I get Flash in Debian

It’s like deja vu. Using Synaptic to add Flash didn’t work in Ubuntu. Doesn’t work in Debian either. Adding that package does not make Flash work in Iceweasel/Firefox. And with Debian, I couldn’t seem to add the plugin from the Firefox site. But today I went to Desktoplinux.com, and there was some Flash on it. Iceweasel prompted me to get the plugin, and I went for it. It downloaded, and now Flash works.

The only problem: Flash stinks on my old PC, even in Debian. The videos are still choppy, and they slow things down, but at least I have flash.

The commenters in a post a while ago had many tips on how to “toggle” Flash in Firefox. I’ll have to go back and look at that to see what my options are.

Review: A first look at Puppy Linux 2.17

Updates to this item since it was first written:

— I finally got CUPS to configure my favored network printer; most applications are printing fine. LeafPad prints a blank page, but printing in LeafPad is notoriously shaky. Out of all the other applications, only Ted refuses to print to this printer, reason unknown. Among the apps that print OK: AbiWord, OpenOffice and Geany. As I say below, my situation is far from typical, and for the vast majority of users, CUPS will make things easier, especially for network printers.

— I got the OpenOffice 2.2 (an SFS application) to work by changing a portion of its filename from 2.16 to 2.17. Upon reboot, the system picked it up.

— While I thought that Puppy added Ted and Sylpheed to the base distribution, I was wrong. I had added those two apps as PET packages early in my use of 2.16, and I forgot they were there. When I upgraded to 2.17 (by using a 2.17 CD instead of 2.16), my PET packages were detected and appeared in the Puppy menus — a nice thing to have happen.

— I tried to “go back” to Puppy 2.16 by using that CD, but I couldn’t open my encrypted pup_save, even with the proper password. Once I went back to 2.17, the password worked and I was back in Puppy, at which time I was able to get CUPS working for my closest network printer.

(original “first look” review begins here:)

Since my Puppy 2.16 review took so long that 2.17 came out before I finished it, I decided to dive into Puppy 2.17 now so I don’t get beat by 2.18 (though I offer no guarantees).

I downloaded the Puppy 2.17.1 “no lzma” version — which runs faster but is slightly larger than the standard version. I’ll take faster over smaller any day, especially when “large” is 90-something megabytes.

First the good: As usual, loading a new version of Puppy takes a little longer since old configuration files in my pup_save need to be updated. All of my configuration information transferred over … except for printing.

When I heard that Puppy was going from its tried-and-true printer configuration system to CUPS, I knew I was in for trouble. I am connected to a network printer, and while CUPS catches about 10 printers on my network with no need for configuration (a plus for about 99 percent of the Puppy users on huge office networks, I admit), my favorite printer — the one closest to me — never shows up in CUPS. I always have to add it manually, and I have a ton of trouble getting the configuration right. Basically, CUPS is less than intutive.

In Debian, for instance, I wasn’t successful in adding this printer until I used the HPLIP utility (a great tool, by the way). In Ubuntu, I just settled for printing on one of the other printers on our network. I could never get my “favorite” added.

I’ve been using Puppy since 2.13, and I’ve written more than once about how great Puppy’s printer configuration is .. I mean was. I tried about five times to get my printer configured with no luck.

So while for me Puppy is now harder to use, for 99.9 percent of users it’ll be easier to print in Puppy. I guess you could call it a “win,” even though I’m personally not so happy about it.

Gparted is STILL broken in Puppy 2.17. It takes forever to list my partitions. I keep Puppy 2.14 close at hand for whenever I need to partition a drive. Guess I still need to do that.

My OpenOffice SFS file did NOT load automatically. I don’t know if changing the file name will work, or whether I need to download a new SFS. I’ll have to take a look. I don’t envision a problem. (Problem fixed … see note at top.)

I have a soft spot for the lightweight Dillo browser. It’s now gone, with some kind of Mozilla subset in its place to display help files. I prefer Dillo — it was and is faster. I used it. I miss it.

