 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1066, 15 April 2024 |
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Welcome to this year's 16th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Long-term support releases are where people and businesses go to find stability, reliability, and enterprise-focused solutions. However, long-term support releases typically ship with older versions of applications which lack the latest features. How can someone enjoy the static nature of a long-term support (LTS) release while also running the latest desktop software? We explore this topic and a number of options for installing new applications on LTS platforms in our Questions and Answers column. One application which is experiencing performance gains in its latest version is GNOME Terminal. In our News section we link to a detailed report of why GNOME Terminal is getting more responsive and how much of a difference it makes. Plus we share news that Linux Mint is testing new repository mirrors while Gentoo comes a Software In The Public Interest project. Before we dive into that, we discuss a few fun projects people can try on any Linux machine, but specifically on low-spec computers like the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone. Read on to learn how to get more out of these minimal devices. Do you own a minimal computing device? Let us know about it in this week's Opinion Poll. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week. We wish you all a terrific week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
Fun projects with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone
I tend toward the minimal side of things when it comes to computer hardware. Maybe it's a side effect of spending so much time working on DOS machines. Or perhaps it's a result of the time in my early 20s when my friends and I would cobble together working personal computers from old equipment we had and parts people had thrown away. However I ended up here, it's my habit to buy refurbished computers rather than cutting edge new machines and it's my preference to tinker with low-specification devices, like Raspberry Pi single-board computers, over top-of-the-line servers.
This week I want to touch upon a few fun and interesting things we can do with minimal, fanless devices like the Raspberry Pi series of computers and the PinePhone. Technically these mini projects I will cover below will also work on full featured, x86_64 powered computers too. However, I think the style of these projects is best suited to minimal, possibly headless, machines. Keeping that in mind, the steps I'll be sharing below are intended to be run on systems running small, Debian-based distributions, such as Raspberry Pi OS and UBports.
Talk the talk
Before office colleagues annoyed each other with Teams and Slack, they had to make due with pestering each other using command line terminal interfaces and e-mail. One of the ways people could connect and communicate in real time was with the talk program. The talk program splits the terminal into two parts or panes. Text we type appears in the top half of the screen and responses from the person on the other end appears in the bottom half. It's a one-on-one experience and about as simple as we can get in terms of communicating through text with a peer.
To install the talk software we will need both the talk client and its background service, talkd. These items should, in turn, pull in the inetd service as a dependency which will help handle setting up the connections in the background. To get started, we should install the talk and talkd packages:
$ sudo apt-get install talk talkd
Debian-based distributions typically enable background services for us, but in case the operating system doesn't do it for us, we should make sure inetd is running:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd restart
While, traditionally, the talk software would work to connect people (sometimes without warning), these days it is considered rude (and possibly a security risk) to allow one user to write to the terminal of another. For this reason most shells will block messages from the talk and write commands. We can verify whether our shell is allowing the talk service to contact us by running the mesg command:
$ mesg
is n
The "is n" response means no connections are allowed. We can enable communication through talk by running mesg and passing the parameter "y":
$ mesg y
$ mesg
is y
To find other people on our local computer to chat with we can run the who command. This command will give us a list of people on the system:
$ who
jesse pts/2 2024-03-18 14:00 (:0.0)
alice pts/1 2024-03-18 15:30
In the above text we can see two users, Jesse and Alice, are on the system. Jesse (that's me) is using terminal pts/2 while Alice is using pts/1. This tells us how to reach out to the users.
The talk program initiates communication with another user who we specify on the command line. We need to provide the username, the hostname of the computer, and the terminal name. Typically we want to talk to someone on the same computer so the hostname will be "localhost". The username and terminal name we can get from the who command, as shown above. To request a connection with the user Alice, we could run the following command:
$ talk alice@localhost pts/1
Assuming Alice has messaging enabled (she has run "mesg y"), Alice will receive a notification in her terminally saying we wish to chat. The text on Alice's screen will look like this:
talk: connection requested by jesse@127.0.0.1.
talk: respond with: talk jesse@127.0.0.1
Then Alice can run the command "talk jesse@127.0.0.1" to establish the link. At that point both our terminal screens will be split into two panes. We'll be able to watch each other type messages. This will continue until one of us closes the terminal or presses Ctrl-C to disconnect the session.
