All,

I just did 'apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade' which I have been holding off for over a week. I have watched a number of bugs pop up and several be addressed with fixes, and the others I just applied 'apt-mark hold'. It pulled in the new kernel (4.0), though, per Packrat's post about corruption of ext4, I have not loaded that kernel. Everything seems to work except my sound. No sound output either from headphones or speakers. Alsamixer lets me change sound levels, but does not see a sound card (via F6), even though pre-update it did. So I am trying to figure out how to get sound back. Output below indicates I have drivers installed, but, the soundcard itself is not recognized? I read through other user groups for advice, but none specific to this recent stretch update.

Just to let you know, I apt-mark hold iceweasel, in part because of a gstreamer bug. Not sure if that matters.

Details follow:


inxi -AMS
System:    Host: grmldeb Kernel: 3.16.0-4-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: N/A Distro: Debian GNU/Linux stretch/sid
Machine:   System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP ENVY 4 Notebook PC v: 0795100000205600000320100
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1894 v: 72.66 Bios: Insyde v: F.23 date: 01/15/2013
Audio:     Card Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.16.0-4-amd64




aplay -l
aplay: device_list:268: no soundcards found...



lspci | grep -i audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)



lspci -v                                                                                                                       
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ivb_uncore

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 49
Memory at 50000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
Memory at 40000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
I/O ports at 3000 [size=64]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: i915

00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04) (prog-if 30 [XHCI])
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44
Memory at 50700000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd

00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 46
Memory at 50714000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: mei_me

00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at 50719000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 47
Memory at 50710000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
I/O behind bridge: 00002000-00002fff
Memory behind bridge: 50600000-506fffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000050400000-00000000504fffff
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: pcieport

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev c4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0
Memory behind bridge: 50500000-505fffff
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: pcieport

00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23
Memory at 50718000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM77 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: lpc_ich

00:1f.2 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 45
I/O ports at 3088 [size=8]
I/O ports at 3094 [size=4]
I/O ports at 3080 [size=8]
I/O ports at 3090 [size=4]
I/O ports at 3060 [size=32]
Memory at 50717000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: ahci

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 19
Memory at 50715000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
I/O ports at 3040 [size=32]

01:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5289 (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 43
Memory at 50600000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: rtsx_pci

01:00.2 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0a)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 42
I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
Memory at 50404000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
Memory at 50400000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: r8169

02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 (rev c4)
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 2230 BGN
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 48
Memory at 50500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi



dmesg | grep audio
[    3.115263] sound hdaudioC0D0: autoconfig: line_outs=1 (0xd/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0) type:speaker
[    3.115267] sound hdaudioC0D0:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    3.115270] sound hdaudioC0D0:    hp_outs=1 (0xb/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    3.115271] sound hdaudioC0D0:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[    3.115273] sound hdaudioC0D0:    inputs:
[    3.115275] sound hdaudioC0D0:      Internal Mic=0x11
[    3.115277] sound hdaudioC0D0:      Mic=0xc
[    3.195204] input: HDA Digital PCBeep as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/hdaudioC0D0/input9




apt-cache policy pulseaudio
pulseaudio:
  Installed: 6.0-2
  Candidate: 6.0-2
  Version table:
*** 6.0-2 0
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status



It strikes me that something about the sound card may have moved into the kernel, and all the other apps updated at the same time as the kernel, but I haven't loaded the new kernel yet. Could this be the case?

Otherwise, any help provided will get you a hearty thanks.

Not to steal the V-ger's thunder, but I think I have another puzzler.

Today's update (sudo apt-get update & sudo apt-get dist-upgrade) brings a new linux-image to my machine, which I was excited to see. And on accepting the update, my friend apt-listbugs tells me there is a serious bug of gcc. A tad wee bit of digging shows a dependency chain between gcc and the linux image. And, I thought they figured critical stuff like this out before releasing a new linux image? Is that right?

Relevant codez follow for your discussion or my embarrassment:


The following NEW packages will be installed:                                                                         
  gcc-4.9 irqbalance libasan1 libc-dev-bin libc6-dev libcilkrts5 libgcc-4.9-dev liblsan0 libubsan0                   
  linux-compiler-gcc-4.9-x86 linux-headers-4.0.0-1-amd64 linux-headers-4.0.0-1-common linux-image-4.0.0-1-amd64       
  linux-kbuild-4.0 linux-libc-dev manpages-dev                                                                         
The following packages have been kept back:                                                                           
  libgnutls-deb0-28 libgnutls-openssl27 openssl rkhunter                                                               
The following packages will be upgraded:                                                                               
  dbus dbus-x11 firmware-iwlwifi firmware-linux firmware-linux-nonfree geoip-database libdbus-1-3 libegl1-mesa libgbm1
  libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libnet-ssleay-perl libsqlite3-0           
  libwayland-egl1-mesa libx11-protocol-perl libxatracker2 linux-headers-amd64 linux-image-amd64 rsyslog spacefm       
  spacefm-common                                                                                                       
24 upgraded, 16 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.                                                       
Need to get 0 B/71.6 MB of archives.                                                                                   
After this operation, 247 MB of additional disk space will be used.                                                   
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y                                                                                       
Retrieving bug reports... Done                                                                                         
Parsing Found/Fixed information... Done                                                                               
serious bugs of gcc-4.9 (→ 4.9.2-16) <Outstanding>                                                                     
b1 - #785066 - -m32 no longer supported on ppc64el; cannot build a kernel                                             
Summary:                                                                                                               
gcc-4.9(1 bug)                                                                                                       
Are you sure you want to install/upgrade the above packages? [Y/n/?/...] n                                             
**********************************************************************                                                 
****** Exiting with an error in order to stop the installation. ******                                                 
**********************************************************************                                                 
E: Sub-process /usr/sbin/apt-listbugs apt returned an error code (10)                                                 
E: Failure running script /usr/sbin/apt-listbugs apt                                                                   
100 superwow@grmldeb ~ % apt-cache depends linux-compiler-gcc-4.9-x86                                          :(  v32%
linux-compiler-gcc-4.9-x86                                                                                             
  Depends: gcc-4.9                                                                                                     
superwow@grmldeb ~ % apt-cache rdepends linux-compiler-gcc-4.9-x86                                                 v32%
linux-compiler-gcc-4.9-x86                                                                         
Reverse Depends:                                                                                     
  linux-headers-4.0.0-1-amd64 


Is this a gordian knot? Or just business as usual for a major Sid upgrade?

