In search of the best OS for a 9-year-old laptop: Part IV — Wolvix Cub is surprisingly strong

I didn’t have high hopes for Wolvix on the $15 Laptop — a Compaq Armada 7770dmt built in 1999 — since previous attempts to load the live CD resulted in an X configuration that needed a little work.

Since then, I’ve had quite a bit more experience working in the xorg.conf file, and I was able to get a halfway decent X configuration going so I could test Wolvix Cub (the smaller of the two Wolvix distributions, with fewer packages than the larger Wolvix Hunter).

As I’ve written on many occasions, I consider Wolvix to be one of the best Slackware-based distributions available. Both the graphical configuration utility and the very flexible installation utility — also an X application — add considerable functionality to a solid Slackware 11 base.

And with Wolvix (and the rest of the Slackware-derived distros such as Zenwalk and Vector), all of the helpful Slackware console utilities are still there. Xwmconfig, netconfig, mouseconfig, even pkgtool can be used in any of these Slackware-based systems. You might not need them as much as you would in a standard Slackware installation, but they do come in handy.

Wolvix also includes slapt-get and Gslapt, the Debian-apt-like utilities that changed the way I look at package management in Slackware.

Before Wolvix, when running Slackware I dutifally downloaded updates from the Slackware FTP site, then used updatepkg to install them. One by one. By one.

One time I figured that using pkgtool for updates would enable me to save time and avoid all that typing of long filenames, or the almost-as-long procedure of copy/pasting them in the file manager for each and every package than needed updating.

I ended up with “doubles” of every updated package, since pkgtool didn’t know I was doing an update and just installed the new packages without removing the old ones. So when you’re talking about doing updates of Slackware packages with Slack’s default tools, it’s updatepkg or nothing.

All it means is that slapt-get and Gslapt, which are included in Wolvix and easily added to Slackware itself, are essential for the person whose life doesn’t revolve around using the updatepkg utility.

Just the fact that Wolvix — which can operate as a live CD with a Knoppix-like save file, or in “frugal” or traditional hard-drive installs, can be brought up to date in minutes with Gslapt in much the same way that apt and Synaptic work in Debian continues to be a revelation.

Put it this way: How many longtime Slackware users don’t have and use slapt-get/Gslapt? I bet not many.

Once I had Wolvix Cub running as a live CD with X properly configured on the 144MB/233MHz Compaq Armada 7770dmt, I used xwmconfig at the console to switch between the Xfce and Fluxbox window managers.

Not surprisingly, both WMs ran quite well, even with only 144MB in the live CD environment.

What astounded me were the extremly quick application-load times. In previous tests of Wolvix, it was quick but not so quick as to beat Debian Etch or Slackware 12 under Xfce and Fluxbox.

In Wolvix Cub running on live CD on the Compaq, a number of text editors, the lightweight Abiword and not-so-light Firefox all loaded relatively quickly. I need to do more tests, but Firefox seemed as responsive or more so than the Mozilla-based Seamonkey browser is in the ultra-fast Puppy Linux.

I wouldn’t want to run Wolvix, even the Cub edition, as a live CD in the same way as Puppy or Damn Small Linux — especially in only 144MB of RAM, but when it comes to a traditional install, Wolvix Cub or the more application-rich Hunter would seemingly make an excellent candidate to permanently run on the Compaq.

In contrast to Debian and Slackware, Wolvix installs with just about every application and utility I like, from Abiword to Bluefish, Dillo to MtPaint, and with extremely well-organized menus in both Xfce and Fluxbox. In fact, the Fluxbox menus even include little icons next to each category of applications, something I’ve never seen before.

I’m “sure” I could replicate all of this goodness in standard Slackware of Debian, but the former’s KDE focus and the latter’s devotion to GNOME mean that it would take quite a bit of work on my part to have as good an experience in Xfce and Fluxbox as I already enjoy in Wolvix by simply loading the live CD and doing an easy installation from what I consider to be among the best installers of any Linux distribution.