Please note that each time we open a terminal, the default shell behaviour (blocking talk access) will be put into place. We will need to run "mesg y" again to enable new connections. If we plan to use talk frequently it might be best to add the command "mesg y" to our shell's start-up script. For bash users this script file is ~/.bashrc.
Technically it is possible for the talk service to run between two different computers, though it isn't commonly used anymore. To allow talk to work between machines, make sure network ports 517 and 518 are open and your firewall is allowing UDP traffic on those ports.
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Streaming audio from the command line
There is a script called yt-dlp which can download video files from a variety of locations, including YouTube. This is handy for archiving videos, downloading clips to watch later, and downloading videos in order to scale them down to make them watchable on a minimal device.
Since a video file is a combination of visual elements and an audio track, it may interest people to know yt-dlp has the ability to download a video file and extract just the audio to save for later. This allows us to fetch interviews, news reports, and music videos then strip away the video, leaving just audio files. This is quite useful if we wish to consume just audio recordings later or experience news or interviews on devices where playing video files isn't practical - such as an MP3 player.
Further, the yt-dlp software can recognize on-line playlists, such as groups of YouTube videos, and fetch them in sequence. Let's take a look at some practical examples for a PinePhone or a Raspberry Pi that has a speaker plugged into it.
First, we need to fetch a few programs. Specifically, we'll need an audio player (I'm choosing mplayer here because it worked the best for me in minimal environments). We'll also need wget to fetch the yt-dlp script. To get started, we'll install the mplayer and wget packages, then use the latter to grab the latest copy of yt-dlp:
$ sudo apt-get install mplayer wget
This can be followed by:
$ wget "https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp"
$ chmod +x yt-dlp
Now we have the yt-dlp script and have made it executable. We can use it to fetch a video by specifying the URL of the website where the video exists. In its most simple form, the command looks like this:
$ ./yt-dlp "URL-for-video-page"
The above command will scan the page we gave it and then exact the video file it finds there, saving it in the local directory.
Next, what if we want to just download the audio portion of a video? We can do this by specifying to yt-dlp that we want only audio and which format to use:
$ ./yt-dlp --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 "URL-for-video"
The script will download the video file, extract and save the audio portion, then delete the video data. This leaves us with just an MP3 file of the audio portion of the video.
One interesting feature of the yt-dlp script is it can write its video (or audio) data to standard output (stdout). Some media players, such as mplayer and VLC, can read media data from the command line rather than a regular file. This means we can pipe an audio stream from a website using yt-dlp and have it play in a local media player. This basically replaces a web browser as a tool for listening to interviews and music and it can be done from a minimal, command line interface:
$ ./yt-dlp -o - --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 "URL-for-video" | mplayer -
Earlier I mentioned yt-dlp recognizes websites, such as YouTube, which feature playlists. This means yt-dlp can download dozens of video files from a playlist to be enjoyed later, perhaps while we're taking a trip or out of range of an Internet connection. In its simplest form, the yt-dlp script can download a playlist of videos just using the URL of the playlist:
$ ./yt-dlp "URL-for-playlist"
When combined with its audio extraction capabilities and a command line audio player, we can use yt-dlp to stream a playlist of music. This allows us to play dozens or hundreds of audio streams without the video and without saving any content to our (limited) storage drive. Here is what that looks like:
$ ./yt-dlp -o - --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 "URL-for-video-playlist" | mplayer -
The above example will cycle through the playlist, playing the extracted audio, until it reaches the end or until we press Ctrl-C. This is a great way to turn your Raspberry Pi or PinePhone into a minimal media player without requiring additional storage space.
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Connect all the devices
The KDE Connect software is best known for linking a phone to a workstation over a local network connection. While this is quite useful, it's not the only way we can use KDE Connect. The software can be used to link virtually any two (or more) devices together, enabling them to share files, clipboards, notifications, and contacts.