Anyone use cwm?

I have been playing around with it. I have been giving it a go. It is very simple to configure with a flux-like config FILE (single, not multiple). It is very flexible and uses less resources than flux or openbox. Not sure if I'll stay with it, but, I do indeed like it.

But I often see an error in my CLI when using it.


superwow@grmldeb ~ % [ 49804.54 ] error 3 (BadWindow) request 20 minor 0 serial 1640246 ("BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)")
[ 49804.54 ] error 3 (BadWindow) request 20 minor 0 serial 1640247 ("BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)")
[ 49804.54 ] error 3 (BadWindow) request 20 minor 0 serial 1640248 ("BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)")
[ 49804.54 ] error 3 (BadWindow) request 20 minor 0 serial 1640249 ("BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)")
[ 49986.99 ] error 140 (BadRegion) request138 minor 15 serial 1692351 ("BadRegion (invalid Region parameter)")


It doesn't seem to be related to operation of cwm, as the wm seems to be working without issue. I have searched through other user groups, and searched the web (though cwm generally returns pages of android support), to no avail.

Anyone know what it means?

I have run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade several times in the past week or more and have had a number of list-bugs. All this occurred just after Debian promoted Jessie (not sure what the proper lingo for that is). Just after they did so, I got a large number of apps that needed updating, which struck me as strange since I run SID. Anyway, one of the packages threw a listbug, namely, unhide, required by rkhunter. Ok, so I waited not wanting to introduce a security issue. And in the past week, the number of apps needing update have grown. Now the number of apps needing update is huge, almost fills my terminal screen. And more bugs, all with security packages:


Fetched 6,278 kB in 11s (542 kB/s)                                                                             
Retrieving bug reports... Done                                                                                 
Parsing Found/Fixed information... Done                                                                       
serious bugs of libgnutls-deb0-28 (3.3.8-7 → 3.3.15-1) <Outstanding>                                           
b1 - #784009 - [experimental] Lack of versioned symbols in nettle causes segfault                             
   Merged with: 784063                                                                                         
serious bugs of openssl (1.0.1k-3 → 1.0.2a-1) <Outstanding>                                                   
b2 - #770605 - openssl: Removes symbol without SONAME bump                                                   
   Merged with: 768476 768522 769023 770278 771169 771993 781094 781929                                       
serious bugs of unhide (→ 20121229-1+b1) <Outstanding>                                                         
b3 - #769345 - unhide: statically linked against libc6 without a Built-Using: field                           
Summary:                                                                                                       
libgnutls-deb0-28(1 bug), openssl(1 bug), unhide(1 bug)   


So, I am wondering if there is a way to install every app that needs updating, but just not THOSE apps? (I have never pinned an app, is that the appropriate thing to do?)
Part two of that question would be how to have them properly update themselves whenever the bug goes away, without me having to do so manually?

Dear Vsidians,

Could y'all help a brotha out?

I had an update hang several days ago. As in, in the midst of the update, everything just froze, for like 25 min. I'm not sure why or what the problem was. However, I had to ctrl+x ctrl+c to quit the apt-get update. Since that time, I have not been able to update.

I have removed the content of /var/lib/apt/lists/partial several times on advice from the intertubes. But no joy. Other solutions from the web & ubuntu/mint/debian forums all suggest removing the contents of the partial folder, or using dpkg-dev. However, I would like to figure out the 'appropriate' and 'standard' way to manage this is, rather than downloading a developer package. I'm pretty sure the answer is simple, yet I admit I am obtuse.

CLI I/O follow....including the error, my sources list, and my apt-cache policy.


superwow@grmldeb ~ % sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade                                              v61%
[sudo] password for superwow:
Hit http://http.debian.net sid InRelease
Get:1 http://http.debian.net sid/main Sources/DiffIndex [7,876 B]
Get:2 http://http.debian.net sid/contrib Sources/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:3 http://http.debian.net sid/non-free Sources/DiffIndex [7,819 B]                   
Get:4 http://http.debian.net sid/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,876 B]
Get:5 http://http.debian.net sid/contrib amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,819 B]
Get:6 http://http.debian.net sid/non-free amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [7,819 B]                 
Get:7 http://http.debian.net sid/contrib Translation-en/DiffIndex [7,819 B]                                       
Get:8 http://http.debian.net sid/main Translation-en/DiffIndex [7,876 B]                           
Get:9 http://http.debian.net sid/non-free Translation-en/DiffIndex [7,819 B]         
Get:10 http://http.debian.net sid/main 2015-03-29-2048.27.pdiff [8,486 B]
Get:11 http://http.debian.net sid/main 2015-03-30-0247.33.pdiff [3,477 B]       
Get:12 http://http.debian.net sid/main 2015-03-30-1447.17.pdiff [5,609 B]
Get:13 http://http.debian.net sid/main 2015-03-30-2049.01.pdiff [1,097 B]
Get:14 http://http.debian.net sid/main 2015-03-30-2049.01.pdiff [1,097 B]
Fetched 89.2 kB in 4s (20.8 kB/s)
W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/sid/main/source/SourcesIndex  Hash Sum mismatch

E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

superwow@grmldeb ~ % ls /var/lib/apt/lists                                                                         v59%
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_contrib_binary-amd64_Packages
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_contrib_binary-amd64_Packages.IndexDiff
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_contrib_i18n_Translation-en
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_contrib_i18n_Translation-en.IndexDiff
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_contrib_source_Sources
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_contrib_source_Sources.IndexDiff
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_InRelease
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages.IndexDiff
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_i18n_Translation-en
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_i18n_Translation-en.IndexDiff
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources.ed.2015-03-29-0250.25.gz
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources.ed.2015-03-29-0849.19.gz
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources.ed.2015-03-29-2048.27.gz
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources.ed.2015-03-30-0247.33.gz
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources.ed.2015-03-30-1447.17.gz
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources.ed.2015-03-30-2049.01.gz
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources.IndexDiff
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages.IndexDiff
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_non-free_i18n_Translation-en
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_non-free_i18n_Translation-en.IndexDiff
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_non-free_source_Sources
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_non-free_source_Sources.IndexDiff
lock
partial

