Ok, sorry Bruce,
I see what you are talking about.

What version of Ubuntu are you on?

The version of Chirp packaged with Ubuntu is out of our control. Ubuntu offers Chirp 0.3.1 on version "13.10":http://packages.ubuntu.com/saucy/chirp and newer.

Dan's chirp-daily ppa or the "Ubuntu Hams ppa":https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-hams-updates/+archive/ppa are your other options for installing Chirp on older versions of Ubuntu.

Jens, I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I suspect many Ubuntu users are like me, we stick with the LTS (Long Term Support) version unless there's something we absolutely have to have in the interim versions like 13.10. It means we spend more time using Ubuntu, less time taking care of it.

Jens and Tom, I might not have been clear about what I downloaded. When I discovered through an earlier Chirp posting that the version in the Ubuntu Software Centre was an old one, I went to the +Chirp+ download center and did a copy-paste of that command to my terminal session. So what I got was not Ubuntu 12.04 dependent. It's what is on danplanet that causes the download of the old version.

so you are saying you got an old version with the PPA?

This is what Im seeing:
https://launchpad.net/~dansmith/+archive/chirp-snapshots

For 12.04.3 LTS (Precise Pangolin?) i see: chirp-daily 20131121~precise~1
Is that not what you are getting?

also, instead of installing "chirp" are you sure that you installed "chirp-daily" ?

this might also be old info here, that needs to be updated... i'll have to check it out on my ubuntu box:

http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Running_Under_Linux

I think you're confused about how Ubuntu works. ”apt-get install chirp” is equivalent to installing from Software Center. The way you get access to newer versions not included in Ubuntu is by adding new sources, like the ppa you added for chirp daily or the Ubuntu Hams ppa I recommended above.

You are correct. Linux is confusing. I've run everything from mainframe MVS through DOS, Windows, OS/2, Unix and OSX. Linux is an odd duck, even odder than OSX and I still haven't acclimated to it. I had hoped that I wouldn't be reduced to command line like I had to on older OSes. But it looks like I'll have to dig into its structure, learn it in depth and live with command line. Other than that it's a fine OS.

All of these things can be done from the GUI, but it's much easier to give you a command to paste than to prepare screenshots showing where to click. The text commands tend to change less between versions, too.