The KDE Connect software includes a command line utility which allows these actions to be carried out from a terminal. This means we can link a server, a Raspberry Pi, a phone, or a laptop (or all of the above) together as long as they are on the same network.
Before I get started I want to acknowledge that KDE Connect can work on some operating systems which run on the PinePhone, but it struggles on UBports due to issues with the Lomiri user interface. We can work around this by running the KDE Connect background service (kdeconnectd) and passing it the "-platform offscreen" flag. This runs KDE Connect in headless mode. This restricts some functionality, but works around the compatibility issue.
To install the KDE Connect command line software we can use the package manager to fetch this package and any dependencies:
$ sudo apt-get install kdeconnect
To see a list of all available devices that are also running the KDE Connect service on our network we can use the "-l" parameter to list other devices:
$ kdeconnect-cli -l
- Galaxy S9: 8f420d3562d61340
1 device found
In the above example, KDE Connect has detected my Galaxy S9 phone. I can attempt to pair with the device using its name, in this case "Galaxy S9":
$ kdeconnect-cli -n "Galaxy S9" --pair
When the above command is run a notification appears on my phone, asking if I'd like to accept the connection. Note the phone's name is in quotes because the model name includes a space character. I've quoted it to avoid making KDE Connect think "Galaxy" and "S9" are two separate parameters.
Later, if I wish to send a file from my Raspberry Pi to my phone, for example a document file, I can initiate the transfer with the "--share" parameter:
$ kdeconnect-cli -n "Galaxy S9" --share mydocument.pdf
Next, if I misplace my phone and wish to locate it, I can cause it to ring by running the following command:
$ kdeconnect-cli -n "Galaxy S9" --ring
The KDE Connect service can be useful in other ways when running on a low-spec device or server. For example, let's say I start a long job - perhaps I'm downloading a series of video files or performing a backup task - and I wish to be notified when the task has been completed. We can send a short message from the local device to the phone to indicate when a job is finished. In the following example I run a backup command with rsync and then notify my phone when the task has completed:
$ rsync -a ~/Documents/ backupserver:Documents/ ; kdeconnect-cli -n "Galaxy S9" --ping-msg "Backup complete"
The above example will inform me when the rsync command has finished. This means I do not need to keep checking back to see the status of the work in progress. My phone will chime when the job is finished.
These are some projects I've enjoyed playing with on my Raspberry Pi and PinePhone. Let us know in the comments some of the fun things you've accomplished with your low-spec devices.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project
We usually don't think of virtual terminals being fast or slow. People simply type text into them and, typically, get a short text response in return. On most systems this process looks almost immediate. However, different virtual terminals work at different speeds and this difference can have a striking effect when running long jobs with a lot of output. Changes in the Virtual TErminal library (also known as VTE) have introduced noticeable speed-up improvements in GNOME Terminal. Ivan Molodetskikh explores why GNOME Terminal should now feel faster and by how much in a detailed blog post: "Over the GNOME 46 cycle, VTE has seen a lot of performance improvements. Christian Hergert mentioned some of them in his blog posts about VTE and about his work in GNOME 46. But how much did the performance actually improve? What should you, the user, expect to feel after installing a fresh Fedora 40 update and launching your favorite terminal? Let's measure and find out!"
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The Linux Mint team is looking for people who would like to help test new repository mirrors. The new package mirrors, provided by Fastly CDN, should hopefully provide better response times, secure HTTPS connections, and excellent uptime. "We expect the Fastly CDN to be fast, consistent and highly available. If you're testing it and you're happy with it, simply react to this issue with the rocket emoji. If you are experiencing problems, let us know with a comment. Long term, we're hoping to be able to move to Fastly. We need to see how the CDN copes with large amounts of users before switching to it." People interested in testing the new repository mirror can learn how to participate by reading the project's explanation and instructions.
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The Gentoo project become a Software In The Public Interest project earlier this year. This move will help the project unload some of its housekeeping and will offer some benefits to the distribution's users. FOSS Force reports: "As of March, Gentoo Linux has signed up and been accepted as a project of Software in the Public Interest. For Gentoo, this means the organization will eventually be able to do away with the Gentoo Foundation, which till now has been tasked with all of the nontechnical issues associated with running an organization, such as keeping the rent paid, the lights on, and the tax man happy.
