[Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

Tatwi · 2020-06-18 17:00:31

Here are some things I have found that make Beowulf worse than ASCII. I would love to list things that are better in Beowulf, but there aren't any - it's basically the same thing as ASCII, but worse for a few reasons. Such is the general direction of Linux since 2016 or so, *sigh*... That said, it's actually GREAT that Beowulf is so similar to ASCII, because if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I am so bloody sick of "change for the sake of change".

1. The Markdown plugin for Geany 1.33 isn't included in the repo and will not compile from source due to requiring a GTK library that is no longer available. The issue is noted in this bug report

https://github.com/geany/geany-plugins/issues/792

Version 1.34 of Geany does not have this problem, as it includes support for GTK3.

2. gcolor2, the simple GTK color picker is no longer available.

http://gcolor2.sourceforge.net/

I had to install the KDE equivalent, kcolorchooser, which isn't ideal because now I have a QT program running in my otherwise entirely GTK based environment. gpick is not a replacement for gcolor2, because it's has completely different, cumbersome, and awful UI that fucking sucks.

3. I had to pull the Intel wifi firmware from the ASCII live CD image, as the firmware included on both the ASCII and Beowulf full and netinstall didn't work with my Intel 8265 / 8275 (rev 78) wifi.

WORKS: firmware-intelwimax_20161130-3_all.deb
FAILS: firmware-intelwimax_20190114-2_all.deb

4. Pulseaudio didn't work properly until I commented out a line in obscure file.

/etc/pulse/client.conf.d/00-disable-autospawn.conf
- comment out the following line and reboot:
autospawn=no

I would prefer to not use PA, but Firefox is compiled to require it, so it has to be there...

5. Hunspell itself doesn't get installed when installing spell check libraries that use it, such as hunspell-en-ca, thus making it seem like spell check is broken in a fair number of programs until one does as sudo apt-get install hunspell. Bit of odd one and it's probably a Debian apt issue.

6. GIMP 2.10 is a broken abomination that's just plain worse than 2.8, yet its developers consider it to be working as intended. I already have a thread about it here, but I thought I would mention it again, because the new version actively ruins files created by older versions of Gimp, preventing a person from opening their images in an older version of the software. While I am personally lucky this hasn't screwed me over, it's an issue that could certainly screw over the unaware. For me it means that I have to now boot Windows 10 any time I want to use GIMP and wait 2 minutes for it find fonts. Yay...

Anyway, grumpy old man signing off!

Ps. The clock plugin for the XFCE panel still breaks after one changes any of its settings. Not a huge deal, as the Datetime plugin is essentially the same thing. But... it's still broken. The last time it worked was in Debian was Wheezy. https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14507

Last edited by Tatwi (2020-07-06 10:53:04)

golinux · 2020-06-18 17:24:17

You should be ranting at Debian.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-06-18 17:53:12

Tatwi wrote:

gcolor2, the simple GTK color picker is no longer available

Install yad and use

yad --color

The interface is almost identical.

Tatwi wrote:

I had to pull the Intel wifi firmware from the ASCII live CD image, as the firmware included on both the ASCII and Beowulf full and netinstall didn't work with my Intel 8265 / 8275 (rev 78) wifi.

The contents of both packages are identical:

~/Downloads$ for i in 201{6,9}/lib/firmware/*;do sha512sum $i;done
1ff797870d3733f34343bc39ee74473276bba57159670cf90247d00d001ef35788eac52d2bd0a4da06f09fc2d5c9dac554d52eb4eea30d7a3070b9f226d1ec30  2016/lib/firmware/i2400m-fw-usb-1.4.sbcf
ef5d7495013a8d7e34106e5b6cdffc2f41e445505fecaa7874c2e7157004f98198dad5099e2c5a159ab34a18f3a3fb8a6843d02a787322c1aa7f8bf0f34398d9  2016/lib/firmware/i2400m-fw-usb-1.5.sbcf
3f4805378ea58c9465b82a4086b729d172b55caa868bba4b45726fad5adf9eb70c36df251f9183c24f891bf7064be9f54195b44a296350209179c9aaa728d346  2016/lib/firmware/i6050-fw-usb-1.5.sbcf
1ff797870d3733f34343bc39ee74473276bba57159670cf90247d00d001ef35788eac52d2bd0a4da06f09fc2d5c9dac554d52eb4eea30d7a3070b9f226d1ec30  2019/lib/firmware/i2400m-fw-usb-1.4.sbcf
ef5d7495013a8d7e34106e5b6cdffc2f41e445505fecaa7874c2e7157004f98198dad5099e2c5a159ab34a18f3a3fb8a6843d02a787322c1aa7f8bf0f34398d9  2019/lib/firmware/i2400m-fw-usb-1.5.sbcf
3f4805378ea58c9465b82a4086b729d172b55caa868bba4b45726fad5adf9eb70c36df251f9183c24f891bf7064be9f54195b44a296350209179c9aaa728d346  2019/lib/firmware/i6050-fw-usb-1.5.sbcf
~/Downloads$

Tatwi wrote:

I would prefer to not use PA, but Firefox is compiled to require it, so it has to be there...