Sorry to start with the negative, but on the positive side, I see some new things in Puppy 2.17 that I approve of:

— The new desktop, while not excessively colorful, looks nice. It’s an improvement over 2.16 (my favorite remains 2.13).

— I don’t know if the Puppy developers were listening to me specifically, but quite a few apps that I like have been added to 2.17: Leafpad, Ted and Sylpheed. The latter two are integral parts of Damn Small Linux, and I really like Leafpad, too. Even though I’ve written favorably about Sylpheed, I’ve been using Seamonkey’s mail reader of late, and I’ve been happy to do it. I think all three of these apps were available as PET packages, but it’s nice to have them as an integral part of Puppy. (Note: I had forgotten that I added Ted and Sylpheed as PET packages back when Puppy 2.16 came out; they DO NOT come standard with Puppy 2.17. LeafPad, however, appears to be part of the stock Puppy CD. Maybe I missed it in 2.16; if not, it’s new for this version)

Questions that remain: Will I solve my problems with printing and OpenOffice? Will Puppy’s developers ever fix Gparted (they could go back a version or two)? Can they add back Dillo AND put a text-based browser in the menus (Elinks, Lynx or W3M would be fine)?

Speed up Debian with Xfce (or Fluxbox)

I’ve probably written the following line a hundred times: “The Xfce desktop didn’t seem any quicker than GNOME.” But that was all about mousing around in the menus, not so much how quickly applications load. And after running the Xfce-based Xubuntu, Vector and ZenWalk, as well as running Slackware with Xfce, I decided to try it in Debian.

Nice.

Now my $15 Laptop (233 MHz Pentium processor, 64 MB) has been running Debian with Fluxbox since I got it running — I started with a console system, then added X and Fluxbox — so I have no idea how it would respond on the heavier-than-Flux Xfce, but for my 1 GHz VIA C3 system (which I suspect is running at much less than the full 1 GHz for some reason), Xfce is the way to go.

That said, I finally found a distro on which KDE doesn’t run like sludge on my test PC. And that distro is Slackware. No surprise there. But even in Slack, apps are too slow to load. I can’t wait 20 seconds for a text editor (Kate or KWrite) to load. I just don’t have that kind of patience. I love all the extras of KDE, I love KOffice, but I also love good performance on crap hardware. That’s where Xfce comes in.

And to all those who say the GNOME developers should fold their tent and focus on KDE? That’s crazy. GNOME may not have all the extras of KDE, but GNOME is way faster on my system. GNOME isn’t as fast as Xfce, but it is way more comfortable to use than KDE from a sheer speed standpoint. I hope all of these desktop environments, KDE, GNOME, Xfce and Fluxbox, continue to develop for a long, long time.

But as I’ve also said before, if you’re coming from Windows XP and want a Linux window manager that’s of roughly the same “weight,” you should be looking at Xfce. That’s the one that has the same “feel,” I think.

What about other window managers? I like JWM — the default in Puppy — quite a bit. I’m not all that fond of IceWM, but that may be because I haven’t seen it configured well. I haven’t tried any others, but I’m open to the possibilities (and am damn glad they’re there).

I finished clearing out the “junk” comments

Movable Type left me with about 4,000 comments as of a week ago. Most were spam, many were marked “junk” and didn’t publish. I found about 30 “legitimate” comments that, for one reason or other, were marked “junk.” So I finally went through them all, and now the blog has 429 total comments, all legitimate and all bloody fascinating (and I do mean it).

Moral of the story: Keep on top of your spam, or it will bury you.

Another moral: Upgrade your Movable Type to 4.0, which supposedly will minimize the spam-comments problem.

Review: Vector Linux 5.8 Standard

Thinking back to my Vector Linux 5.8 Standard install of a month or so ago, I decided to try it again. This time I wouldn’t use the Puppy 2.14 live CD to make my partitions and would instead use the Vector CD all the way. First of all, while I like the installer overall, it makes you do your own partitioning in Cfdisk with no provision for a “standard” partitioning scheme, the latter option — available in many other distros — very helpful to new users and those uncomfortable with manual partitioning.