superwow@grmldeb ~ % ls /var/lib/apt/lists/partial                                                                 v59%
http.debian.net_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources.diff_2015-03-30-2049.01.FAILED

superwow@grmldeb ~ % cat /etc/apt/sources.list                                                                     v55%
deb http://http.debian.net/debian sid main contrib non-free
deb-src http://http.debian.net/debian sid main contrib non-free

superwow@grmldeb ~ % apt-cache policy                                                                              v57%
Package files:
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     release a=now
500 http://http.debian.net/debian/ sid/non-free Translation-en
500 http://http.debian.net/debian/ sid/main Translation-en
500 http://http.debian.net/debian/ sid/contrib Translation-en
500 http://http.debian.net/debian/ sid/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=unstable,n=sid,l=Debian,c=non-free
     origin http.debian.net
500 http://http.debian.net/debian/ sid/contrib amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=unstable,n=sid,l=Debian,c=contrib
     origin http.debian.net
500 http://http.debian.net/debian/ sid/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=unstable,n=sid,l=Debian,c=main
     origin http.debian.net
Pinned packages:



Is anyone else having problems updating? If not, does anyone have advice on how to fix this upgrade issue (which I am guessing is not uncommon)?

Thanks in advance to all responders!

This is definitely a cross-post, since I dropped the same info over on the sytemd thread, but, I think it warrants its own post, since the topic has unique ramifications to VSIDO.

Debian has been forked, to Devuan (https://devuan.org/).

I learnt it all from jaromil, the developer of dyne, a tasty debian distro. A nice background on the dyne site: https://lists.dyne.org/lurker/message/20141127.212941.f55acc3a.en.html

I am interested in the ensuing discussion: what will VSIDO do?

Folks,

Here I am thinking I have been running a properly configured (integrated) graphics driver, when, getting an itch to play around with xbmc again after many months of not having it, I get a message that "xbmc needs hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering. Please install an appropriate graphics driver". But wait, I thought I had proper graphics drivers in my 3.17 kernel. No?

For what it is worth, I am running this combo:

QuoteOS: VSIDO 3 savant-hakerdafo
Kernel: x86_64 Linux 3.17-1-amd64

& Monkeying at the terminal a bit gives me this:

lspci -k | grep -iA5 vga

Quote00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
   Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
   Kernel driver in use: i915
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04)
   Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1894
   Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd

This looks like the kernel should be handling graphics acceleration, but why the message from xbmc?

Vsidians,

I have watched the amazing amount of updates for the past month, and glad some of my fav apps, which have been broken due to the systemd or lightdm or other issue, are back up and running.

But sadly one of my fav utilities, inxi, is still MIA, apparently due to a missing 'uptime.'

When I run inxi --recommends, I get a lot of stuff, but sifting through to the part that matters:

The following applications are missing from your system:

Application: uptime
To add to your system, install the proper distribution package for your system:
Debian/Ubuntu: procps :: Arch Linux: procps :: Redhat/Fedora/Suse: procps


It says I need 'uptime' and recommends I install 'procps'. When I do that (via: sudo apt-get install procps), it tells me

get procps
[sudo] password for superwow:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
procps is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

Are y'all having the same problems?

So, I've been happy on VSIDO for quite some time. Got my millions of keybindings and all kind of productivity shortcuts set up. And along comes this weird lightdm/systemd business and now I am switching things around and being a detective with new setups and whatnot. So the investigating sparked the bug again and this morning I thought well heck I'll just install OB and set up all my old keybindings and menu etc and start a multi-wm system. Yes, that is actually the direction I want to go, as I want to try jwm, awesomewm, and a few others, just for the heck of it.

So, in the standard FB VSIDO install, I have dmenu keybound to control+space. It works flawlessly.

In the OB side of my VSIDO, which I have nicely set up with all kinds of goodnes, my lovely dmenu shows up, but won't search. Type as I may, it never indexes anything.

The problem is obviously one of the PEBCAC variety. So, can someone educate me as to what I have done wrong, or haven't done? In various other systems I have run, a keybinding for dmenu needed to call a dmenu-xxx.sh file that called dmenu. But VSIDO-FB did not, as far as I know. How can I make my dmenu work in VSIDO-OB?

There has been a ton of talk on here about systemd and lightdm of late. So i feel like another potentially more critical topic may have been completely missed.

Several days ago Bash was shown to have vulnerabilities. Promptly massive exploits were reported across multiple OS's. Even the Fruit company updated their Bash implementation (which is almost unheard of, as the fruity bash has long gone unnoticed).

There have been updates to bash of late, but the sentiment on security blogs is that they are like tape on a cracked dam.

I switched to zsh and spent the weekend working on my .zshrc.

We had unbelievably beautiful fall weather in my city of residence; but I spent the entire day scouring zsh blogs for configs and info and had a blast. If you are interested in switching to zsh and need configs, here is my .zshrc.

# Set up the prompt

autoload -Uz promptinit
promptinit
#prompt adam1
#"prompt -l" lists available, "prompt -p" previews
#prompt elite2 'yellow'
#prompt fade 'blue'
prompt fire 'blue green yellow white white white'

setopt histignorealldups sharehistory

# Use emacs keybindings even if our EDITOR is set to vi
bindkey -e

# Keep 1000 lines of history within the shell and save it to ~/.zsh_history:
HISTSIZE=1000
SAVEHIST=1000
HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history

# Use modern completion system
autoload -Uz compinit
compinit

zstyle ':completion:*' auto-description 'specify: %d'
zstyle ':completion:*' completer _expand _complete _correct _approximate
zstyle ':completion:*' format 'Completing %d'
zstyle ':completion:*' group-name ''
zstyle ':completion:*' menu select=2
eval "$(dircolors -b)"
zmodload -i zsh/complist
zstyle ':completion:*:default' list-colors ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}
zstyle ':completion:*' list-colors ''
zstyle ':completion:*' list-prompt %SAt %p: Hit TAB for more, or the character to insert%s
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' 'r:|[._-]=* r:|=* l:|=*'
zstyle ':completion:*' menu select=long
zstyle ':completion:*' select-prompt %SScrolling active: current selection at %p%s
zstyle ':completion:*' use-compctl false
zstyle ':completion:*' verbose true

zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*:processes' list-colors '=(#b) #([0-9]#)*=0=01;31'
zstyle ':completion:*:kill:*' command 'ps -u $USER -o pid,%cpu,tty,cputime,cmd'