For Gentoo users, this means their distro will be on a better economic footing, partly because they'll be saving a lot because SPI will be doing a lot of the work that the Gentoo Foundation currently has to spend money to get done, and partly because they're likely to see increased donations since donating to Gentoo is suddenly tax deductible, which it's never been before."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Getting newer versions of software on fixed release distributions
Running-ahead-of-the-pack asks: I typically run rolling distributions like Arch. How do people running old LTS releases get access to new versions of applications? Are they just stuck running old packages until they upgrade?
DistroWatch answers: I'm pleased to report that fixed release distributions - projects which don't introduce major new changes or package upgrades during the life span of the distribution release - do have an array of methods for installing up to date software on the system.
Fixed releases, particularly long-term support (LTS) releases, generally remain unchanged during the supported life of the distribution version. Apart from security fixes, and maybe the web browsers, long-term support distributions will stay static and not introduce new versions of applications and desktop environments. However, there are a number of methods people can use to get up to date applications on their LTS systems. Let's look at some of these methods, in no particular order.
Portable packages
One of the easiest ways to install new applications on most Linux distributions is to use a portable package, such as an AppImage, Flatpak, or Snap bundle. These packages can usually be fetched from a central repository such as AppImages, Flathub, and Snap Store. Some developers also provide portable packages directly from their websites. Portable packages are easy to install and are isolated from the rest of the operating system which avoids introducing new package conflicts.
Backports
Though not available on all distributions, some projects offer an add-on repository called a backports repository. This extra repository provides newer versions of applications than the ones available in the normal, default software repositories. A backport package is one which offers a newer version of an application while maintaining compatibility with the original, older distribution core. If your distribution offers a backports repository it can probably be enabled in your package manager and then it will integrate seamlessly with your usual package management actions.
Third-party repositories such as PPAs
A similar approach to backports is a third-party repository, what Ubuntu-based distributions call a personal package archive (PPA). This is basically the same thing as a backports repository, but third-party repositories are not supported by the distribution and usually not available as an option in your package manager. You will need to follow some instructions (hopefully provided by this third-party repository's maintainer) to gain access to the software. Personal package archives usually don't receive the same level of testing as official backport repositories, so use them with caution.
Once a third-party repository is enabled it will provide new software through your package manager, hopefully without introducing any dependency conflicts.
Distrobox
One method which has gained popularity in recent years is Distrobox. What Distrobox does is set up a second operating system in a container and allow us to run applications from inside the container on our desktop. This basically gives us access to applications from multiple distributions all in the same desktop session.
It can take a little more work to get Distrobox in place and a second distribution installed, but once it's in place the experience is fairly smooth. We've talked about how to use Distrobox in a previous Weekly. This allows us to run an LTS distribution as our base system and then run a cutting edge distribution inside Distrobox from where we can run all of the latest applications.
Perhaps the only real downside to using Distrobox is it requires we install an extra distribution on our machine which can take up quite a bit of space.
Virtual machines
Running a virtual machine with a cutting edge distribution running inside it is similar to using Distrobox. However, using a virtual machine introduces a bit more overhead and more separation between the host operating system and whatever is run in the virtual machine. This is probably the method which requires the most work up front to run newer applications. However, there are some benefits. With a virtual machine we can keep all of our data strictly separate in the virtual environment, a bonus if security is a requirement or we want to test multiple versions of an application.
Virtual machines also have the ability to run entirely different operating systems. With all the other methods in this list, we're running newer Linux applications on a Linux host. A virtual machine can run any major operating system, allowing us to run the latest software available on FreeBSD, Windows, Haiku, or FreeDOS.
Bedrock Linux
Bedrock Linux may be the most unusual approach to running up to date applications on a stable base, but it's also one of the most interesting options. Bedrock is a meta distribution which effectively merges together multiple Linux distributions, allowing users to run software from each of the selected projects. There is relatively little overhead with Bedrock and all software runs natively and seamlessly on your system.
