trinity-users@lists.pearsoncomputing.net

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Month: April 2018

Re: [trinity-users] migrating from Debian to Devuan + VLC

From: William Morder <doctor_contendo@...>
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2018 03:26:22 -0700

On Sunday 22 April 2018 02:11:43 Jimmy Johnson wrote:
> On 04/21/2018 07:51 PM, William Morder wrote:
> > Since we are getting into other stuff, I am starting a new thread. Maybe
> > it should be two threads?
>
> And what a post it is.

I don't like to do anything halfway. 

> >> I'm sorry to hear you have systemd installed and you're not happy with
> >> it, if I knew what version you are using I could make a suggestion, I
> >> run all LTS versions or Debian and Ubuntu and now Devuan too.� For
> >> hard drive management I use Wheezy and Jessie, for multimedia I use
> >> the latest.
> >
> > For the most part my system runs pretty well, except for hanging when I
> > try to reboot (as explained below).
> > What I would really like is to get VLC working right again. It was
> > always the best all-round multimedia player, and now it crashes every
> > time I open it. I searched round for solutions, and all I've found so
> > far are suggestions to go back to the Wheezy repositories for older
> > versions of VLC. Yet another user here in the Trinity group had the same
> > problems with VLC, and he was already using Wheezy. I don't know what
> > the problem is, but there is another great piece of software ruined.
>
> Bill have you taken a look at SMPlayer?  First you install MPlayer,
> talking about an old app, and then install SMPlayer.
>
Yes, I've tried them ALL - pretty much every multimedia player available in 
Debian repos, including some of the more out-of-the way repos. I usually just 
download everything available (that won't break my system), and try out all 
of them, until I find what works best for me; then I discard the rest. So I 
have been through pretty much all the media players for Debian, and still 
want to get the old VLC back. 

Currently MPlayer and KMPlayer work best for me, but these items don't have 
quite all the functionality of VLC. 

(By the way, it is also impossible for other to buy presents for me, because I 
want what I want, not something that's almost the same. I tell readers this 
now, just to save them frustration.) 

Maybe Slavek or somebody else out there could be persuaded to create 
vlc-trinity packages? 

> Devuan is old school Linux, like Debian a few years ago and most release
> bugs get fixed in mins. not days or weeks.
>
Old school is best. 
>> > The icon is nice, but I would recommend that all Devuan branding 
> >> distinguish > itself from Debian by making the spiral go round
> >> widdershins: that is,
>> > counter-clockwise. Then it would be perfect.
> >>
> >> I hear you, it was just something I slapped together.
> >
> > No problem, it was just a suggestion. If Debian do not complain, then
> > there is no obligation to change it. But since Devuan is a fork of
> > Debian, and thus technically "different" from it, I thought it might be
> > wise to think ahead.
> >
> > One could also say, for example, that TDE *is* really just KDE, but I
> > believe some people out there will object. Likewise, you could say that
> > Icecat *is* really just Iceweasel, which is really just Firefox. You
> > could even say that *rock-n-roll* is really just *the blues* + *country
> > music*.
> > I do recognize that all categories are, to some degree, arbitrary and
> > influenced by personal biases, etc. They can also be useful, however, to
> > indicate that (for example) Devuan has struck out in a slightly
> > different direction, which in my opinion is truer to Debian's mission
> > than Debian itself currently operates.
>
> Well, KDE is a name, not just a trade mark and it's not KDE's desktop
> any longer, nor is it abandoned any longer, TDE belongs to Trinity.
>
> As for the Debian Universal Logo, it's been used many a desktop on many
> kinds of Debian forked systems, because if it was not for Debian what we
> are doing today would other ways not be posable.  But Devuan is not just
> a fork it's now the real Debian with a new name.  Debian is now a blob,
> sudo windows some say and systemd is compared to the windows registry.
> But the logo will always be Debian and may Ian always be remembered.
>   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock
>
Yes, I remember hearing about it the night that he died. It still seems more 
than a little mysterious to me. 

One could make a fairly long list of names of top geeks and leet hackers who 
have met what sound like untimely ends. 

> >> You do know that Devuan IS Debian don't you?� The only changes made
> >> effect systemd and the packages needed so you can install the desktop
> >> of choice, like udev and libpam, really just a hand full of packages
> >> are changed. I'm running Devuan from Debian's Sid to Jessie, in other
> >> words Devuan Jessie/Jessie, ASCII/Stretch, Beowulf/Buster and >>
> >> Ceres/Sid and Trinity is a clean install on them all with no real
> >> problem, All around Devuan Jessie is the best!
> >
> > Yes, but the only practical way for me to get Devuan is to install
> > Debian first, then migrate to Devuan. I have tried to install from the
> > Devuan live DVD, and it wants to overwrite my home folder, with no other
> > option.
>
> Please use the net install iso.
>   https://files.devuan.org/devuan_jessie/installer-iso/
> Put Puppy Linux on a USB drive and you can edit your system.  Puppy is
> made for those things, like Knoppix only Puppy is small and fast.
>   http://www.knopper.net/index-en.html
>   http://puppylinux.org/main/Download%20Latest%20Release.htm#xenialpup
>
> Just use the Devuan net-install and then install tde-trinity and
> firmware-linux, after your first boot of course.  I put everything I
> want to save in /home, I also save /mnt and and put fstab in home too.
> and delete everything else, don't forget to show hidden, also I delete
> system files in home and then do a no-format install.
>
Right, I am trying to digest all this for when that day comes. But I think I 
may use that method for simply migrating to Devuan without reinstalling 
everything. There is a webpage somewhere that links from the Devuan pages. I 
can find it again, if anybody else out there is really interested. 

> > I have a backup, of course, but this does not seem quite right.
> > I have found instructions for migrating from Debian to Devuan, without
> > the necessity of reinstalling my system, so that is my plan. However, I
> > have yet a couple loose ends to tie up, so that I can revert to my
> > working system if necessary, when I will inevitably mess up something
> > due to experimentation.
>
> Both udev and systemd get removed by installing Devuan packages and it's
> a bit tricky, but doable, I've done it a few times, Jessie is not too
> hard to do because it dose not have many packages that depend on systemd.
>
> > Also, I have other responsibilities, various little jobs, and other
> > things that I must do, as there is a life outside computers, and a whole
> > world waiting to be explored just outside my door; or so I hear.
>
> I would love to hear about your whole world sometime.  I've done many a
> thing besides computers, most of my life has been way outdoors exploring
> since I was a child I would go for long walks over hill and dale and
> also I have a love for live music, but from '94 on it's been pretty much
> computers apple and pc and many kinds of operating systems besides
> windows and apple there was novell and sco and I used to be a Microsoft
> Partner for eight years, they think I still am. From '94 to 2002 I was
> installing every linux distro I could download staying at the cutting
> edge drooling for the next beta release, by 2002 I was pretty much stuck
> on Debian and it's forks, I now have more than 40 systems installed over
> seven computers, my main testing computer has more than 20 systems.
>
I used to have a spare room full of computers and parts, where I could be free 
to experiment and mess up everything and start over. Somewhere in the house 
there were always three or four other computers that were running and able to 
connect to the Internet when necessary. Now, however, I don't have that 
luxury, and am more limited in how much I can experiment. 

> >> Bill just take away one thing from this post: If it's not fun don't do
> >> it.
> >
> > I wish somebody had told me this back when I was in grad school.
>
> Cheers!