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Previously:
In search of the best OS for a 9-year-old laptop: Part I — Puppy or Damn Small Linux
In search of the best OS for a 9-year-old laptop: Part II — OpenBSD or Debian?
In search of the best OS for a 9-year-old laptop: Part III — Browsers and wireless

Coming up:
In search of the best OS for a 9-year-old laptop: Part V — Where I’m headed
In search of the best OS for a 9-year-old laptop: Part VI — Younger Puppies
In search of the best OS for a 9-year-old laptop: Part VII — Debian with Xfce and Fluxbox calls
In search of the best OS for a 9-year-old laptop: Part VIII — Final thoughts (aka “Why?”)

Coming up in Click: An eight-part series on finding the right OS for a 9-year-old laptop

As soon as I’m able to begin posting them, my eight-part series on finding the best operating system for my circa-1999 Compaq Armada 7770dmt will begin unfolding, one part a day, on Click.

I’ve been working on this series for about a month, working with everything from Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux to OpenBSD and Wolvix Cub, with a lot of thoughts about past use of Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu and more.

So starting — again, as soon as I can get the entries lined up — look for a long meditation on the best way to make old hardware work in the 21st century.

Things I like about Slackware

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile (or spent a few hours back in the archives), you know that I run Debian, Ubuntu, Puppy, OpenBSD and Damn Small Linux a lot.

I have had a Slackware box in the past, but I didn’t stick with it. Still, one of my very favorite distributions is Wolvix, which is based on Slackware 11.

While I’m generally a GNOME fan, especially on faster boxes, and not a big user of KDE, even on faster boxes, there’s a lot of software in the full Slackware installation. Since I’m OK using KWord (and not OpenOffice Writer or Abiword) for the few times I need to kick out a .doc file, I don’t feel the need at this very moment to install one of the GNOME add-on projects for Slackware.

If I could, I would install Dropline GNOME, but since the box I’m using is NOT i686 compatible, I can’t do that. GNOME Slackbuild looks like it will work, and I might install it, but since the default Slackware installation is working so well, I’m loathe to mess up a good thing.

Here’s what I like about Slackware:

In the default installation, just about everything works

Easy-to-use console utilities make managing the box relatively easy. I’m talking about:

xwmconfig
netconfig
mouseconfig
pkgtool (surprisingly helpful when adding or removing packages)

A bunch of window managers, easily selectable before starting X with the xwmconfig utility. It may not have GNOME, but a full Slackware installation does have:

KDE
XFCE
Fluxbox
Blackbox
WindowMaker
Fvwm2
Twm

On occasion, I do use Fvwm2, which I grew to like from OpenBSD, where it’s the default WM. Things really speed up on slow boxes when you use Xfce, Fluxbox or any of the window managers that are not KDE.

Other things I like about Slackware:

Long-term support. The Slackware team keeps the security patches coming for many of its releases. I still see updates for Slackware 8.1, which was released in 2002. Six years is pretty impressive. It’s up there with the “enterprise” releases from Red Hat and SUSE.

Slapt-get. After using Wolvix and now Slackware itself with slapt-get, I’m a total believer. It makes maintaining a Slackware box much, much easier. Get it here.

Lots of editors. Slackware may not include my favorite (Geany) but nonetheless has tons of editors built in:

Vi
Vim
Gvim
Nano
Xedit
Kwrite
Kate
Kedit
Emacs
Jed
Joe
Mousepad
(and some I probably missed)

Three major Web browsers:

Firefox
Seamonkey (which also features a mail client and HTML-generating app)
Konqueror

I’ve grown fond of Seamonkey, which is the main browser in Puppy Linux. I usually use Firefox, but it’s nice to have Seamonkey there in case I need the Composer app to do some HTML, or to use the mail client (even though I’m pretty much accustomed to Thunderbird).

I like a lot of choices, and while I’d really like Slackware to include Abiword and maybe even OpenOffice, I can add these packages later if I decide I really need them. But I probably don’t and won’t.

I haven’t made the leap to Slackbuilds yet, but I have had success with Robby Workman’s precompiled packages.