Getting accustomed to how Bedrock is set up can take time to learn, but the project offers practical tutorials and allows us to run any applications from multiple distributions without the need to separate new software into containers or virtual machines.
We've talked about Bedrock in an earlier Weekly with some tips for getting started with the technology.
Nix
There are a number of third-party package management tools which offer access to pools of up to date software. I won't go into all of them here, but would like to touch on one. The Nix package manager can be installed on most Linux distributions and provides access to approximate 80,000 packages.
Nix can work much like any other command line Linux package manager while keeping the software it installs separate from the base system. This provides us with a huge repository of software which runs natively and seamlessly. Nix is a little slower than most other Linux package managers, but it provides portable software that runs natively and without the need for large overhead the way a virtual machine does.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Lakka 5.0
Tomáš Kelemen has announced the release of Lakka 5.0, a major new version of the project's lightweight Linux distribution with a goal of transforming a small computer into a full-blown retro-gaming console. This release updates the distribution's build system to LibreELEC 11.0 and adds support to Raspberry Pi 5 devices: "We are happy to announce a new and updated version of Lakka. Changes since version 4.3: based on the LibreELEC 11.0 build system; RetroArch updated to 1.17.0; cores updated to their most recent versions; new cores added including dirksimple - Dragon's Lair player, DOSBox, ep128emu, geolith, jaxe, numero, thepowdertoy - The Powder Toy, vice_xpet - Commodore PET, vircon32 - virtual game console inspired by 16/32-bit systems, vitaquake2 - Quake II; Mesa updated to 24.0.4; updated Linux kernel to mainline 6.1.84, Raspberry Pi 6.1.77, amlogic 6.1.38; added images for Raspberry Pi 5, Raspberry Pi Zero 2 in Retroflag GPI Case 2W, Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 in Retroflag GPI Case 2, Generic PC - support for NVIDIA GPUs (using proprietary NVIDIA driver, separate image), OrangePi Zero2, OrangePi 3 LTS, BananaPi CM4, BananaPi M2 Pro, BananaPi M2S, BananaPi M5, Radxa Zero, Radxa Zero2, WeTek Core, WeTek Hub...." See the release announcement for further information. As mentioned above, Lakka 5.0 is available for a large variety of popular hardware platforms.
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,984
- Total data uploaded: 44.2TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Do you own a minimal computing device?
We began this week with a look at projects which, while they can work on virtually any Linux-powered device, are well suited to the minimal computing environments provided by single board computers, like the Raspberry Pi, and open source phones like the PinePhone. We'd like to hear if our readers own one or more of these devices. Let us know which minimal computers you have in your home in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on whether the xz exploit make it into repositories in our previous edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Do you own a minimal computing device?
| Yes - a Raspberry Pi: | 525 (30%) |
| Yes - another single board computer: | 73 (4%) |
| Yes - a PinePhone: | 15 (1%) |
| Yes - another open source phone: | 12 (1%) |
| Yes - another type of minimal device: | 58 (3%) |
| Yes - multiple devices: | 283 (16%) |
| No - none of the above: | 771 (44%) |
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| Website News |
DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 22 April 2024. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Minimal devices (by Otis on 2024-04-15 01:16:24 GMT from United States)
Better ones became less expensive over the years. So.. donated the other ones to various entities that needed anything they could get.
2 • Newer versions of software (by Vinfall on 2024-04-15 02:46:11 GMT from Hong Kong)
Backports & official or at least trustworthy 3rd party repos are quite common. Portable packages & 3rd party package manager works too. But there should be an *easier* way if you only need a few newer packages: Just compile from source code.
Dependencies are hard to deal with for sure, if you are not on a weird distro like Linux from Scratch or Slackware. And it's easy for beginners to break the system like making a FrankenDebian (https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian).
However, many packages just require a minimum version of dependency, instead of a fixed one. In these cases, just get the tarball, make (and probably make test) and make install, done. It's also a good way to learn how packaging works besides writing boring PKGBUILD files.
