Debian Wheezy - Web Browsers

v0.3.1

I've been working with Debian Wheezy with Virtualbox.  It occurred to me that I've long ago stopped talking about how to install Debian within VBox, and have transferred to talking about Wheezy itself.  Hopefully naming the posts about what they really are will be more productive.

Whilst purists might disagree, I think that using synaptic is a wonderful and easy tool to explore the world of Debian packages.  The sections are nicely laid out and it is easy to see which packages meet your search criteria .. and who knows, you might find some wonderful gem you never thought existed.

Take Web Browsers for example ......

When you search on that, some really interesting variants appear.

• Chromium from which Google Chrome is derived.  And it accepts the Google extensions.
• IceApe.  The Debian version of SeaMonkey which is the Mozilla version of Netscape.
• Dillo.  It is a cool, FAST web browser.  Yes, a little basic but did I mention is is FAST.
• Conkeror.  Emacs.  But this one does graphics.
• W3m.  Emacs.  But this one doesn't.
• Links2.  Just on 2 meg and it is not bad ...
• Lynx

Whilst there are a few more, I just wanted to illustrate what you can find.  I know there are the standard Gnome and KDE browsers, but at the  moment I'm inclined to avoid them since upon installing them you are obliged to install the majority of the appropriate desktop and whilst this might be fine for you, that is not what I'm looking at here.

I guess what I'm trying to point out is that the Debian repository of software is pretty extensive, and whilst I'd like to get back to configuring the overall system and finding those tips and tricks that seem elusive, there is so much to be found in Synaptic.


Later ........

Further to the above ....

I did of course negelect Debian's Firefox - IceWeasel which is provided in the latest variant.


:)

Debian Wheezy in VirtualBox - Part 5

v 0.2

This time I'd thought I'd talk about packages I've installed / uninstalled. 

• First up is the Flash plugin.  Wheezy comes with the latest IceWeasel browser (Firefox) however uses the Gnash plugin.  Whilst this is improving steadily, for what I want to do especially in Youtube, the Adobe Flash is much better.  Ensure you have  "main contrib non-free" activated for your repositories in "/etc/apt/sources.list" and after updating the repositories, fire up Synaptic and search for "Flash".  You will find the "Browser plugin for Gnash" is installed - mark it for removal, and at the same time, mark the Adobe Flash non-free for installation.  Apply, and now you have the Adobe Flash plugin installed.
• Some fonts.  Search for " ttf-mscorefonts-installer " and mark that for installation.
• Gdebi.  When you wish to install a " deb " package to your system that you have manually downloaded, if you use Gdebi to install, then all the dependencies will be checked and if available, downloaded from the Debian repository.  Once installed, it appears in the "System" section.
• Boot-Up Manager.  Look for " bum " .  What it does is to allow you to control which services run on startup.
• Debian-reference-en  .. an excellent book all about Debian.  This also installs the  debian-reference-common package.  If you are not careful and don't just choose your preferred language, you'll end up installing the lot.  You might also consider the debian refcard, and the installation guide as well.  Now, because of the wonders of the Debian menu system (worth finding out about), the Debian reference is now in the  "accessories" section.
• xchm - to view Microsoft compiled help files.  Once installed, it appears in the "Office" menu.  There is also kchmviewer, however though that is a little more capable, it is also somewhat larger.  If you are going to have a number of KDE applications though, it might not be so bad.
• xcal - an old and basic calendar / memo / alarm program - but interesting.  AND it brings up another question - that of modifying the Xfce menu, since xcal does not appear and can only be launched via the terminal (unless you create a launcher).

 Of course, the "application finder" spyglass on the dock could be used to do some modifying of the menu, however I've not chased it up yet.

Menus in Debian

Menus in Debian are interesting - there is an automated system to add and delete items that enables the menu of any desktop / window manager to be automatically updated as packages are moved in and out.  You can start reading about the Debian Menu System, and then,of course, Google is your friend.

Alacarte Menu Editor

The Gnome menu editor was the first to cross my mind .. " Alacarte" however when I went to install it, many of the Gnome packages were listed for installation as well, which was not what I was after.

The Debian Menu

One menu selection that is missing is the "Debian" menu, which DOES include all the installed applications.




Enough for the moment.



More later .......

Debain Squeeze - Iceweasel Release - Firefox Deb packages

v 0.3
Sep 2011

Whilst I love the Debian Stable concept, it does become limiting when you wish to use rapidly evolving software.  Certainly this is where the Debian Backports service came about, though I seriously need to get into it and see how I can use it for useful updates.

I the meantime, over the last few days I have stumbled on two up-to-date incarnations of Firefox that are packaged as debs for, or compatible with Squeeze.