# color code completion!!!!  Wohoo!
zstyle ':completion:*' list-colors "=(#b) #([0-9]#)*=36=31"

# History search: past commands beginning with the current input would have been shown
# [url]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Zsh[/url]
[[ -n "${key[PageUp]}"   ]]  && bindkey  "${key[PageUp]}"    history-beginning-search-backward
[[ -n "${key[PageDown]}" ]]  && bindkey  "${key[PageDown]}"  history-beginning-search-forward

# 10 second wait if you do something that will delete everything.  I wish I'd had this before...
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/171563/whats-in-your-zshrc
setopt RM_STAR_WAIT

# beeps are annoying
setopt NO_BEEP

# Alias definitions.
# You may want to put all your additions into a separate file like
# ~/.zsh_aliases, instead of adding them here directly.
# See /usr/share/doc/bash-doc/examples in the bash-doc package.

if [ -f ~/.zsh_aliases ]; then
    . ~/.zsh_aliases
fi

## ## ## NOTE: shopt may only be a bash command, not zsh
# check the window size after each command and, if necessary,
# update the values of LINES and COLUMNS.
#shopt -s checkwinsize

# If set, the pattern "**" used in a pathname expansion context will
# match all files and zero or more directories and subdirectories.
#shopt -s globstar

# make less more friendly for non-text input files, see lesspipe(1)
#[ -x /usr/bin/lesspipe ] && eval "$(SHELL=/bin/sh lesspipe)"

# set variable identifying the chroot you work in (used in the prompt below)
if [ -z "$debian_chroot" ] && [ -r /etc/debian_chroot ]; then
    debian_chroot=$(cat /etc/debian_chroot)
fi

#Zsh can be configured to remember the DIRSTACKSIZE last visited folders.
#This can then be used to cd them very quickl
# USE "dirs -v" to print the dirstack
# USE "cd -<NUM>" to go back to a visited folder
# [url]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Zsh[/url]

DIRSTACKFILE="$HOME/.cache/zsh/dirs"
if [[ -f $DIRSTACKFILE ]] && [[ $#dirstack -eq 0 ]]; then
  dirstack=( ${(f)"$(< $DIRSTACKFILE)"} )
  [[ -d $dirstack[1] ]] && cd $dirstack[1]
fi
chpwd() {
  print -l $PWD ${(u)dirstack} >$DIRSTACKFILE
}

DIRSTACKSIZE=20

setopt autopushd pushdsilent pushdtohome

## Remove duplicate entries
setopt pushdignoredups

## This reverts the +/- operators.
setopt pushdminus

#Unlike bash, zsh does not enable a built in help command.
#But this below gives it to you
# [url]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Zsh[/url]
autoload -U run-help
autoload run-help-git
autoload run-help-svn
autoload run-help-svk
#unalias run-help
alias help=run-help

#Put working directory in titlebar of terminal emulator
# http://www.tuxradar.com/content/z-shell-made-easy
precmd() {
  [[ -t 1 ]] || return
  case $TERM in
    (sun-cmd) print -Pn "\e]l%~\e\\"
      ;;
    (*xterm*|rxvt|(dt|k|E)term) print -Pn "\e]2;%~\a"
      ;;
  esac
}

# Save the time and how long a command ran
setopt EXTENDED_HISTORY

setopt HIST_SAVE_NO_DUPS
setopt HIST_EXPIRE_DUPS_FIRST
setopt HIST_FIND_NO_DUPS

#}}}

#{{{ Prompt!

host_color=cyan
history_color=yellow
user_color=green
root_color=red
directory_color=magenta
error_color=red
jobs_color=green

host_prompt="%{$fg_bold[$host_color]%}%m%{$reset_color%}"
jobs_prompt1="%{$fg_bold[$jobs_color]%}(%{$reset_color%}"
jobs_prompt2="%{$fg[$jobs_color]%}%j%{$reset_color%}"
jobs_prompt3="%{$fg_bold[$jobs_color]%})%{$reset_color%}"
jobs_total="%(1j.${jobs_prompt1}${jobs_prompt2}${jobs_prompt3} .)"
history_prompt1="%{$fg_bold[$history_color]%}[%{$reset_color%}"
history_prompt2="%{$fg[$history_color]%}%h%{$reset_color%}"
history_prompt3="%{$fg_bold[$history_color]%}]%{$reset_color%}"
history_total="${history_prompt1}${history_prompt2}${history_prompt3}"
error_prompt1="%{$fg_bold[$error_color]%}<%{$reset_color%}"
error_prompt2="%{$fg[$error_color]%}%?%{$reset_color%}"
error_prompt3="%{$fg_bold[$error_color]%}>%{$reset_color%}"
error_total="%(?..${error_prompt1}${error_prompt2}${error_prompt3} )"

#ALT+S inserts "sudo " at the beginning of the line
insert_sudo () { zle beginning-of-line; zle -U "sudo " }
zle -N insert-sudo insert_sudo
bindkey "^[s" insert-sudo

#on slow infrastructure where tab-completion takes a while, show "waiting dots"
#while something tab-completes. (found on zsh-users)
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/171563/whats-in-your-zshrc
expand-or-complete-with-dots() {
  echo -n "\e[31m......\e[0m"
  zle expand-or-complete
  zle redisplay
}
zle -N expand-or-complete-with-dots
bindkey "^I" expand-or-complete-with-dots

#fix all terminal bugs
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/171563/whats-in-your-zshrc
export TERM=rxvt