I’m comfortable enough, so I went ahead and made swap, root and home partitions, in that order, on the hard drive. Then I was able to deselect some packages I didn’t want (games mostly), and the install continued. At one point during the process, my screen went blank, but the install appeared unaffected. Not comforting, for sure. Turns out it was the screensaver, and the moving the mouse didn’t affect it. Hitting the space bar did the trick, though.

Once the files all loaded, it was time for the extensive Vector configuration, including everything from mouse to monitor resolution, with a whole lot in between. Besides creating a root password and deciding which services start up at boot, one of the great things in Vector is the option to run the /tmp directory in RAM. I’ve heard that this can be a problem if you plan to do a lot of compiling, but since I don’t imagine I’ll do much of that, I gladly checked off this feature. Anything to speed up the system.

One thing was a bit unusual: When creating user accounts, the system said they had to include at least one number. I picked my usual login and added a 1 to it. Weird, but not that big of a deal.

Vector’s Xfce desktop isn’t of the minimalist style. Its lower panel includes a bunch of icons, a clickable desktop-switcher, clock, volume control and more. I’m not as in love with the look of Vector as I am Xubuntu, but I’m definitely in love with everything working at first boot, unlike my recent Xubuntu 7.04 install.

My first test: A YouTube video. Flash is included in the distro, so I try a video. It’s choppy, but that’s to be expected on my hardware, which doesn’t handle video or audio especially well. I try an MP3 audio track. XMMS plays it — and plays it well. The audio is excellent, with no skipping. Mplayer in Xubuntu doesn’t do this well. And unlike Xubuntu, Vector has no problem playing an MP3 right away — no codec downloads needed.

One thing’s for sure, Vector is well-equipped for multimedia with XMMS, Mplayer, Xine, Graveman, mhWaveEdit and RipperX. It looks like it can handle DVDs, though I don’t have anything better than a CD drive, so I can’t check it.

Abiword, Gnumeric and one of my favorite image editors, mtPaint, are included. These are all applications of appropriate weight for an Xfce system. J-Pilot is there, too, and as a Palm handheld user, that’s a nice touch. I’d love it if it actually worked. I’ll have to dig out the Palm and give it a try.

Xfce’s Thunar file manager opens almost instantly. Most apps respond about the same as they do in Xubuntu, some a little slower (AbiWord, Firefox), others a good bit faster (the GIMP). But all in all, I don’t see any great speed boost over Xubuntu.

In addition to Mousepad, there’s the Adie editor. I’m not familiar with it, but it loads quick and looks promising. For browsing, Firefox is joined by Dillo, Opera and SeaMonkey. It’s nice to have Web-browsing choices, especially because most users — including myself — spend a lot of time on the Web. Grsync is included for backups — another nice thing to have.

Right after the install, I wasn’t yet ready to do the first software update, but I did want to see how Vector dealt with shutdown and my box’s ACPI power-management situation. Vector passes that test and turns everything off. If only Xubuntu did as well (it doesn’t, in case you didn’t get my inference).

(Days pass …)

I booted into Vector after a week of … other things (Slackware, Debian, Xubuntu, actual work), and my network connection didn’t work. Like I would do in Slackware, I went to a terminal window, did su to root and ran netconfig. It didn’t work. I did it a couple of other times using Vector’s VASM configuration application. VASM is kind of clunky — it’s pretty much the same thing you’d get from doing the various Slackware configuration scripts from the command line, except in a GUI window — but I guess it works. It needs polishing, but it’s better than nothing.

After a couple of times through the configuration, I got networking back. I don’t know what happened, but it’s something I’ll be keeping an eye out for.

The Vector boot manager is pretty nice — and a little different from what I’m used to. Vector Standard doesn’t ship with Fluxbox — I wish it did, but there is the provision to add desktop environments via Gslapt and then choose a different one by clicking Session. If you click System, however, you can select a console login, and since I set up Vector to boot to the GUI (you can choose a console login, I think), I like the option of logging in to a console from the GUI. When I did start at a console, I found Vi, Nano and Midnight Commander. But no Mutt. I imagine that Mutt is easy to find for Slack-related distros, and after adding an SMTP program, I could run my mail from the console.