Great projects derived from Slackware:

Wolvix
ZenWalk
Vector
Slax

I’m VERY partial to Wolvix. If I need to set up a box quickly with all the software I want/need, Wolvix Hunter is the way to do it. Wolvix has one of the best, most flexible installers I’ve ever seen. You can run Wolvix as a live CD, or in a “frugal” or full hard-drive installation. All are easy to do.

Default fonts in Slackware look better than default fonts in Debian

I like to gave good-looking fonts right out of the gate. Slackware is as good as any modern distribution in this regard. Debian fonts look OK on an LCD screen, horrible on a CRT. I’ve gotten used to them, and I no longer change them, but I still prefer nice, smooth fonts.

If you’re going to run KDE, Slackware’s the fastest way to do it

SimplyMepis with KDE is simply unusable on this 2002-era box. It’s too slow by far. Slackware makes KDE usable on this old PC.

Granted, KDE is just as fast in Debian, so that’s another good choice for the KDE fan who wants to use their favorite window manager on an old box.

A little advice: If you use KDE in Debian, save yourself a lot of trouble and use Aptitude or apt; Kpackage didn’t work for me. And conversely, in Slackware use pkgtool/installpkg/upgradepkg or slapt-get/Gslapt, not Kpackage. Maybe some of you have had a better experience with Kpackage. For whatever reason, I don’t like it.

Coming soon: Things I don’t like about Slackware

Slackware tips — quick and easy things to make the box work better

Here are a few quick tips to make Slackware work a bit better.

Groups for your primary user account

When creating your first user account, make sure you pick the right groups.

Slackware is a bit unusual as far as Linux distributions go in that it doesn’t create a user account during the installation process.

After the installation is complete, you need to log in as root with the password you chose during the install. Then create an account with adduser. I do this before starting X:

# adduser

It’s pretty simple. Just fill in the information requested.

The key is to add the right groups. In order to have control over the CD-ROM, plug-in USB drives and audio, I type in the following additional groups for my first user account (i.e. my account:

audio,disk,floppy,video,plugdev,cdrom,wheel

If and when you create additional user accounts, you can either add them to these groups or not. It’s up to you. I’d probably leave out a few of these for my additional users; I don’t think they’d need disk or floppy, and I wouldn’t want them to have wheel.

And if you forget to add your user account to a particular group, go to /etc/group as root and add your user to the appropriate group or groups.

Note: I could do this in the console with vi, but when I’m in X, I use Mousepad. Feel free to use your favorite GUI or console editor.

I open a terminal, su to root and do this:

# mousepad /etc/group

When I’m done, I save the file in Mousepad and close the window.

Want to use sudo?

I’ve grown accustomed to using sudo, so I add my user account to the sudoers file *— for which you MUST use visudo and NOT a direct edit on /etc/sudoers — while logged in as root (either directly or by su to root:

# visudo

the sudoers file comes up in vi. You do know enough vi to get by don’t you? I can hack my way through vi well enough, and this is one of those cases where a little experience with the default text editor in Slackware and most other systems comes in very handy.

Unless you are already somewhat proficient in vi, look for an online tutorial and figure out the difference between the edit and command modes and how to move your cursor around, delete text, etc.

Back to the sudoers file. Many Unix/Linux gurus may cringe at my advice, and I’ll just say that I’m concerned here with a desktop system, not a server. For a server, especially an “important” one, permissions must be finely grained and mostly restricted, with some users getting more permissions than others.

But for a desktop box, if you as the sole or primary person maintaining the box wants to use sudo, just add yourself to the sudoers file right below root:

ROOT    ALL=(ALL)    ALL
MYUSERNAME    ALL=(ALL)    ALL

Use your user name, not MYUSERNAME, of course.

Save the file in vi (in command mode, which you reach with esc, type :wq and hit Enter), and you will be able to sudo.

I guess Ubuntu got me in the habit of using sudo, even though lots of things require su to root (like using visudo), and I like to have it at my disposal.

