firefox 89.0 fixes

This webpage has some tips for dealing with the newly released Firefox 89.0, for those who aren't happy with the changes: https://www.askvg.com/tip-restore-compact-mode-density-option-in-firefox-customize-window/

My favorite is to simply use the following about:config fix to set the Firefox window to "compact mode", getting rid of some wasted space at the top:

browser.uidensity = 0 -- change to 1 (for "compact mode")

 

 

For Fluxbox users, if the Firefox window doesn't render correctly in Fluxbox (happened to me in one of my Arch installations), the Restart Fluxbox tool fixes it for the current session only. For a more permanent fix, use the following about:config settings:

gfx.webrender.all = false -- this was the default

gfx.webrender.force-disabled = false -- toggle to true to fix window in Fluxbox

To completely disable the new "Proton" look, toggle the following from true to false:

browser.proton.enabled

browser.proton.modals.enabled

browser.proton.doorhangers.enabled

browser.proton.contextmenus.enabled

 

browser.proton.places-tooltip.enabled

Then restart Firefox.

 

parallel

Article: Enable Parallel Downloading In Pacman In Arch Linux

See man pacman.conf, under the OPTIONS section:

       ParallelDownloads

           Specifies number of concurrent download streams. The value needs to be a positive

           integer. If this config option is not set then only one download stream is used (i.e.

           downloads happen sequentially).

The article linked above describes how to easily enable parallel downloading in Arch Linux. This is kinda cool; I'm trying it in one of my Arch installations. Not sure if it speeds things up or not, or if it's really helpful to me in any way. I think I like it anyway. Found an interesting discussion on the topic at the Arch forums: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=266854

The options I'm currently using in the /etc/pacman.conf file are summarized below:

[options]

HoldPkg     = pacman glibc

Architecture = auto

# Misc options

Color

CheckSpace

VerbosePkgLists

ILoveCandy

ParallelDownloads = 5

# By default, pacman accepts packages signed by keys that its local keyring

# trusts (see pacman-key and its man page), as well as unsigned packages.

SigLevel    = Required DatabaseOptional

LocalFileSigLevel = Optional

too long; didn't read

The tldr-pages project is a collection of community-maintained help pages for command-line tools, that aims to be a simpler, more approachable complement to traditional man pages.

- https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr

(Also see: https://tldr.sh/)

Nice tool. Here's an example:

$ tldr df

  df

  Gives an overview of the filesystem disk space usage.
  More information: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/df.

  - Display all filesystems and their disk usage:
    df

  - Display all filesystems and their disk usage in human readable form:
    df -h

  - Display the filesystem and its disk usage containing the given file or directory:
    df path/to/file_or_directory

  - Display statistics on the number of free inodes:
    df -i

  - Display filesystems but exclude the specified types:
    df -x squashfs -x tmpfs


The tldr tool was mentioned in the article "5 modern alternatives to essential Linux command-line tools".

 

I installed it in Debian and in Kubuntu with:

$ sudo apt install tldr

And, I added it in Arch with:

$ sudo pacman -S tldr

 

Looks like the tldr-pages project will nicely complement the (still) all-important man pages. It's very nice to have a few command examples at the fingertips, no question.

 

trying out some new (to me) software

A couple of apps I'm testing in Linux appear to be winners. Time will tell.

DeaDBeeF, which I mentioned in a post last month, seems to have quickly replaced Audacious as my favorite music player for Linux -- although it's a close call. DeaDBeeF might be the best fit for me, but I'm keeping Audacious installed, as it's definitely worth keeping as well.

I prefer a lightweight audio player over a media player (I don't normally bother with video, etc.). I've gone with Audacious for the past few years, and I think it's generally considered to be the better of the two music players. 

Today I'm taking my first look at the Brave web browser (https://brave.com/). Although I've used a few different web browsers in Linux, most of my time's been spent with Firefox. I can't see myself giving up Firefox anytime soon. But Brave brings an interesting approach, and it seems fine here so far. I added it in Debian Buster, using these commands found at https://brave.com/linux/:

sudo apt install apt-transport-https curl

sudo curl -fsSLo /usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main"|sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list

sudo apt update

sudo apt install brave-browser

This adds the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list and installs the browser.

Brave does seem to be faster than Firefox, but scrolling web pages is slow and clunky. I found something that helped somewhat: I brought up the Flags menu by typing brave://flags/ in the search bar, and then enabled "Smooth Scrolling". Better, but still not quite as quick and smooth as scrolling in Firefox.

I haven't had any issues yet with Brave doing what I think of as "normal" stuff. Happy with it so far.

not a fork!