Now that I’ve done at least a fifth of the software updating I need to do in my newish Slackware system with upgradepkg at the command line, I have to say that Gslapt in Vector is easier to use. It works much like Synaptic. Of course, installing Gslapt in Slackware would make both systems equal. I could also use Slapt-get, but I don’t know much about it.

I like Vector Standard’s focus on Xfce. It uses the latest version of the desktop environment, and all the apps seemed to be up-to-date as well. From my limited experience, it’s hard to find up-to-date packages for Slackware that aren’t already included in the distro. I’d love to add AbiWord to Slackware, but I can’t seem to find all the dependencies on Linuxpackages.net. Nor is its version of Abi the latest. But Vector (and ZenWalk, for that matter) champion AbiWord and offer version 2.4.6. Maybe I can get the packages from the Vector or ZenWalk repositories and install them in Slack.

Fluxbox in Vector I used Gslapt to add Fluxbox, and it’s the best-looking out-of-the-box Fluxbox setup I’ve seen so far. The background looks the same as in Vector Standard’s Xfce desktop — a nice blue pattern with the Vector logo. The default “system style” is Magick-X, and it looks and works great. In Vector, as in all distros, applications totally speed up with Fluxbox as opposed to Xfce. The GIMP loads in 30 seconds. It took 45 seconds in Xfce. I noted similar gains with the rest of the applications.

Vector does offer a KDE version — and that is the direction I think they’re going in, with the Xfce “Standard” version fading somewhat into the background. I hope I’m wrong and that Vector keeps developing its Xfce platform.

Still, I can’t say enough how Fluxbox really, really rocks in Vector. Most stock Fluxbox configurations are heavy on gray, but not this one. I’m sure the expert Fluxbox user can make the window manager look this good and function this well on any system, but it’s very nice to have such a positive experience right away. It’s so good that I think Vector should do a Fluxbox-only spin of the distro. At the very least, Fluxbox should be included in the ISO — it’s too good not to.

Package managment: Some complain there’s “no package management” in Slackware. Well, there is. It’s not as comprehensive as apt in Debian, but it’s there. Vector, like other Slack-derived distros, makes it even easier for users by including Gslapt and pointing it to the distro’s own repository. And you can still use pkgtool and all the other Slackware packaging commands, but for a straight update of the system, Gslapt does a fine job. So Vector is easier to maintain than stock Slackware, but it’s nowhere as easy to update as Debian, Ubuntu and the like.

One thing, though: Debian has way more packages than Slackware, and while the Vector and ZenWalk crews are doing their own packaging (a great service, to be sure), you might have trouble finding your favorite apps. On the plus side, Vector has a terrific selections of pre-installed apps and handles multimedia better than average.

Why Vector — why not ZenWalk? I’ve wanted to test ZenWalk for awhile, but the current version, 4.6, will not boot on my VIA C3 Samuel-based box. I still have a 4.4.1 disc, and that did install. I tried to do a software update with Gslapt on it, knowing full well that I would probably break the thing. I did. I guess ZenWalk just wasn’t made for this CPU. I just heard that ZenWalk 4.8 is in beta. I’ll try it out, but I’m not holding my breath about it booting.

The Linux travails of a VIA C3 Samuel CPU: For the record, I’ve had no problems booting this CPU with Vector or Slackware. However, this box won’t boot any Red Hat-based distros. Nor will it boot anything based on BSD. That leaves out Fedora, CentOS, Scientific Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DesktopBSD and PC-BSD. Gentoo does boot but dies during the net configuration part of the install. Everything derived from Debian does boot and run. So it’s a big deal for a distro to actually boot and install on this box. If I ever get my Gateway (Pentium-based) laptop fixed, it’ll be a whole new distro-testing ballgame, but for now there’s a lot of the Linux and BSD world out there that’s closed to me.