Get your wheel mouse working right

Even though the Slackware installer asks me what kind of mouse I have — it’s a wheel mouse (you know, with the scroll wheel), it is never properly configured.

I dutifully enter IMPS/2 during the installer, but the wheel never makes the screen scroll.

So I edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to fix the problem:

# sudo mousepad /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then I change this:

# The available mouse protocols types that you can set below are:
#    Auto BusMouse GlidePoint GlidePointPS/2 IntelliMouse IMPS/2
#    Logitech Microsoft MMHitTab MMSeries Mouseman MouseManPlusPS/2
#    MouseSystems NetMousePS/2 NetScrollPS/2 OSMouse PS/2 SysMouse
#    ThinkingMouse ThinkingMousePS/2 Xqueue
    Option “Protocol”    “PS/2”

to this:

# The available mouse protocols types that you can set below are:
#    Auto BusMouse GlidePoint GlidePointPS/2 IntelliMouse IMPS/2
#    Logitech Microsoft MMHitTab MMSeries Mouseman MouseManPlusPS/2
#    MouseSystems NetMousePS/2 NetScrollPS/2 OSMouse PS/2 SysMouse
#    ThinkingMouse ThinkingMousePS/2 Xqueue
    Option “Protocol”    “IMPS/2”

The line I changed is in bold for emphasis.

Slapt-get

I used to update my Slackware box the old-fashioned way, by bringing down the security patches from the Slackware site by FTP and then using updatepkg to install each one individually.

Now I do two things differently: First, I use a faster mirror — anything is faster than Slack’s main FTP site — and second, as of yesterday, I use slapt-get.

I got slapt-get from the GNOME Slackbuild site, and after my first attempt at installing GNOME didn’t go so well, the second time I installed Slackware this go-round, I commented out the GNOME Slackbuild mirror (I can always uncomment it later) and updated my Slackware packages only. (I recommend that you get slapt-get from … the slapt-get people, as I detail below).

Once you find and install the proper slapt-get package for your version (mine is 12.0), go into /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc as root to select a Slackware mirror, and, if you used the GNOME Slackbuild version of slapt-get, to comment out the GNOME Slackbuild mirror until you’re ready to install GNOME, if you (or I) ever are.

At this point, I’m pretty happy with Slackware the way it is, especially with slapt-get, so I’m holding off on adding GNOME.

You could always get slapt-get from its “official” site. The easiest thing to do is to find the precompiled slapt-get package for your version of Slackware, download it and use Slackware’s pkgtool utility to install it.

I haven’t yet installed Gslapt, the GUI for slapt-get, but I plan to do it in the future. It’s also at software.jaos.com

I’ve said in the past that I feel a little squirelly about using slapt-get to install NEW packages, the only reason being that I don’t know enough about it, but for updating official Slackware packages, I feel really, really, really good about it.

The last time I used Slackware, I fell behind in my security updates, mostly because you need to use upgradepkg and can’t make it easier by using pkgtool directly. (Believe me, there are a lot of EASY Slackware console utilities that, in some ways, make Slack a cakewalk to configure).

Once I used Wolvix, which is based on Slackware 11, and which includes slapt-get and Gslapt, I saw how easy it was to update a Slackware box. Slapt-get levels the playing field vis a vis Debian quite a bit.

I tried Slackbuilds, but I’m missing something; so I got Geany from LinuxPackages.net, and it worksls

I didn’t really need Geany, but I wanted to try Slackbuilds.

The instructions are too brief. I only say this because I can’t make it work.

I extract the Slackbuild script, download the source to the proper directory, run the script as root and then get an error message.

The output says: “tar: This does not look like a tar archive,” or “bzip2: (stdin) is not a bzip2 file.”

I’m sure I’m missing something, but what?

Not one to wait, I went to LinuxPackages.net and got Geany for Slackware 12.0. I used pkgtool to install it. Worked perfectly.

Still, I’d like to figure out Slackbuilds. I’d love to know what I’m doing wrong.

