Never fear though, if you are willing to do a little bit of work . . . → Read More: Backporting new code to Debian packages]]> I like Linux distros packaging systems, especially Debian’s. It makes it trivial to install, remove and change to different versions of programs. The only problem is that sometimes there is a delay in packaging the latest version of an app.

Never fear though, if you are willing to do a little bit of work you can shoehorn the latest code into a package yourself without needing any special knowledge of how to create packages. Note this will only work with programs that already have been packaged since it re-uses the old packaging info with the new code.

I refer to Debian, but the exact same procedure will work on any deb based distro, such as Ubuntu.

Before starting make sure you have the devscripts and build-essential packages installed. These will install all the tools needed to build debian packages.

First download the source package of the old version.

apt-get source $NAME

Then, as a sanity check cd into the created directory and run

debuild -i -us -uc

This will probably complain about missing packages needed for building, so go ahead and install them with apt-get or aptitude or whatever. Then re-run the build command. Assuming that works you should end up with some .deb files in the parent dir.

Now grab the code for the latest version from its website. If it is not already in a tarball you’ll want to make one from it with

tar czf application_version-1.orig.tar.gz applicationdir

If it is a tarball already then just rename it to match the formatting application_version-1.orig.tar.gz. For example when backporting mesa I name the tarball mesa_7.7.0-1.orig.tar.gz.

Next copy the debian dir from the old application directory to the new one.

cp -a application-debianversion/debian application-newversion/

Then cd into the new directory and run

debchange -v version-1 "Updated code to latest version"

It is vital that the version number used in this command matches the naming of the .orig.tar.gz file you created earlier. For example for mesa I use 7.7.0-1. This is the magic that will make everything work.

The final step is to build the new package.

debuild -i -us -uc

and tada! With a bit of luck your shiny new version should be packaged up and ready to be installed.

By using the strace command I found it was hanging on a futex call, starting in safe-mode and even deleting .mozilla didn’t fix . . . → Read More: Firefox 3.5 startup problem (solved)]]> Firefox^[1] 3.5 has been out for a while now, but I’ve only recently managed to switch due to the program not starting up unless I use a weird command line hack.

By using the strace command I found it was hanging on a futex call, starting in safe-mode and even deleting .mozilla didn’t fix it. I found a forum thread on the mozilla forum that shows I’m not the only one to come across this. There was a fix described in a post linked from there, but it only worked by editing the launch command, and I’m not prepared to dig through the OS and replace every instance of the launcher to make it work.

Yesterday though I found the real culprit, it was padsp! A long time ago I had set Firefox to use padsp in order to get flash sound to work correctly with pulseaudio. I had totally forgotten I had done this, because I had made the change in /etc not in my home folder.

So if you find Firefox 3.5 won’t start on linux even though 3.0 works fine then check if you have a FIREFOX_DSP (or ICEWEASEL_DSP if on Debian) set somewhere. For me the fix was this:

In file /etc/iceweasel/iceweaselrc:

# which /dev/dsp wrapper to use
ICEWEASEL_DSP="padsp"

See the ICEWEASEL_DSP line, delete it or comment it out and Iceweasel starts working. If you are using vanilla Firefox then obviously replace every instance of the word iceweasel with firefox to implement the fix on your system.

Hope this helps someone. Oh and flash now works fine with pulseaudio without the padsp thing too.

I’ve had a virtual machine running KDE4 from the Debian experimental repos for a while now. Every few months, when I notice some announcement of a point release I update it and give it another try. Up till now I’ve always been disappointed in some way.

I first tried it . . . → Read More: KDE 4 finally ready for Prime time?]]>

KDE 4.2 desktop

I’ve had a virtual machine running KDE4 from the Debian experimental repos for a while now. Every few months, when I notice some announcement of a point release I update it and give it another try. Up till now I’ve always been disappointed in some way.

I first tried it on my EeePC 701 netbook, back when 4.0 first launched. I was impressed that it ran at all on that hardware, even with desktop effects enabled, some of them at least. This is on a machine that struggles to run Windows XP, let alone Vista. While it was okay from a performance perspective, it was horribly unstable. I can live with applications crashing (as long as I don’t lose data), but parts of the desktop going boom is unacceptable. I eventually gave up on the netbook and put KDE 3.5 on it instead.

That is when I setup a VM on my main Debian laptop, at that time running Lenny, so I could keep track of KDE’s progress. I’m not one of those people who baulk at change, who objects to learning new interfaces irrespective of whether they are better or worse than what they replace. On the other hand I absolutely need my desktop to be rock-solid, any flakiness in any essential part of the OS I will not abide. On the gripping hand I want to be in control, this is why I use Linux and KDE in the first place. They allow me to configure the OS to work the way I want. I’d really like to run KDE4 on my production machines ‘cos of the shiny, but until I can be sure of its stability I won’t risk it.

KDE 4.2 just recently transitioned from Debian experimental to unstable, so I fired up the VM to give it another whirl. As I had already played with 4.2 a few weeks earlier I was expecting to have the same nearly there experience. Things mostly working but still the odd crash, but I was wrong.

KDE 4.2 Calculator plasmoid.

It’s the little things that make me want to switch though, like the calculator plasmoid that can be stuck on the panel for incredibly fast access. A dictionary right on the desktop and many other useful widgets. Previous attempts at widgets on KDE (superkaramba I’m looking at you) have been mediocre at best, glorified system monitors is the best you could hope to run. The plasmoids seem to be the real deal from the built-in examples, if the community starts writing these things we should be in for some real treats.

The application launchers are a little different, and I have to say at the moment I prefer the old “start menu” style one, the fixed height of the new designs mean I have to keep scrolling to find what I want which is icky. But I’m going to give them a while, it may be just one of those things that you have to get used to, and if it turns out I still hate them the old style is still available.

Being in a VM means I can’t use the desktop effects, so I’m missing a lot of the fun stuff. So the next step is to sacrifice my netbook again to try those out. I’m hopeful that by the time it transitions to testing (squeeze), which my main laptop now runs, I will be completely happy to switch to it, it is certainly looking positive at the moment.