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!

cool date

Lucky day, or what? Today's date:  4/3/21

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.