I sent Slackware expert Willy Sudiarto Raharjo an e-mail asking for help. I’ve exchanged e-mail with Robby Workman before, and he’s responsible for many Slackbuilds scripts, but I figured I’d ask Willy first and see what he comes up with.

I tried Slackbuilds, but I’m missing something; so I got Geany from LinuxPackages.net, and it worksls

I didn’t really need Geany, but I wanted to try Slackbuilds.

The instructions are too brief. I only say this because I can’t make it work.

I extract the Slackbuild script, download the source to the proper directory, run the script as root and then get an error message.

The output says: “tar: This does not look like a tar archive,” or “bzip2: (stdin) is not a bzip2 file.”

I’m sure I’m missing something, but what?

Not one to wait, I went to LinuxPackages.net and got Geany for Slackware 12.0. I used pkgtool to install it. Worked perfectly.

Still, I’d like to figure out Slackbuilds. I’d love to know what I’m doing wrong.

I sent Slackware expert Willy Sudiarto Raharjo an e-mail asking for help. I’ve exchanged e-mail with Robby Workman before, and he’s responsible for many Slackbuilds scripts, but I figured I’d ask Willy first and see what he comes up with.

I’m running Slackware 12 (not 12.1 unfortunately) and I’m holding off on GNOME Slackbuild

Now that I have a working Slackware installation on my test box, which has seen Slackware before, everything is working so well that I’m reluctant to install one of the GNOME add-on projects just yet.

A lot of this is due to the fact that while Slackware is KDE-centric, it also installs with the XFCE, Fluxbox and FVWM window managers, among others, and I’m content to use XFCE at the moment, along with Firefox for Web browsing, KWord if I need it, and Mousepad for text editing.

I haven’t even added Abiword, which I’ve done in the past in Slackware.

What I did add was slapt-get. The apt-like package manager for Slackware seemed like a very good idea due to the relatively large number of updates since Slackware 12 was first released. It worked great.

The box upgraded overnight, and everything came up fine in the morning.

I would like to be running Slackware 12.1, but as I wrote previously, none of the install kernels would boot on this VIA C3 Samuel-based machine. I got a message about not having enough memory, even though I have 256MB — more than enough.

I’d like to try an upgrade from 12.0 to 12.1, but it looks as hard or harder than the OpenBSD 4.2 to 4.3 upgrade I did recently, except with instructions that are less detailed.

But as always, Slackware runs as fast as anything, and everything pretty much works.

Shed some light on this one, Slackware fans everywhere

After participating in a huge thread on LXer about the pros, cons, highs, lows of Slackware, ye olde Linux distribution with rabid fans and equally rabid detractors, I decided to give Slack another run myself.

This very box — a VIA C3 Samuel-based converted thin client with 256 MB of RAM — installed and ran Slackware 12.0 without complaint several months ago.

But it won’t even load the installer of Slackware 12.1.

With both the hugesmp.s and huge.s kernels, I get the same error message:

Not enough memory to load specified kernel.

What gives? If 256MB isn’t enough to install and run Slackware, then we’ve got a big, big problem.

I cranked a Slackware 12.0 install disc into the box and the huge.s kernel booted just fine (hugesmp.s wouldn’t boot on this CPU).

I’ll do a 12.0 installation and try to upgrade to 12.1.

But why won’t 12.1 even boot the first install disc?

Any ideas?

Can you (easily) update a BSD system between releases? Or am I barking up the wrong (ports) tree?

Note: I originally wrote this post on 2/15/08. Today is 4/24/08. Since that time, I’ve looked into updating in the BSDs a bit further. In FreeBSD, it’s certainly possible to update both ports and packages.

In OpenBSD, the Errata for a give release shows you what needs to be fixed in the base system. The updates are easily available, but they do need to be compiled from source. What the OpenBSD team really wants you to do, it seems, is run the -current release, on which all ports can be updated from source. Sounds like a lot of compiling. Still, I might try it at some point.

Anyway, here is the “original” 2/15/08 entry:

While it’s pretty easy to install software from precompiled packages or from ports in OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD, I’ve hit a bit of a wall when it comes to keeping any of these systems up to date with periodic security and bug patches.

