debian Archive

  • click to update

    2 Click Update For Ubuntu / Debian Based Systems

    Posted on April 18, 2010 | 1 Comment
    2clickUpdate is a bash script which automates the update process on Ubuntu / Debian systems. The script doesn't just simply install the updates, but also cleans the downloaded packages (also removes orphaned packages) and so on.The latest 2clickUpdate ...

    Full Story

  • Thoughts on Ubuntu and Debian

    Thoughts on Ubuntu and Debian

    Posted on April 1, 2010 | No Comments
    I just came across a very interesting piece written by Keith Cary Curtis, titled Should Ubuntu Have Been Created. He makes some very interesting and valid points to support his contention that Mark Shuttleworth should have put his money into supporting and expanding the established Debian development effort, rather than creating an independent fork of [...]

    Full Story

  • 7 Reasons to Use Debian

    7 Reasons to Use Debian

    Posted on August 30, 2009 | No Comments

    1. Stable
    Any application needs time to be used and tested enough time in order to make it stable. One of the greatest goals of Debian is stability. It's released when it's ready and applications included in the repositories have enough time to be tested through.

    2. Debian offers stable, old stable, testing, *and* sid
    Why should this be an advantage? First, because there is a stable release, which will fit both desktops and servers. Since Debian stable releases happen rarely, software can get a little old. So any can get to choose 'testing', which is tagged that way because applications are tested more but they are still usable. Sid is bleeding edge, which means applications get in usually as soon as they are released, so you get the newest software only by installing a testing weekly snapshot and upgrading. Considering the stable and old stable offer software which has been tested and stripped for critical bugs, testing usually proves to be the perfect alternative for a user who wants to use up-to-date tools and applications, which include the latest features.

    3. The DFSG
    Maybe this doesn't say much just when you see it, but Debian has been around since 1993 and it still is as it was. Although the social contract changed a little over the years, it still retained it's originality. It's open, it's free, it follows the GPL entirely, it respects the community needs.

    4. Debian is one of the oldest distributions
    Although this doesn't necessarily make you wise, take a look at Debian: it's been up for over 15 years and there are a lot of distributions out there who take and eventually expand Debian's work, take Ubuntu or DSL for example.

    5. Very rich documenation
    Except for the official documentation, there are hundreds of respectable websites which provide Debian tutorials and general documentation. There is usually no problem which can't be solved in Debian or at least which hasn't somewhere an answer.

    6. Many distributions are based on Debian
    Debian offers a solid base and a powerful system of managing software. Distributions like Ubuntu and DSL use the APT packaging system, which was invented by Debian for easier management of installed software. In turn, everything user-friendly or useful from Ubuntu will get eventually into Debian.

    7. Great community
    Being one of the oldest distributions out there, Debian has a strong community. Take the IRC channels, both on Freenode and OFTC, take all the Debian-dedicated forums or the mailing lists, consider that there are gurus out there who worked with Debian for years and they will usually offer support and share knowledge.

    Full Story

  • How-To: Compile and Install Wine 1.1.28 in Debian Lenny

    How-To: Compile and Install Wine 1.1.28 in Debian Lenny

    Posted on August 23, 2009 | No Comments
    Wine 1.1.28 was released on August 21 and it comes with new features and improvements like support for IRDA protocol, faster wineprefix creation, more image formats in WindowsCodecs and various other bug fixes.

    To get Wine 1.1.28 in Debian Lenny, follow the next steps:

    1. Enable the sources repositories
    Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file as root and make sure you have a line which starts with deb-src, like in the example below:

    deb-src ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

    If not, add it, replacing the TLD (top level domain) with your own country TLD (in the example above the TLD is ftp.fi.debian.org - Finland).

    2. Update the package lists
    As root, type:

    apt-get update

    3. Install the needed dependencies
    As root, type the following commands in a terminal window:

    apt-get install build-essential
    apt-get build-dep wine

    The first command will get build-essential (which is a meta package including tools needed for the compilation, like gcc) and the second will fetch the Wine development libraries.

    3. Get the source tarball
    Download the source tarball from here (direct link here) and uncompress it:

    tar -xjf wine-1.1.28.tar.bz2

    4. Compile and install Wine
    Make sure the current working directory is wine-1.1.28 and type the following commands:

    ./configure
    make depend && make
    make install

    The last command (make install) with root privileges. Alternately, you can install Wine as normal user by specifying a prefix:

    ./configure --prefix=/home/USER/usr/
    make depend && make
    make install

    In which case you don't need to run make install as root, but as normal user only.

