In another thread someone mentioned a subject near and dear to my heart, that being book readers. I thought I would start something to see if we could collect favorite apps.  I have three phones, two for hacking around on and one that I use for some of it's intended purposes.  I also have two tablets and a little device I built that is sort of an android media player that I tote around with me when I travel.  So I sort of get into this stuff.

Moon + Reader - I already mentioned it's library management capabilities, which are pretty awesome.  It syncs across devices so wherever you are your book is ready and it also includes a facility to use various dictionaries and wikipedia for quick reference while you are reading.  What I didn't mention is it's ability to nest a cops opds library within the library.  This essentially means that for my own purposes I have complete instant access to my full library wherever I am without having to load the library onto the device.  Fwiw I have a reasonably sized online library and if anyone is interested in having access to it just PM me and I will send you a link.  In MoonReader you can set this as a net library and have it instantly available in the app.  It's pretty nice.

PLEX - I have already mentioned Plex elsewhere as well.  This adds the ability to access and catalogue your stored media.  I am old school so I have about 6 TB of movies and music.  Plex handles this and displays it well.  It's probably worth it for the fact that you can put TED talks on your TV with Chromecast.

Subsonic - Plex is really in home but I want my music with me.  Enter Subsonic which is basically the ability to access my audiobooks and music wherever I am.  It's ability to use the playlists that I have already built in mpd makes it a no-brainer.  It's ability to be accessed anywhere makes it useful.  Note: Does not play well with apache2.

Keepassdroid - With dropbox works to have my pwords anywhere and they are secure

Textra - Personally think this is the best texting/sms there is if you send media or files in your texts

AirDroid and FTP server - these are two apps that make moving junk back and forth between your box and your phone inconsequential.  Really handy when you want to do something in a hurry.

I root everything I own and some of these are probably more than what others may want.

Tasker - Think bash on steroids for your phone.  It has a learning curve but once up and running you can automate about anything.

Titanium Backup - just a must have, especially if you are a rom changer like I am

SMS Backup and Restore - not sure if this requires root but a great little app that backs up your sms to dropbox or drive or even gmail if you want.

TWRP - Makes modding/ROM changing fool proof.

Quote from: jedi on September 23, 2014, 06:18:20 PM

Quote from: statmonkey on September 23, 2014, 04:37:22 PM

Just noticed that the latest d/u is wanting to remove all the pythonqt5 stuff and calibre plus give me apache2 back.  Um, no, no thank you.    Sigh.  I guess I'll just wait a bit.

Yes and Calibre was just updated last week to fix a bug that kept it from running for a few days.  It has been trying to remove them from my system since early yesterday.  Calibre depends on the Qt5 crap unfortunately.  Calibre is the most used app I have due to my love of reading...

So yeah, um, no, no thank you indeed!     A lot of 'sighing' here as well. 

Here Jedi try the link I sent you.  Perhaps you will find something of interest I hope so anyway.  Once you see it you will understand why I am not going to let Calibre be removed.

Quote from: VastOne on September 23, 2014, 06:34:12 PM
While I think Calibre is great for organizing mass amounts of epubs and ebooks, I find the simplicity of fbreader to be perfect for reading on a PC or laptop and it's very small footprint is perfect

On my Android I love Aldiko (thanks to jedi)

Still seeing mass amounts of updates in general... pretty common in SID after a major kernel update

Back on topic...

I am really liking Thunar and wonder if we could start an area to get the best custom actions together.  superwow said he had a lot of them .. I would not mind seeing them and making them a default in VSIDO if Thunar is chosen

I am leaning towards Thunar with pcmanfm installing as an option from vsido-welcome

Love the idea of a custom actions thread.  I haven't used Thunar in a while and at one point had a ton of scripts and custom links.  I may have to look through my old installs.

Personally while I like fbreader I am a huge fan of MoonReader+ and think it is slightly superior to both Aldiko and Fbreader on a tablet or phone.  It's library management is much better and the in app access to wikipedia/dictionaries (I read a fair amount in French and German as well as English) is something I could not live without.  I don't read much but PDF on my box. 

