Debian Squeeze - X31 and Ati Radeon

v 0.2

27 Oct 11

I was curious how to get the Radeon video card in my IBM X31 laptop working in other than generic mode.  I read the Debian Wiki page on it .. http://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo and found it quite interesting.  It seems that in many cases, there is no longer an xorg.conf file but the system probes the hardware on each startup.  I found that the open-source radeon server was already installed and the only thing I needed to do to make the best of it (without using module assistant to install a further module) was to install the non-free firmware.

aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree

I rebooted and a big improvement ...


Later ....

Debian Squeeze - Webcam

v 0.3

13 Mar 12

Webcam support is built into the Debian kernel.  If your webcam is part of your machine, then very likely it will work out of the box, as in the eeepc.  If however you connect the webcam via USB, then you will have to use module assistant to install the Quickcam-usb module.

Using module assistant is all very straight forward as I've previously written, however you will first need to install the " module-assistant " package.  I found it easiest to simply use it in interactive mode to go through the various steps of preparing, getting the source, compiling and then installing it.

Once that was done - it worked .... except (for the moment) skype.  That I'm still working on.


Later ..


Update 13 Mar:

On revisiting the post, I got Skype sound to work on my Parent's machine by installing the " alsa-oss " package.

I recently installed a Logitech webcam to another machine by installing the Quickcam-usb module as described above, with the sound working in Alsa.

Debian Squeeze - Backports

v 0.2

27 Oct 11

I've known about the "backports" for Debian Stable for some time, but never quite got into using them.  It always seemed too hard to implement and the instructions were just that little too vague.  When the backports were incoropated into a Debian service, a package search engine was implemented, which I found irritating because I couldn't browse the available packages, and the search engine didn't work in any case.

All this has changed for me - I've finally worked out a system that works for me.  The technique needed for Squeeze to incorporate backports is now simpler than Lenny - and it just works.

My first use of backports was when I started to incorporate the current Iceweasel release in my Debian installs.  If you look at the instructions contained in the http://mozilla.debian.net web-page, you will see that there are two repositories that are activated - backports to provide the XULrunner package and the Debian Mozilla repository.  In that installation, only the "main" section is activated, however you can also activate "contrib" and "non-free".

Debian Backports:   http://backports-master.debian.org/

To include all the backports for Squeeze, add this line to your sources.list file:

deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main 

(add  

contrib non-free

as well if you like ) 

If you want to browse the available packages, then here they are - have a look through and see what takes your fancy:

http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports/pool/

Once you have decided what you want, then go to the search engine and enter the base part of the package name to verify what package you should include in the update .. for example if you search on "linux-image" you will get several kernel packages that may suit you - choose the appropriate one (in this case I chose  " linux-image-2.6-686 "  which is a generic package that at the moment uses the 2.6.39 kernel.  Apt-get (as below) from a root terminal and ....

apt-get -t squeeze-backports install linux-image-2.6-686

Done ..

Far simpler than I'd thought.

Later. 

Debian Squeeze - Wine Binaries

v 0.2

18 Oct 11

For some time, I've been trying to find an easy way to load an up-to-date version of Wine onto my Debian Squeeze installation.  The Wine project has only outdated binaries, and there is no explicit binary for Squeeze available.  I've done some reading on compiling the appropriate debs and whilst I agree this is the ideal solution, there remains debate on the best technique - or at least as far as I can see.  I'll get there with the compiling way, however I want to do it properly the Debian way - there is no point doing otherwise.  I need to do some more reading to understand exactly what I am doing.

In the meantime during my searching, I came upon what seems to be a simple solution that .. just .. works.

Mepis is a Debian-derived distribution that is close to pure Debian.  Whilst v8.5 is based on Lenny with extras, v11 uses Squeeze with additional libraries.  I wasn't keen on upgrading libraries just for this.  Now v 8.5 has the same kernel as Squeeze, and based on the report of a satisfied user, I gave it a go.

I downloaded the "mcr85" versions of Wine-Gecko and Wine from:
http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/pool/test/w/wine-gecko/
and
http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/pool/test/w/wine/

Wine-Gecko needs to be installed first, and that went without a hitch using "GDebi".  Before installing Wine, the " libmpg123-0 " package needs to be installed to satisfy the Wine dependencies.  Then install Wine, again with GDebi.

" winecfg " and you are good to go.

So far, all is well and the packages show up nicely in the package database, so they will be straightforward to remove and upgrade.



Later ......