    After the installation is complete, run:

    winecfg

    And that's it. Wine should be now properly installed. Run any Windows application using:

    wine executable_file.exe

    Full Story

  • How-To: Install OpenOffice 3.1 in Debian 5.0 Lenny

    How-To: Install OpenOffice 3.1 in Debian 5.0 Lenny

    Posted on August 22, 2009 | No Comments
    Debian Lenny comes by default with OpenOffice 2.6.4, but in the meantime OpenOffice 3.1 was released. You can easily install it on your Debian box by using the Debian Lenny backports repository, which is a repository including newer versions of applications than the ones which come by default with Lenny. Just follow the steps below:

    Add the backports repositories
    To add the Lenny backports repositories, just edit as root your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following line:

    deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free

    Make sure to save the file (Ctrl+O followed by Ctrl+X in Nano) and proceed to the next step.

    Install the Debian backports keyring
    As root, type:

    apt-get install debian-backports-keyring

    This will install the debian-backports-keyring package, adding the key to your trusted repository keys.

    Update the package lists
    Now, update the package lists as root:

    apt-get update

    And install OpenOffice.org:

    apt-get -t lenny-backports install openoffice.org


    This should be all. OpenOffice.org 3.1.0 should be now installed properly on your Debian box, and you can run it by typing openoffice.org in a Run box or opening a terminal application and typing openoffice.org.

    Full Story

  • How-To: Compile and Install Latest VLC in Debian Lenny

    How-To: Compile and Install Latest VLC in Debian Lenny

    Posted on August 11, 2009 | No Comments
    This tutorial will show how to compile and install the latest VLC from source in Debian Lenny in several steps. The current version at the time of writing is VLC 1.0.1, so the tutorial should work successfully for it.

    1. Install the development packages
    As root, type the following two commands:

    apt-get install build-essential

    apt-get install libassa3.5-5-dev libv4l-ruby1.8 debhelper dh-buildinfo gettext quilt nasm yasm libxul-dev liba52-0.7.4-dev libaa1-dev libasound2-dev libcaca-dev libcdio-dev libdca-dev libdvbpsi4-dev libaudiofile-dev libavahi-client-dev libavcodec-dev libdvdnav-dev libdvdread-dev libesd0-dev libfaad-dev libflac-dev libfreetype6-dev libfribidi-dev libggi2-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libglib2.0-0 libgnutls-dev libhal-dev libid3tag0-dev libidl0 libimlib2-dev libjack-dev liblircclient-dev liblivemedia-dev liblua5.1-0-dev libmad0-dev libmatroska-dev libmodplug-dev libmpcdec-dev libmpeg2-4-dev libncursesw5-dev libnotify-dev libogg-dev libpng12-dev libpostproc-dev libpulse-dev libqt4-dev libschroedinger-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl1.2-dev libvcdinfo-dev libvorbis-dev libx11-dev libx264-dev libxext-dev libxml2-dev libxpm-dev libxt-dev libxv-dev pkg-config qt4-dev-tools zlib1g-dev

    The first one will install the meta package build-essential, which depends on compilation tools, while the latter will install development libraries needed to compile VLC.

    3. Make a symbolic link in /usr/lib
    Make a symbolic link in /usr/lib/ which will point to the libGL library. This may depend on which driver you have installed. You may not need to do this step. For example, I used here:

    ln -s /usr/lib/libGL.so.173.14.09 /usr/lib/libGL.so

    2. Download the source code
    Download the VLC source tarball from the official website (direct link here) and uncompress it:

    tar -xjf vlc-1.0.1.tar.bz2

    4. Compile and install
    Now make sure the current working directory is vlc-1.0.1 and issue the following commands:

    ./configure --disable-nls --disable-mozilla --disable-live555
    make
    make install

    The last command as root. Without the switches --disable-nls and --disable-mozilla I got the error configure: error: Buggy GNU/libc (version 2.5 - 2.7) present. VLC would crash; there is no viable work-around for this. so I had to disable them.

    Finally, run ldconfig as root:

    ldconfig

    This should be all. Run VLC by typing vlc in a terminal or hitting Alt+F2 and typing vlc in the run box that appears.

    You can also install as normal user by changing the installation prefix, e.g.:

    ./configure --prefix=/home/USER/usr --disable-nls --disable-mozilla --disable-live555
    make
    make install

    Just make sure to replace USER with your username and include /home/USER/usr/bin in your $PATH variable.

    Full Story