One of the more interesting Linux distros out there: Void Linux (https://voidlinux.org/)

 

The Void Linux page at DistroWatch: https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=void

And, check out the recent review by Jesse Smith: https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20210329#void 

I'm very tempted to try installing and using this distro. My next big project, maybe!

change can be good

I'm testing out the deb822-style format for control files used by apt, replacing the older one-line-style format used in the sources.list file. I couldn't find any "official" Debian documentation on this topic except for what's contained in man sources.list (see https://manpages.debian.org/buster/apt/sources.list.5.en.html).

I did find a couple of pages online that helped a bit:

"How to use the new DEB822 apt format on Ubuntu" - https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-use-the-new-deb822-apt-format-on-ubuntu/

"Explanation of the DEB822 Source Format" - https://repolib.readthedocs.io/en/latest/deb822-format.html


I tested the new format in Debian Buster. Here are the lines I was using in the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ buster main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ buster-updates main contrib non-free

I renamed the sources.list file with the following command:

$ sudo mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list-bkup

Then I created the new file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-sources:

$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources

The contents of the debian-sources file:

Types: deb
URIs: http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/
Suites: buster buster-updates
Components: main contrib non-free

Types: deb
URIs: http://security.debian.org/debian-security
Suites: buster/updates
Components: main contrib non-free

Finally, I ran the following to make sure everything worked correctly:

$ sudo apt update


Users can decide for themselves if they like the newer format or prefer to stick with the older one. I think the deb822 format makes it a bit easier to see, at a glance, how things are set up.

 

another simple audio player

I'm taking a look at the DeaDBeeF audio player. I've installed it in Arch, where it's available from the repos, and also in Debian. DeaDBeeF is not available in the Debian repos (same with Ubuntu), but simple instructions for installing it in Debian (and in Ubuntu) can be found at https://deadbeef.sourceforge.io/.

 

 

as viewed from space

Screenshots from Bullseye GNOME. The desktop background is a beautiful shot of what's still the only home for Life that we know of.

 

soft freeze

Debian 11 (Bullseye) went into "Milestone 2 - Soft Freeze" status this month. The plan for Bullseye is a little bit different than for Buster.

The freeze timeline for Debian Buster:

* 2019-01-12 - Transition freeze
* 2019-02-12 - Soft-freeze
* 2019-03-12 - Full-freeze

(from: https://release.debian.org/buster/freeze_policy.html)

The freeze timeline for Debian Bullseye:

* 2021-01-12 - Milestone 1 - Transition and (build-)essential Freeze
* 2021-02-12 - Milestone 2 - Soft Freeze
* 2021-03-12 - Milestone 3 - Hard Freeze - for key packages and packages without autopkgtests
* TBA - Milestone 4 - Full Freeze

(from: https://release.debian.org/bullseye/freeze_policy.html)


I downloaded the Debian Bullseye GNOME live (w/ non-free firmware) image from https://cdimage.debian.org/images/unofficial/non-free/images-including-firmware/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/, put it on a flash drive, and booted into it. Things looked okay, so I decided to do an installation. From the Activities overview, there was an "Install Debian" icon, so I clicked on that. It started up the Calamares installer. The resulting system was quite loaded with apps and packages -- too "heavy" for my tastes, although the approach, with Calamares, would work out fine for many users, I'm sure.

I prefer a network installation for Debian, so I downloaded the firmware-testing-amd64-netinst.iso image from here and reinstalled using Debian's Graphical Installer. This gave me a lot more control over what went in.

It's best if users wait for the Debian Stable release rather than jumping in during "Testing" status, but there shouldn't be any major issues with Bullseye at this point. Things seem fine here, so far.

 

at long last, split view in thunar!

I don't know why it took so long, but: "Xfce’s Thunar File Manager Gets Split View, File Creation Times, and More"

That should take care of the main annoyance I've had with Thunar - the lack of a split view window. I think I'll be able to test it out soon in Arch. Looking forward to it!

ulyssa

For years, Linux Mint (site: https://linuxmint.com/) has been one of the best options for folks new to the Linux world. Released on January 8, Linux Mint 20.1 "Ulyssa" ships in Cinnamon, MATE, and Xfce flavors. I downloaded linuxmint-20.1-xfce-64bit.iso and took a look at the Xfce version in a live session.

 

 

"Ulyssa" booted up quickly and easily from a flash drive on the three laptops I tried it on. The Xfce desktop's setup has a pleasant and comfy feel to it. They've loaded the release with a nice selection of tools, making it a breeze for the user to jump right in and get things done. I felt that I was working with one of the best live sessions I've seen.