#Set VIEW to your browser, e.g. export VIEW=/usr/bin/elinks or whatever
# you want to use for a quick google search
# URL encode something and print it.
function url-encode; {
        setopt extendedglob
        echo "${${(j: :)@}//(#b)(?)/%$[[##16]##${match[1]}]}"
}
# Search google for the given keywords.
function google; {
        $VIEW=/usr/bin/w3m -no-cookie "http://www.google.com/search?q=`url-encode "${(j: :)@}"`"
}


and created a .zsh_aliases with rejiggering from bash_aliases, which are slightly different

alias up='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade'
alias get='sudo apt-get install'
#alias rem='sudo apt-get autoremove'
#alias cl='sudo apt-get autoclean'
alias prg='sudo apt-get purge'
alias dupgrd='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -d'
alias acs='apt-cache search'
alias se='apt-cache policy'
alias deps='apt-cache show' #with app will give you depends info etc.
alias upg='sudo update-grub'
alias grc='ps aux | grep'
#alias cd..='cd ..'
alias md=mkdir
alias sdn='sudo shutdown -h now'
alias sdr='sudo shutdown -r now'
alias ls='ls -F --color --group-directories-first'
alias l='ls -lha'
alias c='clear'
alias q='exit'
alias s='sudo'
alias reload='source ~/.zshrc'
alias al='cat ~/.zsh_aliases'
alias alr='ls -R'

alias gpoud='gpo update && gpo download'

alias hmr='mplayer http://hotmixradio-dance.ice.infomaniak.ch/hotmixradio-dance-128.mp3'

### from greywolf on VSIDO forums
## Colorize the grep command output for ease of use (good for log files)##
alias grep='grep --color=auto'
alias egrep='egrep --color=auto'
alias fgrep='fgrep --color=auto'

# install  colordiff package :)
alias diff='colordiff'

alias mount='mount |column -t'

## pass options to free ##
alias meminfo='free -m -l -t'

## get top process eating memory
alias psmem='ps auxf | sort -nr -k 4'
alias psmem10='ps auxf | sort -nr -k 4 | head -10'

## get top process eating cpu ##
alias pscpu='ps auxf | sort -nr -k 3'
alias pscpu10='ps auxf | sort -nr -k 3 | head -10'

## Get server cpu info ##
alias cpuinfo='lscpu'

## older system use /proc/cpuinfo ##
##alias cpuinfo='less /proc/cpuinfo' ##

## get GPU ram on desktop / laptop##
alias gpumeminfo='grep -i --color memory /var/log/Xorg.0.log'

# some more ls aliases
alias ls='ls --group-directories-first --time-style=+"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M" --color=auto -F'
alias ll='ls -l --group-directories-first --time-style=+"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M" --color=auto -F'
alias la='ls -la --group-directories-first --time-style=+"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M" --color=auto -F'
alias lx='ls -lXB'        # sort by extension
alias lk='ls -lSr'        # sort by size
alias lr='ls -lR'        # recursice ls
alias lt='ls -ltr'        # sort by date
alias lm='ls -al |more'        # pipe through 'more'
alias tree='tree -Cs'        # nice alternative to 'ls'
alias l='ls -hF --color'    # quick listing
alias lsize='ls --sort=size -lhr' # list by size
alias lsd='ls -l | grep "^d"'   #list only directories

# copy with a progress bar.
alias cpv="rsync -poghb --backup-dir=/tmp/rsync -e /dev/null --progress --"

#Command substitution
alias ff='sudo find / -name $1'
alias df='df -h -x tmpfs -x usbfs'
alias psg='ps -ef | grep $1'
alias h='history | grep $1'
#alias rm='rm -i'
#alias cp='cp -i'
#alias mv='mv -i'
alias mkdir='mkdir -p -v'
alias which='type -all'
alias path='echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}'
alias vi='vim'
alias du='du -h -c --max-depth=1'
alias c='clear'

#Personal Help
#alias dn='OPTIONS=$(\ls -F | grep /$); select s in $OPTIONS; do cd $PWD/$s; break;done'
#alias help='OPTIONS=$(\ls ~/.tips -F);select s in $OPTIONS; do less ~/.tips/$s; break;done'

#show most popular commands
alias top-commands='history | awk "{print $2}" | awk "BEGIN {FS="|"} {print $1}" |sort|uniq -c | sort -rn | head -10'

# empty trash
alias trash="rm -fr ~/.Trash"

## Moving around & all that jazz
# http://www.tuxradar.com/content/z-shell-made-easy
alias -g back='cd "$OLDPWD"'
alias -g ..="cd .."
alias -g ...="cd ../.."
alias -g ....="cd ../../.."
alias -g .....="cd ../../../.."
alias -g ......="cd ../../../../.."

## Dir shortcuts (slightly diff from bash
# http://www.tuxradar.com/content/z-shell-made-easy
hash -d home=~/
hash -d docs=~/Documents
hash -d dls=~/downloads
hash -d imgs=~/images
hash -d vids=~/videos
hash -d muz=~/music
#hash -d news=~/gPodder/Downloads/NBC Nightly News '(video')')

## App-specific

## Sudo fixes
alias orphand='sudo deborphan | xargs sudo apt-get -y remove --purge'
alias cleanup='sudo apt-get autoclean && sudo apt-get autoremove && sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get remove && orphand'
alias upddb='sudo updatedb'
alias swapclear='sudo swapoff -a && sleep 2s && sudo swapon -a'

#find sorted list of biggest files under current directory:
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/171563/whats-in-your-zshrc
alias biggest='find -type f -printf '\''%s %p\n'\'' | sort -nr | head -n 40 | gawk "{ print \$1/1000000 \" \" \$2 \" \" \$3 \" \" \$4 \" \" \$5 \" \" \$6 \" \" \$7 \" \" \$8 \" \" \$9 }"'

### /from grewolf

### from digit on VSIDO forums

alias big='ls -laSh | head'
alias cdls='cd $1 && ls'
alias dit='emacsclient'
alias fehb='feh --bg-scale'
alias fehbc='feh --bg-center'
alias fehbf='feh --bg-fill'
alias fehbs='feh --bg-scale'
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias running='PS_FORMAT="user,pid,pcpu,pmem,start,args" ps axf'

### /from digit on VSIDO forums
#digit's flite aliases
alias fime='flite_time `date +%H:%M`'

### from me
alias weathIL='inxi -W60089'
alias weathSD='inxi -W92116'
alias weathAT='inxi -W30064'
alias weathHO='inxi -W70002'

## a few from http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Contrib/startup/std/zshrc
# List only directories and symbolic
# links that point to directories
alias lsd='ls -ld *(-/DN)'
# List only file beginning with "."
alias lsa='ls -ld .*'

## ## ## ## FUNCTIONS
### /from statmonkey @ vsido.org/forums

# This is just a simple function to take notes.  You can just enter note (whatever you want)
# and it will append it to notes in home/documents but you can set it to go anywhere
note () {
    # if file doesn't exist, create it
    if [[ ! -f $HOME/documents/notes ]]; then
        touch $HOME/documents/notes
    fi

    if [[ $# -eq 0 ]]; then
        # no arguments, print file
        cat $HOME/documents/notes
    elif [[ "$1" == "-c" ]]; then
        # clear file
        echo "" > $HOME/documents/notes
    elif [[ "$1" == "-e" ]]; then
        nano $HOME/documents/notes
    else
        # add all arguments to file
        echo "$@" >> $HOME/documents/notes
    fi
}



Thunar custom actions for anyone interested.