I don’t know if such updates are either not as necessary in the BSDs, even though my Linux boxes have a dozen or so of them every week, or that it’s just to hard to do for the average BSD user.

I see plenty of Web help on how to upgrade from one version of a BSD to another, but I don’t see anything that covers searching for periodically updated packages and updating an installation on, lets say, a weekly basis as security and bug problems arise and are presumably updated in the repositories of packages and ports.

O, BSD users, correct me if I’m wrong — and I do hope that I am wrong. But with apt/Aptitude/Synaptic in Debian-based Linux distributions, rpm/Yum in Red Hat- and Suse-style systems, and upgradepkg (and slapt-get/Gslapt) in Slackware (with security announcements going to the mailing list and the http://www.slackware.com/security page) … need I go on?

The point is that almost all Linux installations are easily upgraded with precompiled binary packages. Gentoo … well, I won’t go there because I know it has its own BSD-like ports system, but I’ve never used it and don’t know how it works.

Again, the point is that all of these Linux distributions have me conditioned to expect — and to install — updates on a regular basis.

But what do I do with BSD? In OpenBSD, for instance, I’ve never even downloaded the ports tree. Everything I’ve installed has been a precompiled binary package for the i386 architecture. It’s very slick, works perfectly … but am I exposing myself to undue risk by running Firefox 2.0.0.6 instead of the newer 2.0.0.12? Is all that extra OpenBSD security for nought if I’m running applications rife with security holes?

I’m being completely serious. Is there something I’m missing here? Since OpenBSD, at least, updates the whole system every six months, am I OK to keep the same packages running until the next release? What does this say about BSD vs. Linux when it comes to security and bugs?

But wait. I did run DesktopBSD for awhile, and I remember that system having a GUI package manager that not only fetched new packages but upgraded those already installed.

So that’s what Matt Olander was talking about when he said that PC-BSD and DesktopBSD were working together to share technology when it came to package management.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t need to do my updates in a GUI app. I’m perfectly OK with using the console. Just being able to do that updating is enough. That is, unless someone out there can convince me that Linux has conditioned me to think I need something that I really don’t.

Those on all sides of this issue, please enlighten me — and quickly.

Debian dumps Flash … and why you might want to try Debian and Slackware

I just read that Debian is removing Flash from its repository:

Flashplugin-nonfree has been removed (see below), as this is closed source and we don’t get security support for it. For security reasons, we recommend to immediately remove any version of flashplugin-nonfree and any remaining files of the Adobe Flash Player. Tested updates will be made available via backports.org.

Since adding Flash from the repository never seemed to work for me in Debian — I always have to get it through the browser dialogs — it’s kind of a moot point. I haven’t yet investigated Gnash — the free, open-source Flash clone — but I’d sure like to do so. Flash is a resource hog, and I wish it would go away, but that’s probably not going to happen. I just hope that Gnash or some other open-source alternative can replace it — and quickly.

Back to Debian: The Flash news is part of Debian’s main announcement that there’s a new netinstall image for Etch:

The Debian project is pleased to announce the third update of its stable distribution Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (codename etch). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustment to serious problems.

Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away 4.0 CDs or DVDs but only to update against ftp.debian.org after an installation, in order to incorporate those late changes.

Those who frequently install updates from security.debian.org won’t have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.

So you don’t really need it, unless you don’t already have it, in which case you need it.

I’ve been running Debian Lenny (testing) on the $0 Laptop (Gateway Solo 1450), and it’s making significant progress — it works way better than it did a month ago. I’m dual-booting with PCLinuxOS 2007 at the moment.

The older, weaker $15 Laptop (Compaq Armada 7770dmt) is still running Debian Etch (Stable), with the Xfce build’s software, but now set to use Fluxbox as the window manager.

I can’t decide whether or not to install Etch again on the Gateway just to see if any other bugs were fixed. For me, Lenny has resolved most of my issues, and I’ll be happy to stick with it as it goes Stable.

