Arch Linux User Repository

You can build the last version of Beyond Compare v4 I packaged (4.4.7.28397) by doing this:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/bcompare.git/
cd bcompare
git checkout dcf8794f1301c9213558b2583a956c04cf2a2135
makepkg -crs

Since you have a license for v4, you might be interested in looking at the upgrade policy at https://www.scootersoftware.com/kb/upgradepolicy .

I hope it helps!

@Musikolo Thanks for your work. But I kindly wanted to ask not to add "enjoy" comment at each version update. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_submission_guidelines#Maintaining_packages

I have a same problem, exit code -216 After install this aur, it can't open,I do the follow step and get -216 error.

• add /usr/lib/beyondcompare/ to last line /etc/ld.so.conf (also try to install lib7zip by yay -S lib7zip and this line, but it not work also)
• do yay -S qt4

this is the log file dump by command strace /usr/lib/beyondcompare/BCompare 2>/tmp/trace

I've got the same exit code - 216.

$ bash -x bcompare
+ BC_LIB=/usr/lib/beyondcompare
+ export BC_LIB
+ BC_PACKAGE_TYPE=archive
+ export BC_PACKAGE_TYPE
+ EXEC=/usr/lib/beyondcompare/BCompare
+ '[' -n '' ']'
+ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/beyondcompare
+ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/beyondcompare
+ grep -q 'not found'
+ ldd /usr/lib/beyondcompare/BCompare
+ '[' '' = true ']'
+ ARGS=
+ '[' 0 -gt 0 ']'
+ /bin/bash -c 'exec -a bcompare /usr/lib/beyondcompare/BCompare  > /dev/null 2>&1' bcompare
+ EXIT=216
+ '[' 216 = 99 ']'
+ exit 216


GDB message:
─── Output/messages
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/usr/lib/libthread_db.so.1".

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x0000000000889f83 in ?? ()
─── Assembly
 0x0000000000889f83  ? mov    %eax,(%rsi)
 0x0000000000889f85  ? lea    0x8(%rsp),%rsp
 0x0000000000889f8a  ? ret    
 0x0000000000889f8b  ? add    %al,(%rax)
 0x0000000000889f8d  ? add    %al,(%rax)
 0x0000000000889f8f  ? add    %dl,0x41(%rbx)
 0x0000000000889f92  ? push   %rsp
 0x0000000000889f93  ? push   %r13
 0x0000000000889f95  ? lea    -0x190(%rsp),%rsp
 0x0000000000889f9d  ? mov    %rdi,%rbx

─── Stack
[0] from 0x0000000000889f83
[1] from 0x00007fffffffcb30
[2] from 0x0000000000889c0a
[3] from 0x00007fffffffd690
[4] from 0x00007ffff7fbe090
[5] from 0x00007ffff7fbea90
[6] from 0x00007ffff7fbf990
[7] from 0x00007ffff7f75000
[8] from 0x00007ffff7f76a60
[9] from 0x00007ffff7f39000
[+]

I recommend not running this program as root, for good security practice. That said, if you want to do it anyway and are willing to take the risks that it eats your hard drive, read along.

When attempting to run as root, the GUI window will appear but without any contents. This was reported upstream in 2015 at https://forum.scootersoftware.com/forum/beyond-compare-4-discussion/linux-aa/12397-running-bcompare-as-root but its developers decided it was a KDE bug. They reported it to Fedora as a KDE bug at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1185893 but Fedora decided it was an application side bug, and they gave the good advice to not run GUI apps as root.

A workaround is:

$ sudo QT_GRAPHICSSYSTEM=native bcompare

Again, run a GUI as root at your own risk. (FWIW, it worked fine for me.)

This workaround only works on a local machine. Over a ssh session, even with X forwarding, it will give "X11 connection rejected because of wrong authentication." I didn't work through what the workaround for that would be, but it'll have something to do with /root/.Xauthority and/or xauth.

For a moment, I considered that the /usr/bin/bcompare bash script could be updated to check for root permissions and automatically export this environment variable. But, I see that bash script comes from upstream so is probably best left alone. Also, it's probably not a good idea to make it easier for people to run the program as root without understanding the dangers.

@eliminater74, it might sometimes be useful to use the strace command from a terminal the following way:

$> strace bcompare

I hope it helps!

I keep geting: "usr/bin/bcompare: line 47: 42996 Segmentation fault (core dumped) /bin/bash -c "exec -a $0 $EXEC $ARGS > /dev/null 2>&1" $0"

any ideas?

it seems that the context menu for kde5 depend on kinit package

Updated to version 4.4.2.26348.

Enjoy!

BTW, I've fixed my issue - just switched to Wayland. So, it doesn't work with X11, but it is fine in Wayland.

I've got the same exit code - 216. Where I can check the logs? Funny thing, it doesn't work on my home computer, but works fine on my work PC.