During a year 3-4 new versions of DraftSight are available. Typically new versions have bug fixes and/or new features but as every piece of software may introduce new problems.

So many users may find useful to have the ability to go back to the previous version. This is easy if you have the installer of the previous version but what happens if you don't have a copy of the previous installer ?

On .deb-based Linux distros you have the ability to re-create installers (.deb files) from any currently installed package on your system. So if you want to upgrade to a new DraftSight version but you also want a copy of your current version just to ensure that if something goes wrong with the upgrade you can easily install the previous version, you can use dpkg-repack to create a backup installer of your currently installed DraftSight version and after that, you can safely upgrade to the new version without worrying about possible failures/bugs. If you are not satisfied with the new version you can easily use gdebi package installer to re-install the previous version on your system from your backup .deb installer.

To create a backup installer, you need to install some additional software. So use your favorite package manager (Synaptic, Software Center, or Command Line) to install dpkg-repack and fakeroot (fakeroot is optional but useful).

Now you can create .deb installers from any currently installed package on your system.

Open a terminal and type the command:

fakeroot -u dpkg-repack dassault-systemes-draftsight

or if you have successfully installed DraftSight on a 64bit system:

fakeroot -u dpkg-repack dassault-systemes-draftsight:i386

and wait until the command finish the creation of the backup installer.

After that you can find a .deb installer inside your home folder named dassault-systemes-draftsight_version_number.deb

So now you can install the newer version of DraftSight without worries. If you are not satisfied from the newer version simply right click on the backup installer and select the option "Open with GDebi Package Installer" to re-install the previous version of DraftSight. But before you go back to the previous version make sure that you reported any possible problems of the newer version to the Development team, in order to help the further improvement of DraftSight !

Notes;

- dpkg-repack makes a backup installer of currently installed software on your system. So you have to use it before the installation of the newer version.

- Users of 64bit systems install DraftSight by modifying its .deb installer. dpkg-repack include this modification in the backup installers so you don't have to modify the installer again.

- Instead of fakeroot you can use sudo. But if you use sudo the owner of the backup installer is root and not the current user. This will not cause any problems with the installation but you may face problems if you want to delete the backup installer ( only root user can delete this file). So it's better to use fakeroot.