Linux Mint 20.1 Xfce release notes: https://linuxmint.com/rel_ulyssa_xfce.php

two from pragmatic

Found two nice articles from pragmaticlinux.com. First:

"Getting started with Double Commander" - https://www.pragmaticlinux.com/2020/06/getting-started-with-double-commander/

This article, from back in June, offers some tips on using the dual-paned, "orthodox" Double Commander file manager. As the author writes:

Double Commander is a free and open source dual pane file manager. It is an excellent file manager, especially for those who prefer a consistent file manager experience, while trying out different Linux desktop environments. This article assists you with getting Double Commander installed and configured on your Linux system.

Each desktop environment ships with its own file manager: Nautilus on Gnome, Dolphin on KDE, Thunar on XFCE, etc. Working in the file manager forms and integral part of my daily PC work flow. Therefore I do not enjoy being forced to switch to a different file manager, each time I try out a different desktop environment on Linux. Additionally, I really enjoy dual pane file managers. If you recognize yourself in these file manager preferences, then I can highly recommend giving Double Commander a try.

Kinda sums up why I use "DC".

Second:

"Install a minimal KDE on Debian 10 'buster'" - https://www.pragmaticlinux.com/2020/10/install-a-minimal-kde-on-debian-10-buster/

Good tips here. Basically, do a netinstall, choose only "standard system utilities", then run:

sudo apt -y install kde-plasma-desktop plasma-nm

After that, add whatever packages/apps desired.

asunder

Testing out the Asunder CD ripper and encoder. Project homepage: http://littlesvr.ca/asunder/

I installed Asunder in Debian Buster GNOME:

$ sudo apt install asunder

Optional dependencies include the lame and vorbis-tools packages, the latter of which was already installed here. I decided not to add lame.

I inserted a CD and started up Asunder. Asunder showed the found CDDB info.

For now, I left everything at the defaults. Asunder was set to encode to OGG Vorbis, which was exactly what I wanted.

I ripped the files and then opened them in the Audacious music player. Track information was picked up as expected, and the songs played perfectly.

I was planning to look at some other options for ripping CDs in GNOME. I took a quick look at ripperX, but then I tried Asunder and it seemed to give me what I wanted out-of-the-box. Good software, does what it's supposed to do. Sold.

 

getting filenames/pathnames

Here's a tip on how to quickly copy and paste the full path of a file from GNOME's Files (aka nautilus) onto the command line in Terminal (aka gnome-terminal): Drag And Drop Files And Folders In Terminal To Print Their Absolute Path

Not all terminal emulators will support this, but it also works with KDE Plasma's Konsole.

I found that this trick also works for copying the absolute pathname of a file from my preferred file manager, Double Commander, into gnome-terminal.

Double Commander offers a few other options for copying filenames. In this shot I've got the ~/scripts directory selected, and I can copy the filename to the clipboard via a menu entry (Mark > Copy Filename(s) with Full Path or Mark > Copy Filename(s) to Clipboard):

 

Even nicer, buttons for those actions can be placed on Double Commander's toolbar:

Very handy. From the clipboard, the filenames can be copied to the terminal emulator with the Ctrl+Shift+V keystroke.

The menu entries in Double Commander show keystroke hints for yet another way of doing this:

Ctrl+Shift+X - copy filename to clipboard
Ctrl+Shift+C - copy absolute pathname to clipboard

I've found it worth my time to practice those keystrokes a few times to get my fingers used to 'em. And, again, after copying:

Ctrl+Shift+V - paste from clipboard to terminal emulator

i might keep this one

I wrote a little about Emmabuntüs back in June (post: "from france"). I ended up doing an installation, which took up a little over 8 GB on the hard drive. I used the 32-bit iso (emmabuntus-de3-i686-10.4-1.02.iso).

Emmabuntüs Debian Edition is basically Debian Stable underneath. I've purged a lot of packages, added a few of my favorites, tweaked some things, and turned off a bunch of things that were on by default. I'm finding my trimmed-down setup to be a pleasure to use. It certainly looks like a good option for older computers.

Emmabuntüs comes with Xfce and LXQt. LXQt can use other window managers besides Openbox; in this case, the window manager is Xfcwm4 (one way to show the current WM is with the wmctrl -m command). This is my first time using LXQt without having Openbox underneath; seems to be working out okay.

A few shots of my LXQt desktop:

 

And, a couple from the Xfce session:

 

Emmabuntüs seems to be an excellent project. I'd like some sort of minimal installation option. Can't find much else to complain about; one of the nicer distros I've seen.