3 • Why the rush (by Allan on 2024-04-15 02:53:12 GMT from Mexico)
I started using Linux with Manjaro, then Arch. I met Linux from the perspective of a hunger for always the new. Sometimes is good or needed. But now I use Debian and discovered a massive amount of free new time. Also most of the software I use have kind of two years release so I really don't mind the gap.
4 • Newer versions of software / Portable packages / AppImages (by Ivan on 2024-04-15 03:43:33 GMT from Italy)
Since AppImages are packages that are difficult to update automatically, I built a CLI and an AUR-style database for them containing installation scripts:
- https://github.com/ivan-hc/AM
I have also published an alternative catalog to the various AppImageHubs:
- https://portable-linux-apps.github.io/
Mine is an amateur project aimed at encouraging developers to re-adopt the AppImage packaging format, now less and less used also due to an update system that before I wrote this CLI (which I called "AM"/"AppMan") was not available.
In most cases, updates are obtained through a comparison system between the installed version and the version available online. Where possible, however, AppImages are updateable using "zsync".
The database, at this moment, contains over 1900 installation scripts, each dedicated to a different app. Not only AppImage, but also tar/zip packages of portable apps such as Firefox, Blender and Tor Browser can be easily managed using my CLI.
Lastly, a few weeks ago I introduced the possibility of using a configuration file that will allow you to use third-party databases that are compatible with my CLI. I added this last feature to allow anyone to maintain a database different from the default one, in case I no longer connect to github in the future.
5 • minimal computing (by Ed Grey on 2024-04-15 04:52:25 GMT from United States)
I put down yes, other device because of my collection of original eepcs, and other odd underpowered netbooks.
I wonder how many people are using these old netbooks still.
regards, Ed
6 • eeepc (by peer on 2024-04-15 07:10:03 GMT from The Netherlands)
I use a eeepc (1000h) every day.
7 • Odroid (by Luca on 2024-04-15 07:19:15 GMT from Italy)
My home server runs on an Odroid-C2. I use it as a print server, backup server (using Seafile), I detect home bell ringing and send notifications using Telegram, I backup my VPS locally using rsync, I send heartbeats to my VPS in order to detect power outages in my home, etc,
8 • talk (by xChris on 2024-04-15 08:27:24 GMT from United Kingdom)
'talk' .... I had *epic* time with that early 90s, alternative to long distance phone calls!
chatting with a friend 2500 km away from me, I was remote connected to a 'local' unix system, my friend used shared systems at his uni (both running SunOS IIRC)
9 • Does an old desktop count as a minimalist device? (by DaveB on 2024-04-15 10:00:05 GMT from Australia)
My home server is a second hand desktop with 4GB RAM & a Core 2 Quad CPU - probably around 15 years old. Running multiple services. Does the job wonderfully due to the fact it is running Linux.
10 • RPi (by Someguy on 2024-04-15 10:07:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Got three iterations - never use them now!
11 • minimal device (by JIm on 2024-04-15 10:21:12 GMT from United States)
I would love an open source phone, but won't be getting one until a major carrier offers it ready to go. And at my age that probably won't be in my lifetime.
12 • minimal (by Gary W on 2024-04-15 11:15:57 GMT from Australia)
@5 I also have an original eeepc 701, circa 2007. It works fine, EXE GNU/Linux (with TDE, based on Devuan) is a good fit. Better than an RPi (for me) as it has an integrated screen, keyboard, storage, ports, etc.
Of course it is way underpowered for browsing the Web, but does well supporting my old Canon LIDE scanner (which a lot of other distros don't).
13 • Fedora and Libreoffice Flatpak (by Arvo on 2024-04-15 12:37:05 GMT from Italy)
I have heard that Fedora will soon no longer provide Libreoffice (only via Flatpak). I wonder: will Libreoffice Flatpak include the JRE? Does anyone know the answer?
14 • Easy to maintain (by Allan on 2024-04-15 14:04:27 GMT from Mexico)
I hope that this situation in which everyday is easier to have a base stable system and other options for up to date software evolve to the point of made it easier for distributions to only maintain that base system and not have to mess with extra repositories. That would make them a lot more sustainable.