• The first, up-to-date Iceweasel is available from http://mozilla.debian.net/ .  At time of writing it is Iceweasel 5.0.  Icedove is also available.
• The Second is GNU Icecat available from http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ .  Deb packages for Ubuntu are available from https://launchpad.net/~gnuzilla-team/+archive/ppa .  Squeeze is compatible with the Lucid Lynx (or whatever it was) version of Ubuntu for this application.  Clicking the "View Package Details" link lets you view what is available.  Debs are there for both 32 bit and 64 bit.

Of course, as I have written about earlier, you can always download the Linux binary from the Firefox download yourself and simply install it manually.  I have come to regard "Opt" as the most convenient place to put it, as several other packages do also.


Later ...........

Update 9 Aug 11

I was disappointed to see the Debian access to the latest iceweasel is far less than before.  Tried installing the latest release and it failed due to library problems.  (see below ... my mistake )

On the positive side, I

1. downloaded the Firefox tarball from the Firefox site, and as root unpacked it in "/opt" .  
2. added firefox to the menu system with "alacarte" from a root terminal.

When I executed firefox, it worked fine - no other action needed, so I un-installed iceweasel using synaptic.  Very pleased with the result.

Also .... NOTE the version of Iceweasel that is included with Debian Squeeze is no longer supported by Google in their products.


Update 16 Sep 11

Had my faith in the Debian Mozilla team enlightened.

http://mozilla.debian.net/

Follow the directions.

If you use the command line like they say, it will work .. when I followed the directions rather than using synaptic it worked fine.  The trick is  the " -t" option in the command line.  Once you use it, updates will work fine.  You just have to get it working in the terminal.


Later ....

Debian Squeeze for My Parents - Useability - Pt4

v 0.2

Over the previous three posts on this subject, I've been describing how and why I set up my Parent's home computer with Debian as an alternative for their use.  I have to emphasise that at the moment, it is an alternative, since there is a lot they like to do on Windows that time just did not allow me to show them.  My main aim was to introduce the alternative and to show them how to use it for electronic banking.  I pointed out how their current setup had major weaknesses, particularly that the anti-virus had not been updated in months, and that even though the Gnome desktop may look a little different to Windows, it wasn't that different and did basically the same things.

It is always interesting when you introduce someone who has relatively limited experience with desktop computers, to a new system that, to myself, is just a variation, but to them is completely new.  Having said that, as the new system is used then familiarity helps.

• The first thing is to explain basic concepts - the internet "cloud" of machines where websites and banks exist, the computer, and the web browser.  I found these being confused and if someone doesn't have a vision of how the pieces fit together, it can be a very difficult experience.
• Operating systems is another problem people have.  I have been surprised how many people just cannot understand that Windows is not needed to run a computer.  I generally compare this to a large house needing a Butler to manage.  The Butler runs the house and employees, greets guests and generally makes sure everything is running well.  I explain different operating systems as different Butlers who each speak a different native language when running the house.  Some are bi-lingual, others not so.
• Web browsers caused some confusion earlier on, since not having Internet Explorer and "Favourites" made it initially seem that this would not work, however explaining that IE and Firefox/Iceweasel were just two products that did the same job helped.  And relating that "Favourites" and "Bookmarks" really did the same thing helped also.

Fortunately as far as linux useability goes, the desktop metaphor is easily adapted to no matter which one. 

This post, I wanted to write about a few of the things I observed with useability, something we don't normally get to see with people trying to work at new concepts and understand things that are simple to the younger of us, but not to the elderly.



Later ..............

Debian Squeeze for My Parents - Config Issues - Pt3

v 0.3

Grub2

Once I'd finished installing Squeeze on my Parent's Computer, I had a dual-boot machine that booted by default into Debian. Initial installation failed to include the Windows XP selection on the bootloader menu, however I wanted it to boot into Windows as the default operating system.

Debian uses the Grub2 bootloader.  Of course, a Windows selection SHOULD appear but didn't.  Instead, the default display had two selection lines, the first being for the normal Debian Squeeze kernel, and the second for a Rescue Mode boot into Debian.  How to organise Grub the way we want it?

The Debian Wiki, of course!  First search the wiki for the bootloader Grub2.  The first challenge we have is to have it recognise the Windows installation.  The clue is in the wiki.  Open a root terminal and:

update-grub

There is now a third line on the Grub menu, pointing to the Windows XP partition.

Next, we are told "To configure grub "v2", you should edit /etc/default/grub, then run update-grub."  Opening this file (as root) shows us the first two uncommented lines as:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5

The first line tells us that the default boot entry is on Line 0 (zero), the top one and that there will be a 5 second delay before the boot continues.  I changed the entries to:

GRUB_DEFAULT=2
GRUB_TIMEOUT=20

I now had the default boot line as line 2 (the third line down) and the default timeout at 20 seconds (to give adequate time to change the selection - don't forget pressing "Enter" will continue the boot process straight away).

update-grub

All fixed!


