Comment 4 for bug 389915

For anyone interested in a workaround; I just managed to install subcommander 1.2. It was a rather tedious process, so here's a description of what I had to do:

1) remove subcommander using synaptic

2) download subcommander 1.2 from the site:
http://subcommander.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=2886&expandFolder=2886&folderID=2885

3) create a backup of the .subcommander directory in your home directory (if you want to continue working with previous settings)

4) install the following packages (over 100MB here):
libapr1-dev
libaprutil1-dev
libboost1.35-dev
libsvncpp1
libneon27-dev
libqt3-mt-dev

5) run the configure script in the directory from the archive (had to look at the source of the configure script to figure out which directory needed to be passed):
./configure --with-subversion="/usr"

6) create a symlink by issuing the following command:
ber@ubuntu:/usr/lib$ sudo cp -l /usr/lib/libsvn_ra_neon-1.so.1 /usr/lib/libsvn_ra_dav-1.so
This step is necessary to avoid a linking error (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/subversion/+bug/286754).

7) compile by calling 'make'

8) install by calling 'sudo checkinstall' ('sudo make install' will work as well, but then you can't uninstall the package using synaptic / apt-get)

9) if installed with checkinstall, make sure to lock the subcommander package, so it's not upgraded automatically again to v2.0 (by selecting the package and using 'Lock Version' in the 'Package' menu).

10) remove the .subcommander directory in your home folder, and put the original .subcommander directory back in place (just overwriting the directory didn't work)

11) run the following command to avoid an error message being displayed when running subcommander:
sudo chmod +r /etc/qt3/qt_plugins_3.3rc
(clue found at http://forum.kde.org/qsettings-failed-open-file-etc-qt3-qt-plugins-3-3rc-t-31383.html)

12) run subcommander

13) in case you did restore your old .subcommander directory, and/or the graphical diff tool is not working, you need to go to the "Tools > Settings... > Diff/Merge" menu, and press the 'reset/builtin' buttons
(clue found at http://subcommander.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=187)

After this, I can finally succesfully run and use subcommander again!