And while I’m considering building an experimental server with OpenBSD, I might make it easy on myself and use Debian Etch instead.

My advice: If you’re worried that either Debian or Slackware is too hard to figure out, don’t be so worried. The not-so-hidden secret out there is that Ubuntu isn’t that much easier. If you’ve got Ubuntu figured out even a little, you can handle Debian (and it’s a bit faster, with more in the default install, besides). Slackware, you can probably figure out with a little hand-holding. Adding software and doing updates isn’t as easy as in Debian/Ubuntu, but it’s still fairly easy — and you’ll definitely learn something; actually quite a few somethings.

The flexibility of Debian is legendary. With one little netinstall CD, you can roll out a GNOME, KDE or Xfce desktop, a minimal console-only system (from which you can build what you want), plus any number of server configurations.

Slackware is also very flexible, but in a different way. It can’t compete with Debian’s 20,000+ packages, but there’s a lot in the full Slack install. A full KDE desktop (with Xfce and Fluxbox, too). And if you want to spend a lot of time on the install process, you can pick and choose each individual package before committing to the final install.

Both put a lot of power in the hands of the user. And you do want power, don’t you?

Flash update: Sander Marechal provided this very illuminating bug report (in this LXer thread) about the discussion in the Debian community over whether or not (and if so, then how) to include Flash in Debian.

At this point, it looks like the flashplugin-nonfree will be available to Debian users via Backports.org.

In the bug report, Ramond Wan says:

As a Debian user, but someone who isn’t related to how Debian is run…I
think you are correct and more importantly, what makes you think that
Debian isn’t political? Every time I visit a web site with Iceweasel
and the server pops up an annoying message saying that Firefox is
supported but not my browser, I sense only a part of the overall
politics in Debian. In this case, I blame the server developers, too,
for having such a message (how about if I used lynx?).

Anyway, there is a lot of politics within Debian and it stems from them
drawing a line that forms the basis of what Debian is (i.e., “free”).
If they start making exceptions, then that line has no meaning.
Backports is a patch that helps make it easy for many of us. We give up
some things to be able to use Debian (rather than one of the many other
Linux distributions).

Carlo Wood says:

I’m sorry, but it doesn’t seem to make much sense
to let the debian users of stable and testing suffer
like this. It’s not like Adobe is going to be like
“Oh My God!” and change their ways. They clearly don’t
give a damn.

I can’t help but sense a political reason not to
support flash, just because it’s “non-free”, the
maintainers of debian WANT it to be broken, almost,
and certainly don’t look hard for a way to give
their users an easy way to use flash. Just as long
as the result is that the users blame Adobe, and
not debian, it’s ok – regardless of how much the
users suffer because of it.

And Timo Jyrinki says:

YouTube already works with Gnash the free Flash player, so that in
particular should not be a problem. Many other sites are not yet working,
but Gnash could be possibly defined as working “well enough” in time for
the Lenny. At least I’m using it exclusively anyway, and I’m just using
the 0.8.1 version, which lacks development for the last four months. But I
don’t find it problematic to skip sites that don’t work with Gnash, so I’m
not an average user.

In summary, Gnash works rather well for Flash 7 sites, but quite a large
portion of sites has moved to Flash 8 and 9 which are only a
work-in-progress with regards to Gnash, and most do not work properly.
Time will tell how fast Gnash will progress.

And here’s what I say: I’m ambivalent about Flash. Some sites — yes, even some that I personally help maintain — use way too much Flash. You can barely navigate a site when you have two to four Flash apps running on a given page. The people who are all hot to use this much Flash obviously don’t spend much, if any time using their own sites.

As far as video goes, Flash just seems easier than the alternatives. I know that QuickTime, for instance, runs like an old, three-legged dog on non-Apple hardware. It’s just a lousy app.

So as far as video goes, I’d love to see some alternatives to Flash, especially open-source alternatives.

But as I say above, it may be a security issue, but on Debian I’ve always just gotten the Flash plugin straight from Mozilla through the browser itself.