Here's how:
1. open thunar
2. go to Edit > Configure custom actions > add new custom action
3. insert into the "command" field the obvious command below and name the action whatever you want.
NOTE: I have employed a number of bash scripts to do custom actions. Yup, leverage the power of the shell into your right click menu.



These are either my currents or some I have used recently. I have a whole ton which I used in a previous distro, but will have to hunt for them. For now, these are fairly useful though. Bon appetit!



md5 checksum
zenity --info --title="Check md5 for %n" --text="$(md5sum %f)"

show space of file/folder
du -h -c %N | grep total | zenity --text-info

copy path
echo -n %f | xclip -selection "clipboard"

copy with progress bar
(for I in $(seq 2); do echo $I; sleep 1; done; cp %F "/destination/folder") | zenity --progress --pulsate --auto-close

create backup file in same folder
cp --backup=t %f %f.backup

move to parent
find . -mindepth 2 -type f -exec mv "{}" . \;

media metadata vamp
#hehe, this one sucks out metadata and injects it into a zenity screen, if you have zenity
ffmpeg -i %f  2>&1 | grep -e Stream -e Duration -e Input | zenity --width=800 --height=240 --text-info --title %n


create symlink
ln -s

disk space
du -chs --apparent-size %N | zenity --text-info

compare files/folders
meld %F

set as wallpaper
nitrogen --set-auto %f

open terminal here
gksudo 'xfce4-terminal --working-directory %f'

delete but bypass trash
rm -r

join files
cat %F > joined.txt

doc(x) -> odt
unoconv -f odt %F

docs -> pdf
#works on doc(x), xls(x), odt, some others
unoconv -f pdf %F

preview media
mplayer %f -really-quiet -endpos 10

play media
mplayer %F

jpg lossless rotate
for file in %F; do tempfile=$(mktemp); (jpegtran -copy all -rotate 90 $file > $tempfile); mv -f $tempfile $file; rm -f $tempfile; don

pgp sign
xfce4-terminal -e "gpg -a -u [user] -b %f"

mount iso
gksudo mount -o loop -t iso9660 %f /mnt'

convert to avi
xfce4-terminal -x ffmpeg -i %f -b 798k -ab 128k %f.avi



make movie thumbnail
makethumb %F (apperance conditions = video files)
## ##
that command requires a short bash script, here:
###############################################
#!/bin/bash

# put me in ~/bin (or somewhere on the path)
# I need mtn (http://moviethumbnail.sourceforge.net/)
# put that into  ~/bin as well
# and image magick installed
# should work on files and paths with spaces in them

while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
   
file="$1"
filename="${file%.*}"
extension="${file##*.}"

# mtn 1st try

mtn -i -c 1 -r 1 -t -P -o .${extension%.*}.jpg "$1"
if [ ! -s "$1.jpg" ]
then
   mtn -i -c 1 -r 1 -t -P -Z -o .${extension%.*}.jpg "$1"
fi

#convert (image magick)
convert "$1.jpg" -gravity Center -scale 180^ -extent 120x180 "$1_thumb.jpg"

#remove mtn snap and rename the thumb
mv "$1_thumb.jpg" "$filename.jpg"
rm "$file.jpg"

shift
done
###############################################

First off, VSIDIANS, sorry to post here after such a long period of silence, and then pop in as a lurker with a problem.

Initially I installed VSIDO on an internal flash volume partitioned to 8 gb (and several other partitions for various stuffs). I tend to run a fairly minimal system and have not installed too much, just scientific & data analytics software, and a slew of NCURSES lovelies, and have had flawless operations since my last post several months ago. Honestly, so few pains I have begun to get lazy! So, kudos VO, mainly a painfree (and junkfree) system.

But last weekend I installed a handfull of strategies games like chess, go, mahjong, etc. I reckon they were sizeable because a day or so later, I updated with 'up', worked a bit, shutdown, and rebooted later. On boot, I get to the screen which asks for my username and pw, enter it, and then get to an error message, approximately: 'xsession: cannot write to /tmp; xsession will not start' or somesuch. This means I cannot actually log in and am stuck on the login screen. Attempts to re-login always take me to the xsession cannot write message then back to the login screen. When I live boot from my VSIDO usbdrive, the install partition is nearly full. I am not sure if the culprits are the games, or the millions of updates I have had recently, or just my not frequently running 'apt-get clean,' or a cosmic thread or something.

I want to just log into the console/terminal, without the xsession or any graphical interface & clean house; but when I select 'e' or 'tab' from the x option in the lxde log in screen, the console options do not have apt, rm, or other bash shop cleaning utilities as far as I can tell. So, how can I log into a full console, but no xsession? I am sure there is a way to do this, but I just don't know how. Any pointers?

Howdy all. I thought I would throw this out there in case others are having similar issues.

I updated my VSIDO system several days ago (as I do everyday when I log in) using 'up' (for those who aren't aware this is 'sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade') and have noticed 2 strange behaviors in my system. I do not know if they are related, but they started happening at the same time.

1. every time I 'up' (as above) I get a message that 'systemd' has been replaced, has been updated, and that I should run 'apt-get autoremove' to clean it. I always do. After which it always removes. Yet it always updates and says it has been replaced. Never ending cycle.

2. control+x takes me to the log out screen, but 'alt-p' for 'power off' greys the log out screen, but never shuts down my machine. Which I easily remedy with 'sudo shutdown -h now'.

I know VSIDO is now on systemd, but also know that I am OCD about system updates, so maybe things are lagging in the Debian world (100% likely). Or maybe I have thrown a wrench in my system (200% likely). Are the two issues related? Is anyone else having a similar experience?

Say the word and I will share your choice of system specs.

I started a thread comparing lightweight pdf viewers. Zathura i one of them and has a fairly decent following in various other distros, in part, because of its active development, the sociability of the developers themselves, and ease in cofigurability by users.

