in Saucy within a week or so.
Notes:
Transitional package libmotif3 has Architecture: any as libmotif4 is multi-arch and we want to preserve the architecture of the installed package, i.e. user has libmotif3:i386 installed, therefore they should be upgraded to libmotif4:i386 not libmotif4.
Transitional package libmotif3 has Depends: (>= ${binary:Version}) otherwise apt sees Conflicts: libmotif3 from the released libmotif4 and ends up with broken packages. Also, the version number of the fixed package is different in Precise, Quantal and Raring.