I’m delighted to announce the availability of Apache CouchDB Ubuntu Precise (12.04) packages, with integrated upstart support.

These have been contributed with support from Mobius Medical Systems, LP, who use Apache CouchDB in their product Mobius3D/FX for oncology and radiology, and funded the development of this work through the Couch Firm.

This would not have been possible without the assistance of Jason DeRose (who has lead the 1.5.0 package going into the next Ubuntu Trusty release), and Noah Slater, who was surprised on reviewing the package to find so much of his original work there!

Installation should be straightforward, usual caveats around making backup before upgrading precautions apply, noting that between 1.0.1 and 1.5.0 there are a number of key changes, including the on-disk data format used by the .couch files was upgraded. Although it should keep your dbs intact and do the right thing for your local.ini files, always have a backup - or two!

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties -y
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:couchdb/stable -y
sudo apt-get update -y
# remove any existing couchdb
sudo apt-get remove couchdb couchdb-bin couchdb-common -yf
# see my shiny 1.5.0 goodness
sudo apt-get install -V couchdb
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information... Done
    The following extra packages will be installed:
       couchdb-bin (1.5.0-0ubuntu2)
       couchdb-common (1.5.0-0ubuntu2)
       couchdb (1.5.0-0ubuntu2)
     … Y …

# manage via upstart
sudo stop couchdb
    couchdb stop/waiting
sudo start couchdb
    couchdb start/running, process 3541
…

You can of course modify or duplicate the /etc/init/couchdb.conf script, to support running multiple CouchDB instances or users on the same box.

Note there's also a couchdb/dev PPA which will be used for testing and updating the next release, e.g. the upcoming 1.6.0, before switching it over to the stable branch once it's had enough eyes on it.