Tip - Edit file as Root

Open a root terminal window, change to the directory where the file you want to edit is located and:

gedit

gedit opens as root and can edit and save the file as root.

Tip - Open Nautilus File Manager as Root

As above but:

nautilus

and the Gnome file manager starts so you can copy files as root.

Adobe Flash

Whilst there is a package that purports to load Adobe Flash, it didn't work for me.  HowtoForge tells you how to disable the Gnash Flash plugin in "Iceweasel/Firefox", which is a good idea.

To enable flash the manual way, download the tarball for linux from Adobe and extract as root the "libflashplayer.so" file (I think it is called).  Copy it to " /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins " and it will show up nicely in Iceweasel and play Youtube videos for you.

ntfs

Use synaptic to ensure the " ntfs-3g " package is installed.

Assuming Windows is on /dev/hda1, create a directory under either /mnt or /media, say /mnt/windows .

Edit fstab (save the current one as a backup) and add a line such as this on the last line.


/dev/hda1     /mnt/windows     ntfs-3g     defaults

That should do it - you can now read and write to the windows partition.


That's it for the moment, however I still had to configure the router for SSH access - next part.


Later ......

Firefox for Debian Stable

It can be difficult labeling an article so that the contents are obvious.  In a way, this applies here, because whilst it is labeled "Firefox for Debian", it could also be labeled "Mozilla for Debian".  During the course of my research for this article, I found that Thunderbird, Sunbird and Seamonkey are equally covered, and so I have chosen to use Firefox as the example.


Debian Stable, Iceweasel and Updates

As many know, Debian have their own version of Firefox in their distribution, called "Iceweasel".  This is fine as far as it goes, however two things get in the way of practical implementation.  First, a number of websites baulk at this "strange" web browser, and also, once a flavour of Debian becomes "stable", no further version updates appear within a package, only security and bug fixes.  The interval between Debian Stable releases normally exceeds a year, and so by the time a new "Stable" release appears, web browsers and email clients can be significantly out of date.


Installation Methods

So, how can we install a fresh and proper Firefox (or Thunderbird / Sunbird / Seamonkey)?  There are several options:

• Download the source from Mozilla and create an installable package using Checkinstall.  (there is a variation on this that I am investigating that looks very interesting indeed for many uses).
• Download the binaries from Mozilla and manually install.
• Use the Ubuntu repositories.

Whilst they each have their advantages, for the moment I want to look at a manual install.  It is easily understood, enables us to learn a lot about how the software is set up within the distribution and provides us with a lot of background information that is useful if we want to make our own installable Debian packages.


Plugin and Profile directories

Whilst it IS possible to use both Iceweasel and Firefox for the same user, it can definitely get messy, as they use the same profile directory - that is, the directory (hidden) in the user's home directory.  The profile directory contains user information, bookmarks, history and add-ons that the user has installed.  For both Firefox and Iceweasel, this directory is:

  .mozilla/firefox      (note: Seamonkey uses    .mozilla/seamonkey)

Now whilst Firefox has it's default plugin directory within the firefox package, Debian has several plugin directories for all Mozilla products where it installs the Debian supplied plugins.  For our purposes, though we really only need concern ourselves with

  /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins



Program Location

The easiest place to put Firefox is within your home directory:

   /home/username/local/firefox

If this is your chosen location, and this is the easiest, then the program is only available to you.

Another place that Debian leaves alone, is

  /opt

I had a brief flirtation with this as a place to put programs, however the traditional location has won out for a number of good reasons.

  /usr/local

To find out why, open a terminal and type  "   $PATH  "  ... notice that "/usr/local/bin" is the first in the queue for executable status?

To be more precise ....

/usr/local/share/applications


Firefox - Manual Install

Download the latest Firefox from here:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html

you will have a file similar to this:

firefox-3.5.6.tar.bz2

Assuming it is in your home directory, then open a root terminal from the Applications>Accessories menu and executing from the same directory as the tarball is:

# tar -xvjf firefox-3.5.6.tar.bz2 /usr/local/share/applications

you will now have a directory "firefox" like so :
/usr/local/share/applications/firefox

we now have to put a link to the firefox executable script in /usr/local/bin and link up the plugin direcories.

debian:/# ln -sf /usr/local/share/applications/firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/firefox 

debian:/# rm -rf /usr/local/share/applications/firefox/plugins
debian:/# ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins /usr/local/share/applications/firefox

Now, if you open a terminal, you should be able to:

$ firefox

and run firefox.

Finally, remove iceweasel either with synaptic or apt / aptitude.

All you have to do now is to add Firefox to your Gnome menu system / Debian menu system or place a launcher on the desktop.  I'll leave doing that for another post, as this one is long enough already.