But if I can run Debian and all its derivatives, Slackware and most of its derivatives, that leaves quite a lot to look at.

Community: The Vector forum has 10,296 posts (going back to the very end of 2006, with other forums before that); ZenWalk’s forum has 58,850 (going back to about March 2006); and the Slackware portion of LinuxQuestions.org has 11,136 posts. I don’t want to draw any conclusion from these numbers, especially because it doesn’t take into account alternate forums and Usenet newsgroups, but at minimum I will say that there are active communities for all of these distros. And especially for Vector and ZenWalk, I see nothing but growth as far as community support and involvement.

Conclusions

Does Vector Standard bring Slackware to the masses? Pretty much. Everything works when Vector is installed and booted. The installer isn’t quite as newbie-friendly as I’d like, but for those who have installed Linux before and who can partition a hard drive, it offers an unusually good degree of customization and a bug-free experience. Gslapt improves the package-management situation, but it isn’t Debian’s apt, Synaptic or Update Manager, and it’s certainly not Ubuntu’s Add/Del Programs utility. I didn’t even mind running LILO after months with GRUB. But you CAN install easily GRUB in Slackware and Vector after the initial installation.

Best things about Vector: While I don’t think Vector has the best looking Xfce desktop out there, it’s far from the worst. Vector is fast, though not appreciably faster than other distros running Xfce. App choice is excellent; Vector gets points for including MtPaint as a low-spec companion to the GIMP, and there are plenty of browsers and editors. I haven’t tried Xara Xtreme — another graphics editor — but it’s nice to be introduced to a new app. Vector excels in multimedia apps and includes Flash and the ability to play MP3s out of the box. Adding Flash to Firefox isn’t as easy as it should be. In Ubuntu, I’ve been able to do it easily, but for most distros you have to deal with tarballs, compiling and the like. I just tried to get Flash working in Debian by using Synaptic, but it doesn’t work. Yes, even Debian isn’t perfect, and I prefer to have Flash pre-installed, even though it’s not open-source (though it is free). Also, thanks to the Vector crew for including the very-light Dillo browser. It’s a handy app to have around when you want to instantly open a browser.

Another good thing: Vector is available preinstalled on PCs that cost well south of $200. I like the commitment they show to low-priced hardware. Best of all, once Fluxbox is installed, Vector still looks great and only gets better when it comes to performance.

What needs work: Gslapt is good, but I’d love a friendlier package management front end. Vector’s VASM configuration utility is kind of bare-bones and not all that elegant. The installer needs to hold newbies’ hands a little more, especially when it comes to drive partitioning. Also, I’d like the choice between LILO and GRUB for my bootloader to be made during the install, not later. Another thing, and this isn’t that big a deal: The pointer in Vector is a little large for my taste. I imagine this is configurable in Xfce, but I’m used to smaller pointers.

Final words: When it comes to easier-to-use renditions of Slackware, I suggest trying both Vector and ZenWalk to see what works best with your hardware. If speed is important, and if your hardware isn’t new, any of these Xfce-based distros can really bring some sanity to your computing life. Vector with Xfce is really good, but Vector with Fluxbox is excellent. Try it.

Xubuntu Gutsy Tribe 5 — first impressions

I downloaded and burned the Xubuntu Gutsy Tribe 5 live CD and loaded it up. I realize that this is beta and not all the bugs are worked out, and with that criterion, things are working very well. But I’m left wondering “Why?”

Never mind that the CD didn’t autodetect my correct monitor resolution — in fact, everything was set up for some monster-sized display. I was able to make the icons themselves, and the icon and menu type, as big as the old Xubuntu through Xfce setup. But in the applications (which do have a new, darkish window — not an improvement, just different), those menus stayed small no matter what I did. I’m no Xfce expert, and I’m probably missing something, but I hope hardware detection improves before this thing goes gold.