15 • Media streaming section (by MC on 2024-04-15 14:14:41 GMT from United States)
Why not install yt-dlp from your package manager or from pip even? (I'm not advocating for pip.) yt-dlp updates fairly often in my experience, and these updates are necessary to keep the software working with changes on the platforms it is pulling content from.
I assume you tried using mpv rather than mplayer directly, and that this did not work out for you for some reason or another. You can greatly simplify the streaming setup using mpv, since it can accept a URL as an argument, and if necessary, use yt-dlp to retrieve the data. This is my 'general' solution, since some of the media I want to stream are directly streamable, and some require yt-dlp, so I let mpv do the brain work for me.
16 • yt-dlp (by Jesse on 2024-04-15 15:30:18 GMT from Canada)
@15: "Why not install yt-dlp from your package manager or from pip even? (I'm not advocating for pip.) yt-dlp updates fairly often in my experience, and these updates are necessary to keep the software working with changes on the platforms it is pulling content from."
You just answered your own question. Most distributions don't keep yt-dlp up to date in their repositories so it won't work after you install it from most fixed or LTS releases.Also, if you install from your distro repo (like with Raspbian or UBports - the subject distros of the article) then the built-in update feature doesn't work in yt-dlp. The distro patches it out. Installing the software from upstream gives you the latest version _and_ means the update feature works.
"I assume you tried using mpv rather than mplayer directly, and that this did not work out for you for some reason or another."
No, I just don't like mpv, it tends not to work properly for me so I don't bother mentioning it.
17 • @3 Why the rush by Allan (by Ed on 2024-04-15 17:39:37 GMT from Sweden)
As a long time user of Debian Stable I can definitely see the pros of running it if one takes advantage of Flatpak. Without Flatpak Debian Stable becomes too conservative for my needs.
Nowadays I use Fedora because it is impressively reliable and has much newer packages than Debian Stable but not as new as a rolling release distribution. Its the perfect middle ground for me, at least for now.
But if that should change I would most certainly give Debian Stable, with backports and Flatpaks, a chance.
18 • Eeepc (by Sebastien on 2024-04-15 21:55:41 GMT from France)
@6: really ? What app are you using beside terminal ? I've installed MX on a 1005-ha and watching youtube was dramaticaly slow.
19 • Newer versions of software / Portable packages (by br098 on 2024-04-16 03:03:37 GMT from Brazil)
My software needs are fully met by the stable base of Debian and the portable packages from npm and pip.
20 • My current Raspberry Pi (by AdamB on 2024-04-16 06:03:06 GMT from Australia)
I am currently using a RPi 4, running current Raspbian, but under X11 rather than Wayland (because xscreensaver doesn't work under Wayland). This machine runs 24/7 as a server, running Dnsmasq - providing DHCP and DNS services for my home network - and Apt-cacher-ng for my Debian-family machines.
I can use it as a workstation, and Firefox works reasonably well on it, but I now have a desktop machine, with good specifications, which I now usually use for regular work.
The Rpi 4 is in a passive heatsink case, which works well.
21 • yt-dlp experience (by AdamB on 2024-04-16 06:18:51 GMT from Australia)
Thanks for the instructions on using wget to download the current yt-dlp script.
I had tried yt-dlp from the Raspbian repository, but it rarely worked, so I set up a Void Linux virtual machine on my desktop system (running current stable Devuan); yt-dlp from the Void repository has always worked so far.
But if the script downloaded by wget auto-updates, that would be ideal.
22 • eeepc (by peer on 2024-04-16 06:59:44 GMT from The Netherlands)
@18: I use my eeepc every morning to read the news. It has a debian minimal lxde os on it.
It boots fast (ssd) and goes direct to the newswebsite. I do not watch videos on this eeepc.
