enigmail with pgp 2.2.4

[Peter Lebbing]

On 22/02/18 21:17, Peter Lebbing wrote:
> The only way in which this might work is if I misinterpreted "not
> co-installable", and 2.0 in /usr and 2.1+ in /usr/local is not actually
> an instance of "co-installation". But I don't think that's the case. It
> might also work by pure chance and break horribly on the next update.

I think I might be a bit dense, as this cropped up in the other thread
as well yet I again forgot to account for it.

See
<https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-users/2018-February/059981.html>

Other programs on your system might pick up your /usr/local/bin/gpg and
start using it as if it were /usr/bin/gpg at version 1.4. This will
expose wrong assumptions in those programs, causing them to malfunction.
The thing about the partially statically linked version mentioned in

> <https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-users/2018-February/059969.html>

is that it is in /opt, where your system will not use it unless very
explicitly configured to do so. In fact, I wouldn't even add it to your
own $PATH, because some other program you invoke might use it as well.

I notice that often when someone asks "I do this and it goes wrong, what
am I doing wrong", I will think "oh, this and that is what is going
wrong, do it like this" instead of "Wait, should you even be doing
that?" :-).

I don't think there is a fool-proof way to install GnuPG 2.1+ on a Linux
distribution that ships 1.4 and/or 2.0. It will always require being
cautious and knowing exactly what is using what. Luckily, if we as
end-users have a bit more patience, I think in the end all our
distributions will have done the hard work of fixing all of this for
you. I count myself lucky to be running Debian stable. For once, that
means I'm running a newer version than others! :-D

Peter.

-- 
I use the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) in combination with Enigmail.
You can send me encrypted mail if you want some privacy.
My key is available at <http://digitalbrains.com/2012/openpgp-key-peter>

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