And the Xubuntu bugs that beset my Xubuntu 7.04 installation? The missing panels and lack of a menu upon right-clicking (until enabled manually)? Both persist in Gutsy Tribe 5. At this point, those fixes aren’t in. Nor does Xubuntu handle shutdown on my system very well. I had a message that there were ACPI problems upon boot. Still, the list of distros that allow for complete shutdown on this very box is long (and Ubuntu is even on it).

Overall, tt doesn’t look like a Xubuntu makeover — more like a gentle tweaking.

Here’s what is changing in 7.10 Gutsy:

— Any app can print to PDF

— CUPS replaced by system-config-print from Fedora

— New Wizard and Extensions Manager for Firefox

— New artwork (a bit darker — and not so much to my liking at this point)

So it’s definitely a gentle tweaking, nothing game-changing. If they don’t screw it up by the time 2008’s LTS release is ready, I’ll be happy.

One thing I did discover that is totally cool: In the Network Settings box, you can save multiple setups as separate locations, so if you move your PC from one place to another, you don’t have to retype the network settings. That is very cool.

Now remember, this is all based on running the 7.10 live CD in beta. I didn’t install to the hard drive, and I’m not going to at this point. If bugs get fixed and performance improves, that’s great, but there appear to be no major changes in Gutsy. I’m still a big proponent of Xubuntu, but the Red Sea is not parting, at least in my backyard kiddie pool, for Xubuntu 7.10.

Elsewhere: Caitlyn Martin on Ubuntu Gutsy

I fix my Debian Etch font problem

The one thing that has bugged me about Debian Etch is the quality of the fonts when using Iceweasel (Debian’s renamed Firefox). They have a pronounced bitmapped feel. That’s because they ARE bitmapped, it turns out. My fonts look fine in Ubuntu, Slackware, Vector, Puppy and everything else. But not in Debian.

First I checked the font manager for clues. Everything was exactly the same as Ubuntu.

Then I found the DebianHELP forum, and I had my answer:

Running dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig in a terminal as root.

> I would try to disable bitmap fonts. … You
> can run (as root)
>
> dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
>
> and choose “No” for “Enable bitmapped fonts by default?” (This is the
> last question that you will be asked.) Then you can restart X and check
> if this improves things. (Normally it does.)

I followed the menus, turned off bitmapped fonts, closed Iceweasel, and then restarted it.

Now Iceweasel and the rest of Debian Etch looks as good as everything else, and the major beef I have with Debian has been resolved. Thanks, DebianHELP!

Xubuntu 7.04 “disappearing panel bug” from a Ubuntu insider

Jani Monoses, who claims to be from the Ubuntu project, says in the now-resurrected comments to my Xubuntu 7.04 review, that “the disappearing panel is a bug we have not yet tracked down and it does not affect all installations.”

So those of you who say that your panels are fine — good for you! It’s not a bad CD-R, it’s just a bug. And I’m glad they know about it and hopefully are working on it.

John Biles said, “If you have an old PC go and enjoy what freedom is with Puppy Linux?” Puppy is great, no doubt there. It’s among the best things I’ve used since getting into all these distros.

And to Chris Hoyt, I just downloaded Xubuntu Gutsy Tribe 5, and I’ll be taking a look at that, too.

This is Vector. This is Vector on Fluxbox.

Fluxbox seems like an afterthought in most distros. You can add it, sure, but it doesn’t look or function that great without some work. On one of my Debian installs, Fluxbox is excellent, on the other not so much. Slackware has a nice Fluxbox setup as well.

But I wasn’t prepared for how great Fluxbox would be in Vector. In my Vector Standard install, I added everything related to Fluxbox with the Gslapt package manager. MAN … does it work well. Looks great, works great, with all the menus populated and a great Fluxbox theme that I’d never seen before.

Coming soon: A full review of Vector Standard 5.8

Slackware: I install XMMS

I wanted to install something in Slackware. I picked something with no dependencies: XMMS, the music player.

I got it from Linuxpackages.net. Then I opened up a terminal window, became the su, moved to the directory where I downloaded the file and used pkgtool to install it. Pkgtool even added it to the Xfce menu — and in the right place.