I know I have posted several times recently. This is my penance for being a help vampire in the past. Also, might as well share the fruits of my labors for comments and snarkery.

Install by


apt-get install zathura
medit ~/.configs/zathura/zathurarc


And paste your user defined configs in the newly created & opened file!

To get started, here are a few color schemes, some commented out, which provide easy viewing, soft dark colors, for those who read tons of pdfs like I do. I have not come up with any of these, but rather swiped generously from the excellent Arch forums. I am not really sure how to credit them other than links to their site. Maybe I'll create an Arch profile to thank them directly though.


#set recolor-darkcolor "#93A1A1"
#set recolor-lightcolor "#002B36"
#set recolor true

# colors
#set statusbar-bg "#000000"
#set statusbar-fg "#CC0000"
#set default-fg "#FFFFFF"
#set default-bg "#000000"

# keybindings
map [fullscreen] a adjust_window best-fit
map [fullscreen] s adjust_window width
map [fullscreen] f follow
map [fullscreen] <Tab> toggle_index
map [fullscreen] j scroll down
map [fullscreen] k scroll up


I haven't really been able to do what I want with it yet, which is to have several color schemes. Ideally, I want pdfs to open in their native colors and toggle several different predefined color schemes for different lighting conditions or for different levels of eye fatigue, etc.
A keybinding "control+I" to toggle invert colors.
A keybinding "control+s" to toggle sepia/parchment type coloration (like a kindle)
A keybinding "control+a" (or some other key) to toggle the aqua/blue color scheme above

Here's my contribution for the time being. If you come up with a different config, either keybindings or color palattes, please share!

Lightweight pdf viewer comparison

Having used Apple's Preview for years, I will say that it is one of the best reasons to stay with an Apple. I left Apple for other reasons, and now I am on a distro that doesn't ship with a pdf viewer. VSIDO is different than Apple of course, going for both more up to date software (comparison of installed bash on Mac and VSIDO is a good example here), and a more parsimonious, smaller base install. Even with the trimmed size, VSIDO seems to be rolling gangbusters here. Fast install, low low CPU usage. So, in terms of fleshing out my system, I too want to keep out the cruft and stick to a leaner install.

In another thread I made the comment I would like a pdf viewer installed by default since, as a scientist, I am continuously viewing pdfs. They are the medium of transport for scientific journals, regulatory communications, white papers, etc. Most distros I have tried already ship with a pdf viewer, and mostly the viewer does the job. I have never really had to compare them. So, as a first time comparison for me, I thought I would share and save anyone the time it took me. Here's what I found.

The recommended pdf viewers, all lightweight, were mupdf, epdfviewer, xpdf, zathura. Here's what I found.

***   Mupdf   ***
Archive Size: 2,985 kB
Install size: 8,158 kB
Dependencies: libc6, libfreetype6, libjbig2dec0, libjpeg8, libssl1.0.0, libx11-6, libxext6, zlib1g
GUI controls: no
right click: no
Keyboard shortcuts:
q      quit
<shift+r>   rotate clockwise
<shift+h>   fit to height
<shift+w>   fit to width
<shift+g>   go to end
<shift+l>   rotate widdershins/counterclockwise
<alt+b>      go to beginning
<alt+f>      full screen
<alt+j>      go down
<alt+k>      go up
<alt+q>      quit
<alt+i>      inverse colors (good feature!)

"man mupdf" will show all the keybindings.

I like the built in function to invert colors, however, I do not think it can be modified via configuration file. The other two pdf viewers mentioned here are configurable.

Also worth mentioning is the mupdf-tools package, installed separately. Adds security features etc.
Size: 3,060 kB

***   Xpdf
Archive size: 1,427 kB
Install size: 4,584 kB
Dependencies: libc6, libgcc1, libpoppler37, libstdc++6, libx11-6, libxm4, libxt6
GUI controls: yes, a little (they don't suit my taste, but also, I don't like a lot of GUI)
right click: yes
Keyboard shortcuts:
q      quit
"man xpdf" will give you al the keybindings
Compared to the other two pdf viewers, xpdf has the most preconfigured keyboard shortcuts - a LOT. Is very fast despite the early 90's looking gui elements.


***   Zathura
Archive size: 171 kB
Install size: 571 kB
Dependencies: libc6, libcairo2, libgirara-gtk3-1, libglib2.0-0, libgtk-3-0, libmagic1, libpoppler-glib8, libsqlite3-0
right click: no
Keyboard shortcuts:
alt+q      quit
d      split screen
h,l,j,k      scroll left, right, down, up
a      zoom to fit the page 
s      zoom to fit the width of the page 
F5      full screen mode 
"man xpdf" will give you all the keybindings
Compared to mupdf, Zathura has a lot of preconfigured keyboard shortcuts, but not as many as xpdf. On the other hand, there appear to be more options for configuration than the other two. Inverse colors or color replacements can be preconfigured in the config files and keybound. And dang if there are some excellent discussion threads about zathura modding.


***   epdfview
Sorry but I could not find this in the Debian repository.


superwow@rlyeh:~$ apt-cache search epdf
comparepdf - command line tool for comparing two PDF files


Since my whole idea in jumping from #! to VSIDO was because my IT dept at work said #! was not a permitted distro, and that distros can only pull from large vetted repositories (Debian, Suse, maaayybe Ubuntu) then I am not concerned with anything in git or some private repository.


Quick impressions:

Out of the box, I like Mupdf the most. It has no distracting, or ugly, GUI. It has a nice invert color function (which is almost a requirement for me since inverted colors are much less tiring to read). It is very fast.

However the other two are fast as well. Xpdf seems to be the fastest on my machines and with the files I tried. Also, I don't really like screen real estate wasted by gui elements, and when they are present, I want them to look and feel unobtrusive and a tad stylish, which is not the case for xpdf. It is quite fast though..

The install sizes are misleading I think. If you install any of these on your machine, your install size might be different because the dependencies apt-get pulls down may be slightly different for you, since, my installs of these pdf viewers was successive, meaning that each successive install had dependencies which were already installed on my machine. Judging by archive size though, Zathura wins the race by a longshot.

I will probably keep all three for the moment, but, with Zathura's extensive configurability (including multiple methods of inverting colors, substituting colors, and building in functions) I predict I will wind up with it, with a handful of inverted and muted color options. Seriously, you could add more text sizing and coloring options than my kindle has. All are good and quick though.