23 • Minimal computing (by Tom on 2024-04-16 11:57:18 GMT from Germany)
I'm using an Odroid N2+ with CoreELEC as a media center
24 • Do you own a minimal computing device? (by eb on 2024-04-16 12:41:45 GMT from France)
Yes I do :
my server is a Macmini_coreduo 17 years old with 1.5 go RAM 32bits,
my everyday home machine is a Macmini_i5 with 4 go RAM 64bits,
my 2nd home machine is a Macmini_core2duo with 2 go RAM 32 bits.
All this with Slackware_15 that runs perfectly :
- no X for the server
- Fluxbox for the home computers,
without any problem to upgrade packages !:-).
Thanks for all.
25 • eee pc (by eee shepherd on 2024-04-16 21:57:36 GMT from United Kingdom)
i have 3 rpi and never use them yet
i have perhaps 30 asus eee pc, haven't counted, but only ever use three of them at once, as receiver boxes for multi-room audio. neater and cuter than rpis.
also use eee pc x101 to xz -e9 all my disk images of linux on eee pc and linux on raid on eee pc etc
26 • minimal computing device (by Josh on 2024-04-17 04:06:17 GMT from United States)
I answered yes to "other type of minimal computing device".
I also have a couple netbooks. Two Acer Aspire D270's to be exact. I maxed out the RAM in them. The max is a said to be 2GB, but they will recognize 3GB with a 4GB stick inserted. I recently installed Debian 12 on one, and I think I have Mint on the other. They aren't power houses, but they are still fairly usable.
27 • Raspberries (by Chris on 2024-04-17 08:42:52 GMT from South Africa)
1 x RPi 400 for Octoprint
1 x RPi 3 for WiFi hotspot
28 • Pineohone Pro (by Elcaset on 2024-04-17 16:15:58 GMT from United States)
It seems to me like there are more OSes for the Pinephone, than there are for the Pinephone Pro. Hopefully I'm wrong.
29 • Minimal Devices (by Semiarticulate on 2024-04-17 19:53:24 GMT from United States)
The wife does not understand my love for ancient computing devices. You only need the latest hardware if you're wanting to run the latest spyware on it. No thank you.
30 • Minimal computing device (by ThinkBang on 2024-04-17 23:16:26 GMT from Brazil)
And I have four Arduinos that I use in Physics experiments.
31 • NUC boxes vs SBCs (by Jimbo on 2024-04-18 00:05:21 GMT from New Zealand)
My small computers:
1 x Odroid XU4 running as an NVR for home security cameras + NextCloud for accessing camera files
1 x Raspberry Pi 1 for use as Pihole
1 x Raspbery Pi 2 for use as Internet Radio (Hifiberry)
1 x Orange Pi Zero 2 Plus for use as Pihole
1 x Orange Pi 3 for workshop computer
1 x GMKTEC G3 Nucbox for watching TV
The reality now is that NUC boxes like the GMKTEC are only slightly larger than SBCs but pack way more punch (e.g. Intel N100, larger RAM capacity) and significantly cheaper than a few years ago - almost similar costings to high end SBCs (price goes up with SSD, Memory etc)
32 • low-end/underpowered devices (by NPFP on 2024-04-18 17:48:14 GMT from Germany)
I still use my 20-years-old Laptop (Acer Extensa 2902 LMi, Pentium M single-core, 1GB RAM)[antiX Linux], for travelling my 16-years old Eee-PC 901 with 2GB of RAM [Debian "rolling" since 2021, LXQT and as main-desktop-machine my newer Pi-400, MX-Linux [with external SSD and Z-RAM configuration= "7GB RAM"....
33 • yt-dlp (by AloofBrit on 2024-04-18 20:40:49 GMT from United States)
wget https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp_linux
sudo mv yt-dlp_linux /usr/bin/yt-dlp
chmod u+x /usr/bin/yt-dlp
then keep it updated by sudo yt-dlp -U
should also mention that 'fixing' certain files requires ffmpeg to be installed
34 • Low tech rules (by Robert Retro on 2024-04-18 22:31:03 GMT from Austria)
Still using a Thinkpad X60s as my main mobile machine running Slackware. Totally reliable, easy to fix, lightweight and clever construction. Underpowered? Give me a break;-)
Number of Comments: 34
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