Again, I think it will settle down in a few days but I also think I will probably be looking at a reinstall anyway.  Which again means waiting for things to settle.  Still not able to get my external NAS or my 4 Bay external drive to play nicely.

I have been playing with 4pane, very nice little tool.

Just noticed that the latest d/u is wanting to remove all the pythonqt5 stuff and calibre plus give me apache2 back.  Um, no, no thank you.    Sigh.  I guess I'll just wait a bit.

Quote from: VastOne on September 22, 2014, 03:55:16 PM
The mutex issue as I understand it is specific to an update to libgtk-3-0 and in viewing several bug reports I believe will be corrected soon

There are dozens of apps other than spacefm that are affected by this

Well said ^
Yep, dozens of things are affected by the mutex thing and again agree that this is just what you get with sid.

Quote from: VastOne on September 22, 2014, 03:55:16 PM
Finally, debian is an OS that does have an install base.. more than that they are a package management system that is run by devs and maintainers that the majority of are never paid a red cent. They are also a group with a history of maintaining rigid control and processes to ensure stability

We live on the edge of SID here and perhaps without a doubt have been spoiled by it's successes and lack of implosions for a long time

Without a doubt.  I am pretty sure in fact this has been a record breaking run.  I can't even remember the last time I saw something like this.  Personally, I think part of my whining has been because we are soooo spoiled.

Quote from: VastOne on September 22, 2014, 03:55:16 PM
If one really wants the true supported experience of Debian, thy should try or stay with Debian Stable installs or other distros like Crunchbang that is built on the 2 year models of updates

I cannot live like that and choose this edge and desire challenges such as this. 

The mutex issue will resolve itself soon.  SpaceFM will not (IMO) be viable without a maintainer and that saddens me.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for IgnorantGuru and wish him well. Should SpaceFM ever return to a maintained level we will entertain it coming back to VSIDO then

This one I am not as sure about but not in a negative sense I have a bit more optimism than the v-ger  .

Oh the mutex stuff absolutely will be  rounded into shape and Sid will settle down.  Say a week at the most.  It's the old domino effect.  But per SpaceFM that hasn't really changed that much.  Those of us who really want to hang with it can try to keep it cobbled together, nobody says you can't leave it on your system and hope someone picks it up or better yet try yourself.  That is what this is all about.  What is changed is that for any distro to use SpaceFM as the default file manager when it is not being actively maintained.  That would be just stupid and VO has rightly said the distro needs to move on, no matter how much I love it he is correct. 

In the FOSS world things die, apps, scripts even distro's, that is part of the chain of life.  When things are developed out of passion rather than paycheck the passion ends sometimes.  As I said, I will miss spacefm more than most but I can live with Thunar it's a well done piece of kit. SpaceFM was what I would have built had I had the skill, that really is the diff for me.  It's no deal breaker though and maybe some script kiddie will get excited and come up with a new and better one.  More likely than not actually.

I would heartily recommend that when you run your upgrades you look carefully at what is being done over the next week or so.  If something is being removed you don't want removed STOP - LOOK - LISTEN.  Stop the upgrade just say no.  Look at what is being removed and research/listen to make sure that is not just a temporary hitch.  Once you are confident that this is what you want to do, then do the up or once it settles down.  I am quite sure you all know this - just a friendly reminder.  It is a small price to pay for cutting edge that we have had a free run in for almost two years.

Overall Debian, really remains THE linux option.  I really do believe this.  If I have a problem with Debian's direction it does not mean I think they are necessarily wrong.  In fact, they are probably correct they need to make things easier and simpler to maintain if they want to increase installed base.  My complaint is really about me and whether I am that good a fit for Debian anymore.  For now, I think I still am but time will tell.  Again, if I have said anything that led anyone to believe that I think Debian is OTL my apologies.  The problem is my problem not theirs.