The firefox-esr package in Devuan beowulf is compiled with --enable-alsa and does not require PulseAudio, check about:buildconfig if you don't believe me.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2020-06-18 17:53:52)

larsH · 2020-06-18 18:03:19

Hi

Firefox does not require pulseaudio on beowulf. In fact pulseaudio is not needed at all. I am using the system to producing music. Pulseaudio is software only and making the sound worse not better. if you want graphical volumecontrl install volumeicon-alsa and be happy.

If gimp is cant open older files it is a bug (possibly in debian based distros). Report it here in devuan and maybe also to debian.

And yes there are some parts you have to install yourself. But it seems you are having the knowledge to get around it. And when first set up no changes the next two years ;-))

Have a nice day

darry1966 · 2020-06-19 04:59:30

Yeah well you can rant at Debian and they don't listen. Tried to talk to su maintainer and got know reply. I came to the conclusion they don't care.

Tatwi · 2020-06-20 16:49:29

Great to hear about FF not needing PA in Devuan. Thanks for that. In the case of my laptop, I can live with PA, but on my desktop it has always caused audio drop-out problems when recording in Audacity in literally every distro I have ever run on that machine. Rambling side note: it's sad that the Windows drivers included with my K-World TV tuner card never allowed me to use the RCA audio jacks to record audio, but it has always worked just fine in Linux.

I don't know why using the older wifi firmware package works during the installer's check for network firmware, but it does. I simply stuck it in the same directory with the other firmware and magically it was detected where the normally provided package was not. I don't know where to look for log/error messages for that, so I can't provide anymore details.

Sorry for complaining about Debian problems. I tend to agree with Darry that they just don't care.

Just to be clear, I like and will continue to use Devuan 3 on my laptop. It works like Linux should work and I appreciate that.

larsH · 2020-06-20 18:13:44

Hi

Thank you for your kind response ;-)) And sounding a little less depsperate

Have a nice day
Lars H

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-06-20 21:02:19

Tatwi wrote:

I don't know where to look for log/error messages for that

# dmesg | grep firmware

PedroReina · 2020-06-21 09:21:41

Tatwi wrote:

Sorry for complaining about Debian problems

Nothing to worry about, IMO. Sometimes it is dificult to trace the real cause of an error. Software nowadays is complex, with a lot of layers. When we try to debug some error we have to deal with phisycal glitches, upstream coders, Debian packagers and Devuan packagers, at least. Not an easy mix

Tatwi · 2020-06-21 15:07:02

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Tatwi wrote:
I don't know where to look for log/error messages for that
# dmesg | grep firmware

When would I be able to use that during the installer? In another TTY? Honestly can say I've never tried switching to another TTY during a Debian installation.

Tatwi · 2020-07-02 02:34:41

I managed to get GIMP 2.8 fully functional in Beowulf (I put a guide on the forum here) and after the usual amount of futzing one does with a Debian installation, I am happy to report that Beowulf on my laptop is now functionally identical to ASCII on my desktop, which is awesome!

Nice work folks. Thank you.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2020-07-02 07:30:23

Tatwi wrote:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:
Tatwi wrote:
I don't know where to look for log/error messages for that
# dmesg | grep firmware
When would I be able to use that during the installer? In another TTY?

Yes.

TTY4 contains all of the error messages from the installer, the other TTYs will offer a busybox shell with autologin.

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#1 2020-06-18 17:00:31

[Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#2 2020-06-18 17:24:17

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#3 2020-06-18 17:53:12

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#4 2020-06-18 18:03:19

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#5 2020-06-19 04:59:30

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#6 2020-06-20 16:49:29

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#7 2020-06-20 18:13:44

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#8 2020-06-20 21:02:19

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#9 2020-06-21 09:21:41

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#10 2020-06-21 15:07:02

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#11 2020-07-02 02:34:41

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

#12 2020-07-02 07:30:23

Re: [Solved] Ways Beowulf is worse than ASCII

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