Getting Gephi into Debian (and hence Ubuntu) is my long-term aim. It's not entirely trivial, because I must first package every dependency properly. There are a lot of binary jar files in the Gephi source, and all these need to be built into separate packages. The packages in my PPA contain these binary jar files in their source, and so wouldn't be accepted into Debian or Ubuntu.
I've made a start on packaging the dependencies, starting with the easier ones. Some are already packaged by other people. If you'd like to help out then get in touch. I've been putting them under the Debian Java Packaging Project (
http://pkg-java.alioth.debian.org/) to make them easier to maintain.
The full list is below - I intend to start labelling them with their Debian package name, license, etc.
batik-anim.jar
batik-awt-util.jar
batik-bridge.jar
batik-css.jar
batik-dom.jar
batik-ext.jar
batik-gvt.jar
batik-parser.jar
batik-script.jar
batik-svg-dom.jar
batik-transcoder.jar
batik-util.jar
batik-xml.jar
beansbinding-1.2.1.jar
colorchooser.jar - superseded by ColorPicker.jar, package in progress (colorpicker), BSD license
commons-codec-1.4.jar
core.jar
flamingo.jar
FontChooser.jar - package in progress (fontchooser), LGPL
gluegen-rt.jar
google-collect-1.0-rc3.jar
iText-5.0.1.jar
javacsv.jar
jcommon-1.0.16.jar
jfreechart-1.0.13.jar
joda-time-1.6.jar
jogl.jar
MigLayout-3.7.1.jar
MultipleGradientPaint.jar
mysql-connector-java-5.1.7-bin.jar
opengl.jar
org-netbeans-core-windows.jar
orson-0.5.0.jar
pdf-transcoder.jar
postgresql-8.4-701.jdbc4.jar
spark-1.2.jar
sqljdbc4.jar
stax-utils.jar
swingx-1.6.1.jar
swingx-beaninfo-1.6.1.jar
TimingFramework-1.0.jar
trove-2.1.0.jar
ValidationAPI.jar
xml-apis-ext.jar