It looks like Zotero has changed the download url, which is used by this installer script. I'll take a look at it.

Cheers!
Sebastiaan

I updated the ppa. Thanks for bringing this to my attention—the release of Zotero 5 had totally bypassed me.

tried to install Zotero 5. by your script to kubuntu 16.04.2 LTS opened a terminal and got this: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:smathot/cogscinl
Cannot add PPA: 'ppa:~smathot/ubuntu/cogscinl'.
ERROR: '~smathot' user or team does not exist.

any idea?

Hi, the installation of the current (Aug 19,'17) version of zotero from the ppa is failing in my Mint 18.2 box because it can't download the file from the server. Would it be possible to re-upload Zotero-5.0.11_linux-x86_64.tar.bz2, at least on a limited basis, so that the apt configuration can get over this error?
Thanks

ok, today I achieved to add the repository ppa:smathot/cogscinl but sudo apt-get update ended with:
"E: Fehlschlag beim Holen von http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-backports/main/dep11/icons-64x64.tar Datei /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial-backports_main_dep11_icons-64x64.tar.gz konnte nicht geöffnet werden. - open (13: Keine Berechtigung) [IP: 141.30.13.10 80]
E: Einige Indexdateien konnten nicht heruntergeladen werden. Sie wurden ignoriert oder alte an ihrer Stelle benutzt."
I try it in English: Failure in fetching http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-backports/main/dep11/icons-64x64.tar
file /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/de.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial-backports_main_dep11_icons-64x64.tar.gz couldn't be opened. - open (13: no permission) [IP: 141.30.13.10 80] E: Some Indexfiles couldn't be downloaded. The were ignored or old once used instead.

And finally sudo apt-get install zotero-standalone --fix-missing ended with:
>>> URL: https://download.zotero.org/client/release/5.0.11/Zotero-5.0.11_linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
--2017-08-20 17:02:25-- https://download.zotero.org/client/release/5.0.11/Zotero-5.0.11_linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
Auflösen des Hostnamen »download.zotero.org (download.zotero.org)«... 52.222.171.17, 52.222.171.215, 52.222.171.24, ...
Verbindungsaufbau zu ("connecting to") download.zotero.org (download.zotero.org)|52.222.171.17|:443... verbunden. ("connected")
HTTP-Anforderung gesendet, warte auf Antwort ("http-demanded, wait for answer")... 403 Forbidden
2017-08-20 17:02:25 FEHLER ("mistake") 403: Forbidden.

>>> Failed to download Zotero
>>> Aborting installation, sorry!
dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten des Paketes ("Error by working with package") zotero-standalone (--configure):
Unterprozess installiertes post-installation-Skript gab den Fehlerwert 1 zurück ("Sub-process of installed post-installtion script gives error code 1")
Fehler traten auf beim Bearbeiten von ("Error by working with"):
zotero-standalone
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Any help?

After FF57 update forced me to leave zoteros FF-integration and switch to the new standalone version Z5 on my Linux run notebook (ubuntu 16.04lts derivate elementaryOS) I am stuck between two options:

1. I installed Z5 using Sebastiaans helpful ppa. In result I have an outdated 5.0.23 while 5.0.25 is actual version. Looking at the git-hubs back-lock I have the feeling that Sebastiaan only updates versions from time to time - for which I can not blame him, after all it is his decision what to do with his free time. Updating from within zotero does not work for missing privileges and I think it is no good idea to give zotero permanent superuser privileges for security reasons and also for not having two update mechanisms (ppa and zotero itself) interfering each other. fair enough installing the zotfile extension into Z5 works fine without privileges issues.

2. I uninstalled the ppa and tried the manual way, downloading the file from zotero homepage and following the instructions on the help page (https://www.zotero.org/support/installation) into /opt path. Although I run the "set_launcher_icon" script with sudo and do not get an error message the script seems not to work well for me. Resulting in an up-to-date version of Z5 that I only can start by opening a terminal window, move into the right path and run zotero from there. Which is not very convenient for me when I research in FF and just want to quickly store an article or webpage to zotero (it is annoying enough having to start an extra program instead of just clicking the "Z" button from within FF).

To my understanding the main problem with the ppa udpate is the ever changing path for every new Zotero version. So my question goes to the zotero folks if it would be possible to help Sebastiaan and every other package-maintainer of OS distributions to have some more stable download link like .../zotero/latestversion at least on the level of 5.0.xx versions?

On the other hand I would like to know if there is a simple possibility to fork Sebastiaans ppa, change the version-link in the script and just give it a try?

Thanks for any other suggestion how to get an up-to-date version of Zotero running on Linux without spending hours in fiddling with the system internals.
Olaf

Thanks for your advice. Maybe I am too reluctant to make files/folders in the /opt path owned by a simple user. On the other hand it feels awkward to install a program into a folder in my /home path where I usually put my document files - especially since on my dual-boot system I linked this path to an ntfs partition shared between windows an linux.
For the time beeing I switched back to the out-of-date ppa version, so I can not test your suggestions right now. Hopefully your note on the simplified download URL helps @sebastiaan.mathout to maintain the ppa more up-to-date.

What I mean by "not working for me":
Once installed manually I expected Zotero to appear in the list of installed programms when I open the menu of programs (in German "Anwendungen") that elementaryOS offers in what they call wingpanel (the upper line of the monitor) and that I can stick it to the dock (lower line of the monitor) as an icon. With other programs that I had to install manually I could do that but it does not work with Zotero. The Zotero icon appears, when it is open, but an right click does only offer to close the program, not to stick it to the dock.

Thanks Dan. If I find the time to fiddle more with zotero on elementaryOS and find a more convenient solution for installing I report back.

The following worked great for me on a fresh install of Ubuntu 17.10. Thank you!

>> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:smathot/cogscinl
>> sudo apt-get update
>> sudo apt-get install zotero-standalone

For me it installed version 5.0.34

The script above install v.5.037 successfully. Thank you

If you do a local install it just uses the rights of the current user, so it should just update. The global install also doesn't touch any permissions but that probably means you have to install as root and root will have to run it to use the built-in updater. You can run the Python script again and it will install the newest binary.

Working great on my lubuntu, thanks dude

Worked great on Pop OS (System 76 Oryx Pro). Thanks!