@PackRat 4pane looks very interesting.  Thanks for that tip.

Jedi, I am finding that the only way to get through this is to hunt and peck each one, picking them off one at a time and hoping like heck that I remember what I did and when. LOL.  Anyway, on the reboot and shutdown that sounds like a policy kit issue as  I think that has changed recently.  Sorry you are having issues if there is something specific that I can help with post it or PM me anytime.   

So my testing of this has shown me that any customization that I was doing in the lightdm.conf causes it to fail.  I was using lightdm to call and configure my arandr, etc. and attempts to do this in the new setup fail.  I haven't tested calling it as a separate script yet but do know that if I wait until the system settles after login and then run my old default.sh (the script I was calling within lightdm before) it does actually successfully set up my environment.  I am sure that there is some work around just wish there would have been some warning/documentation that would have provided some guidance here.  I am finding several things that are still borked but not ready to comment until I uncover more of the root of the issues.

Really glad you got it sorted and many thanks for the policy kit hint.  The situation on the apps that don't work now is a different story and the idea that such a radical change in how an app functions comes through with no documentation/warning is still a biggie for me.  This is not what I have come to expect from Debian as I ranted earlier.

I think PackRat as per usual is right on with this.  I am facing a re-install at the least but am not comfortable with where things are, it makes little sense to me to reinstall and duplicate the issues I have (plus more) with a new system.  I am in hopes I can struggle along until things settle down.  Among my issues the biggest is that my 4 disk external drive is crashing my system on any attempt to use it.  Hard resets are courting disaster and I am looking at two or three a day.  Adding to that my system is doggy on both boot up and operation along with many of my environment settings/customizations being broken.  Reading this I was reminded of something I saw over in the Aptosid forums some time ago, to wit:

QuoteIn most cases the migration from sysvinit-core to systemd-sysv is supposed to be smooth and transparent, basically with the only visible effect being there less verbose startup messages (by default). Systemd is stricter when it comes to invalid fstab entries (like long forgotten swap partitions, but also other (syntax) errors are punished by systemd; sysvinit often managing to boot regardless of those is the real error here). Likewise systemd doesn't like dependency loops in system dæmons, this affects a handful of (broken) services (e.g. setserial), which declare conflicting service dependencies and might affect booting.

I could be suffering from all or none of these.  Unfortunately a less verbose messaging system means exactly that, it's less verbose which in turn means you are often depending on in app documentation, etc. to decipher where the problems are.  I feel a little like I brought a knife to a gun fight.

Anyway, the whole udev/gvfs handling has changed and the stricter fstab handling as well means that I am at a bit of a loss. I really need to understand exactly how the system is initializing drives at this point. 

[orbea] sorry you have joined us in losing spaceFM (which for me at least meant handling external drives with ease).  I am seeing a lot of things that are broken but can't look into them at present my priority has to be getting my external drive/sandbox/testing/backup environment back. 

My apologies if this seems like random blathering.  I have gone from light-hearted teasing on this to actually becoming concerned.  I am not seeing a lot on the web on this so I am guessing this must be about my customizations and personal needs, so I guess there is that

Have you looked at your /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to see what is really being called?  I doubt anything.  I would also look at what systemd is calling on boot. 

I monkeyed with this til very late last night and had some similar issues with drives/boot.  Unfortunately by the time I got it figured out I was so tired and so confused that I can't really remember what I found out or how I did it.  I do know that I think it is unacceptable to make structural changes to things like login/dev calls etc. and not offer any documentation or warnings other than the "maintainer" version question.  I rarely or never accept maintainer versions and this is the first time I ever remember that a program just inexplicably changed what it called, how it called it and where it called it from without warning.  Lightdm was calling the greeter and lightdm.conf from the /usr folder structure which in turn could be used to call things from your structure as you saw fit.  I can't seem to plug anything into the /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf to get the same results nor is the file documented as to what changed or why nor is there any info online about it from what I can find.  Frustrating to put it mildly.  I know this is the way it is, go with the flow, take your medicine like a man and all that rot.