I found that my brightness control keys did not work after installing VSIDO. According to the googles & reddits, this is a fluxbox thing. Openbox will readily map your power related keys automatically in most situations. Flux does not do this for you.

To get your brighness control keys to work, you could use the already installed xrandr. Go ahead, "man xrandr" on terminal, scroll down, yep, there it is, "--brightness". Yes, you can query and change your screen brightness on terminal with xrandr. It accepts absolute brightness values.


xrandr --output  --brightness 0.6


should set your brightness to 60%. For me this did not work. I went back to the manpage.

Reading on a bit, there's a blurb about hardware control keys. The man page says you probably want xbacklight. Familiar little app, I have installed it before in other distros.

Install xbacklight, then go edit your keybinding file. If you used xev like I did, it will tell you the key number of the screen dim and brighter keys. For me using the number in the keybinding file did not work. Using its name though did.


sudo apt-get install xbacklight
cp /home/superwow/.fluxbox/keys /home/superwow/.fluxbox/keys_default
medit /home/superwow/.fluxbox/keys


Medit will open the keys file. Here, you can drop in the keybindings I use. Or permutate them and repost here. Also, if anyone uses xrandr itself to change brightness, tell me what I did wrong.


# screen brightness
# keys: dim 232, bright 233
XF86MonBrightnessDown : Exec xbacklight -dec 10
Mod1 XF86MonBrightnessDown : Exec xbacklight -dec 3
Mod4 XF86MonBrightnessDown : Exec xbacklight -set 15
XF86MonBrightnessUp : Exec xbacklight -inc 10
Mod1 XF86MonBrightnessUp : Exec xbacklight -inc 3
Mod4 XF86MonBrightnessUp : Exec xbacklight -set 100


For the sake of anyone having trouble with audio keybindings, I thought I would post mine. For some reason the defaults did not work on my system.

The problem: you just installed VSIDO and you want to listen to music, and when you start playing something, you are blown across the room by the sonicblast. Fortunately you were not wearing headphones. If your relative has been labotomized by a headphone experience, I feel ya.

Start here: ~.fluxbox/keys

On my machine, it was in /home/superwow/.fluxbox

This is the fluxbox keybinding file. Keybindings make me happy in all situations, my coworkers have often been awed by my high functioning lack of mouse use, but on this machine, my trackpad is psychotic, so keybindings are even more betterer.

Before you do anything, like opening or editing the file, make a backup of the file. You can do this in spacefm. I did not, due to my trackpad's need for heavy sedation. I do this junk in the terminal. The first time I edit a config file I append _default to the default config file's name to let me know it is a special kind of backup.


cp /home/superwow/.fluxbox/keys /home/superwow/.fluxbox/keys_default
medit /home/superwow/.fluxbox/keys


Find the section for volume settings. For simplicity, I'll just drop the section here for your inspection.


# volume settings, using common keycodes
# if these don't work, use xev to find out your real keycodes
176 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 1+
174 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 1-
160 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 toggle


The number to the left of the colons is the key number, after the colon is "Exec" for execute, and following that is a terminal command to amixer. There are lots of different ways to program this baby, and I am just reusing settings from a previous distro I had installed. See there, that thing that says xev blah blah, nice little app. Ideally it should tell you what key you just pressed. On my computer, xev's output used with amixer did nothing as far as I could tell. (FYI, strangely xev outputs the values for the enter key, even though I did not press enter. If you happen to put that in the keybinding file, your system will seem like it is borked! Nothing will run correctly because the enter key has been remapped. No worries, just fix it back and all will be ok.)

Here's the text of my file, edited with a couple of usage options to control volume. Fit for immediate consumption or season to taste.


# volume settings, using common keycodes
# if these don't work, use xev to find out your real keycodes
#123 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 1+
#122 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 1-
#122 :Exec amixer set Master 5-
XF86AudioRaiseVolume :Exec amixer -q -D pulse sset Master 10%+ unmute
Mod1 XF86AudioRaiseVolume :Exec amixer -q -D pulse sset Master 3%+ unmute
Shift XF86AudioRaiseVolume :Exec amixer -q -D pulse sset Master 1%+ unmute
XF86AudioLowerVolume :Exec amixer -q -D pulse sset Master 10%- unmute
Mod1 XF86AudioLowerVolume :Exec amixer -q -D pulse sset Master 3%- unmute
Shift XF86AudioLowerVolume :Exec amixer -q -D pulse sset Master 1%- unmute
121 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 toggle


Also, if you have advice on other ways to do this, by all means, the more the merrier!

Howdy from a new VSIDO user (VSIDian?). I had happily been using #! for quite some time until I accidentally installed a conflicting architecture. Which basically borked #!. Along about that time, I was given the opportunity to place an order for a linux rig at my workplace. Linux at work? Pretty commonplace for a scientist like me. But they only allow linux installs for certain distros and one is Debian (but not #!). They have not yet given word on SID, but, to keep things simple, I decided to switch my home system to one my IT dept would allow, and configure the two machines identically. VastOne has amazing tutorials and helpz on the #! forums and thus drew me here to VSIDO! I'm enjoying my heretofore brief residence in VSIDO land.

I have had terrible install issues due to UEFI / MBR / GPT conflicts. If you're in the same boat, search for my other posts.

But for now, 2% CPU?! That's even better than #! Oh and transparent FB menus with color in them, pretty colors......

I was lured here by VastOne's copious detailed posts on #! forums - I feel compelled to experience VO's nix spin. But I am having problems. I have tried installing 64 bit from usb drive (which live boots fine, though never got either 32 or 64 to work in VirtualBox). After first formatting both HDD and SSD in my laptop (HP Envy 4) using Gparted, I then installed, making sure to put / and * on the SSD. I have tried several times but booting sans USB always gives "no bootable disks" message.

More info: this notebook has just now come from a romp through #!, MSW7, Lubuntu, and now VSIDO. I chose Lubuntu because I have a strict IT department at work who does not want either #!, VSIDO, or other downstream OS's but will permit the bigger "primary" linux distros (they have a short list) and I was building a #! like Openbox session to load at work. This is only important because I have the feeling the Ubuntu installer may do something with the MBR, grub, or something else.

I am not sure if I need to fix MBR or grub, or if that is even relevant in this instance.

Any advices?