 

looking more attractive

Visitors to the MX Linux website might be pleasantly surprised by some recent developments:

Yep, MX includes Fluxbox on their main isos along with the default Xfce, and now there's also a KDE iso! Kinda makes me a bit nostalgic for the old Mepis days, when I mainly used KDE.

For more info about available MX Linux downloads, see: https://mxlinux.org/download-links/

I took a look at MX's Fluxbox setup a few months back (https://monksblog-malspa.blogspot.com/2020/05/fluxbox-in-mx.html), but it seems that there's been a lot of work done on it since then. Check out the latest announcement about it, here.

I haven't look at the KDE spin yet. It might be a nice option for some users, if choices like KDE Neon, Kubuntu, and Debian w/ KDE Plasma aren't enough.

simply stable plus openbox

From https://head-on-a-stick.github.io/: "SharpBang (♯!) GNU/Linux is a live ISO image that can be used to install a pre-configured Openbox/Tint2 desktop running on Debian stable."

I decided to take a look, and downloaded sharpbang-buster-backports-10.5.0-amd64.hybrid.iso. When I booted into the live system, I found a clean, simple Openbox setup:

 

Some of the apps/packages included: Thunar, Gparted, Synaptic, Galculator, Mousepad, Firefox ESR, mpv Media Player, gmrun, htop, ranger, tint2, UXTerm, rsync, and obmenu. Here's a shot showing the nicely-arranged right-click menu:

 

The SharpBang project appears to provide just about everything I want/need in a live session, without including too much other stuff. I think the idea was for something along the lines of the old CrunchBang project. I took a look at the /etc/apt/sources.list file; no surprises there:

deb https://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main contrib non-free

Great job here by "Head-on-a-Stick"!! Here's the github page: https://github.com/Head-on-a-Stick/Sharpbang

 

 

worth the wait?

BunsenLabs Lithium was finally released yesterday, over one year after the release of Debian 10 ("Buster"), which Lithium is derived from. The release announcement can be found here at the BunsenLabs forums.

I downloaded the 32-bit iso (651 MB) -- instead of the full, 64-bit iso (2.1 GB) -- wrote the image to a flash drive, and booted up. I wanted to check out the live session from the smaller image even though a note at the installation page at the BunsenLabs website says, "Using the 64-bit ISO is recommended, as the CD-sized ISO has been surgically reduced in size."

Post #3 in the forum thread mentioned above contains package lists for the full image as well as for the smaller image. Some of the apps/packages included as defaults on the CD-sized image: Dillo web browser (no Firefox), Thunar file manager, GParted, Ristretto image viewer, Evince document viewer, Mousepad text editor, URxvt terminal emulator, and mpv media player. BunsenLabs, of course, ships with Openbox as the default window manager instead including one of the standard desktop environments.

I felt that the CD-sized image would be great for doing a Lithium installation, but its live session was not quite what I would have liked it to be. I'm guessing that the live session from the 64-bit image is more polished. The CD image booted fine on 3 out of 4 of my laptops; I'll keep it on my flash drive as it looks like it could certainly be used for emergency purposes, and for just playing around.

The default Welcome window contains some important information to read before proceeding:

The BunsenLabs website: https://www.bunsenlabs.org/

And, the BunsenLabs page at DistroWatch: https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=bunsenlabs

from france

Fascinating distro. I downloaded the latest release of Emmabuntüs -- the download was about 3.3 GB -- and I've been running it in live sessions, from a flash drive. The Emmabuntüs Debian Edition 3 1.02 release announcement includes the following bit of information:

This distribution was originally designed to facilitate the reconditioning of computers donated to humanitarian organizations, starting with the Emmaüs communities (which is where the distribution's name obviously comes from), to promote the discovery of GNU/Linux by beginners, as well as to extend the lifespan of computer hardware, thereby reducing the waste induced by the over-consumption of raw materials.

That sounds good to me. For more info, check out https://emmabuntus.org/.

The live session defaulted to an Xfce desktop, with an option to switch to LXQt. Here's a shot of the LXQt desktop, with the Welcome window:

Emmabuntüs ships loaded with applications, as noted in this Distrowatch review. I like that it's based on Debian Stable. I'll certainly be keeping it around for live sessions, although I don't think I'll be doing an installation. I think I'm better off with a system built from a Debian netinstall. Still, I'm impressed and intrigued by this distro, and I may end up changing my mind about installing it on one of my notebooks.

Here's Emmabuntüs DE3-1.02 with Xfce:

an excellent handbook

The latest edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook, now available (paperback, download, or online): https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/

Also see: https://debian-handbook.info/