I don't think it's a poetry fest, it sure beats pondering what is happening in Debian right now 

That is probably my favorite as well, it really is a shame that Frost anymore is looked upon as trite and old fashioned.  When he is spoken of it is as a "lightweight" and "common". The great thing about stopping is both Miles Davis and more recently Mark Isham composed songs in tribute to it.  Not bad for a common lightweight. I have also always loved:

QuoteSomething there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. ...

The great thing about Frost was that it works on so many levels yet he always communicated a feeling.  Good stuff.

I am guessing this is the first of many to go by the wayside, if indeed it has.  I really have no problems with Thunar tbh but frankly don't like these choices being made for me. 

I am old enough (too old in fact) to be familiar with the feeling in my gut.  The feeling that I am resisting the inevitable, many times before I have said to myself that oh this is no big deal I can make that compromise and live with this or that only to realize I am either too stupid or too stubborn to do so. I am pretty patient but not so good at sacrificing nebulous things like principles and standards. It grates on me, frustrates me and in general drives my borderline OCD crazy.  I imagine we are all familiar with Robert Frost's poem

QuoteTWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,   
And sorry I could not travel both   
And be one traveler, long I stood   
And looked down one as far as I could   
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
...
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   
I took the one less traveled by,   
And that has made all the difference.

I feel that I am at that divergence right now and looking pretty longingly at the one well traveled but knowing in the end I will take the one less traveled by.

Confirming this.  A bit confused about why spaceFM is still working for some.  Curious

Jedi, sorry you are not feeling well but what a trooper still trying to help   I will do an up again and see if the keyboard things go away.  I would guess most of this will settle in the next day or two.  I really do a lot of custom stuff to my system so it will be a painful return to normalcy for me.  Oh well. Get better soon and thanks for the info.

Fixed lightdm sort of from this tip:

Quote


Joined: 2010-08-26
Posts: 736

Status: Offline
   
It seems you've picked the 'wrong' choice when lightdm asked via debconf about how it should deal with "/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf" during the dist-upgrade. The 'correct' answer would have been 'Y'es, to allow replacing the current version of /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf with the new template from the maintainer.

By uninstalling lightdm and purging it.  I then reinstalled and rebooted.  Lightdm now works but not the way I had it configured.  I will have to research what it is now doing.  This is a pretty crappily documented app so ...... may take me a while.

Spacefm is sadly not working as reported by Jedi.  I will move to that next.  I am convinced that in order to work with systemd these and a lot of other apps are going to continue to be repackaged to make use of it Or they will be just broken and left to die.  See the paragraph in my rant about this.  I am guessing those of us who have customized things like lightdm are going to suffer some breakage because of it.  I have a long list of crap on my machine that is not working correctly as well and will report back on what I find that works.  Looks like a long day.

Sorry to hear your issues VO.  Mine are weirder still since I have characters diasappearing, keyboard skip and partitions that won't mount as well.  If you have downgraded lightdm then upgrading and making the proper Y selection to choose the maintainers version should fix it.  Then you will probably have to customize it all over again from the /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf file to get back to what you actually want.

Guess I will just keep adding to this.  Apparently something has decided that my drives are uefi and the system keeps trying to load them that way.  This is causing the drives not to be found and not sure if this is from systemd, grub or where yet, it might be related to the spaceFM issues.  Additionally I am running into keyboard issues, mpd problems and numerous other issues.  It looks like a reinstall is in my future.  But my frustration is mounting.

Thanks for weighing in Jedi.  Can I ask if when you did your lightdm upgrade did you keep your old config files or did you install the maintainer's version?

There must be something different between our builds. 

Really hoping this is just Sid playing naughty.  I really have a ton of stuff to do today.  Not sure I could accept loss of spacefm and this keyboard lag, doubling of keypress, lack of ability to use terminal in x is really painful.