Things that are broken in Debian Trixie- file transfer from Android phone with Bluetooth

 It's Déjà vu again! File transfer from an Android phone to Debian has been a pain in the posterior before. I had trouble getting it to work with Stretch, and have been struggling to get it to work, or to work consistently, in Trixie since Trixie was in Testing. I have finally found an (ugly) solution, or a seemingly-tolerable workaround. Or rather, other people have, and I just noticed.

First let me say, Bluetooth is not the best way to send files from an Android phone to a computer. Wi-Fi is a much better option - for example the open source PlainApp.

But it's one of those things that can give a bad impression to new users of Linux if it doesn't work. So it's disappointing to see that the issue was reported over a year ago and totally ignored.

The reason for the current issue seems to be that file transfer is done with the Obex protocol, which requires a data server. Obex has not had its own data server in Debian since Buster, and now makes use of the Gnome Evolution data server.

Fine if you use Gnome, but not ideal if you use another desktop environment, because it means installing a heap of Gnome packages.

Not only that, but not all the required packages are recommended as installs, so won't be available without manually installing extra packages.

To top it all, the extra required packages are not actually necessary for file transfer: they provide an address book extension to the data server. File transfer will work with the (intended) minimal install of the Evolution data server with a hack to make it work without the address book extension being present.

This issue was reported over a year ago, but didn't get any response. There's now a new bug report, so we'll see what happens.

These are the steps required to get file transfer from Android working:

Remove the existing device (phone) and install evolution-data-server (it brings in quite a few other Gnome packages). Then do

# apt-get reinstall --purge bluez bluez-obexd blueman

and pair the phone again.

A few people tried this at the Debian forum and it didn’t work at first, so it may require logging out and back in, or a reboot, or prayers and invocations to your deity of choice.

The work around (see latest bug report) is to delete the file 

/usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.gnome.evolution.dataserver.Sources5.service

and reboot. Whereupon file transfer will reportedly work without installing evolution-data-server.

For the gory details, see these posts at the Debian forum:

Bluetooth file transfer from Android fails

The computer does not receive files sent from the phone via Bluetooth

 

A look at XFCE in Debian Trixie

I haven't written about XFCE in Debian for a while. I've noticed that one of my old posts, A look at XFCE in Debian Wheezy, is getting quite a few hits. It's a post from 12 years ago, so I can only imagine that people are really looking for something more current, so it's probably time for an update.

When writing the previous post, I was using a machine that originally came with Windows XP. This time I'm writing on a machine that originally came with Windows 8. The points I made then still apply: XFCE runs quite happily on older hardware, and it's a bit old-fashioned in its desktop paradigm, which may or may not appeal to users.

An interesting point to make is that at the time of writing the previous post, there were a lot of complaints about the performance of Windows 8 on low-spec computers (which this is). XFCE on this machine performs perfectly well, as it does on my even older laptop from the Windows 8 period.

I haven't touched a Windows machine for almost a decade, but I have noticed that Windows 10 has reached its end of life, and that Windows 11 will not run on older, lower spec machines, ones that would be a lot more modern and more powerful than this computer. Deja vu?

This would be a good opportunity to point out that computers running Windows 10 that can't update to Windows 11 will run Linux quite happily for many years to come!

There are of course Linux distributions that are aimed at new users. XFCE in Debian comes very much as shipped by XFCE. There is no welcome screen, there are no tutorials, no helpful system tools, no update, software or driver managers, no system snapshot tool, and no customisation to the desktop panel positions, theme or icons.

Screenshot of the Debian Trixie live image

Screenshot from xfce.org

If you fancy a more bare bones approach, getting to grips with Debian system tools, and customising the desktop to your own preferences, Debian XFCE does offer legendary stability. This is often assumed to be implied by the name of the current release, Debian Stable, but stable in the name means "doesn't change much" rather than "doesn't fall over". Packages are tested during the two-year development process, and then receive only security updates and minor fixes after release. The corollary of this process is that Debian doesn't fall over very often, as bugs are knocked out during testing, and not introduced by package upgrades after release.

This is especially advantageous for older computers, as support for newer hardware can be lacking in the Stable release. My two older machines had a few minor glitches with Debian when new, but now run it faultlessly.

Over the years I have written about a few niggles with Debian XFCE: problem panels and unwanted saved sessions, ugly fonts, suspend doesn't work when the screen is locked, confusing power management behaviour, no icons for special folders in the home directory in the default theme, authentication dialog for root privileges broken, and media playback and non-free firmware not enabled by default.

I am happy to say that non of these is an issue any more, although the suspend/lock screen issue will require a bit of manual intervention until the XFCE fix is implemented properly in Debian (see the post for details). 

One new option in Trixie XFCE worth mentioning is Docklike Taskbar, which is available after installing the package xfce4-docklike-plugin.

It provides a Windows 7/8 (or Linux KDE) method of Windows switching, shown above in an XFCE bottom panel, with option window preview enabled.

It also addresses one of my previous complaints about XFCE: application quick launchers can be added to the panel, but running appear separately. Docklike Taskbar combines quick launch icons with window switching icons.

The default XFCE layout has quick launch icons in a bottom "mock dock" panel, and running application buttons in the top panel. For those who like the layout, I think Docklike Taskbar would be a better option in the bottom panel, combining quick launch and windows switching.

For those who prefer a single bottom panel, here's an extreme example:

Quick launchers and iconified window buttons.

Combined launcher/switcher buttons in Docklike Taskbar (running applications are underlined).

As mentioned previously, Debian does not customise the appearance of XFCE at all. The icons used in the screenshots above are a mixture of Arc and Papirus, the theme is Arc-Lighter, and there is a single bottom panel.

Customising  XFCE by changing the theme, icon theme and panel layout is a simple process. Here is my current preference, to compare with the defaults above.

 With the Debian Trixie wallpaper.

 With the XFCE wallpaper.

With applications open, using the old-school window buttons.

As mentioned above, Debian XFCE does not come with an update manager. The update notification in the second screenshot is my own Genmon script. an update with the latest version is coming soon, so keep watching the blog!

A final thing to say about XFCE 4.20 is that Wayland is available as an experimental option. Keep watching for a post about that too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Firefox ESR is late in Debian (again)

Update: Firefox ESR 140 arrived as a security update in the afternoon of  the morning of this post. My apologies for misrepresenting the update process.

It's still important to note that Firefox ESR 128 is EOL, has security vulnerabilities, and will not get security updates.

Users of Debian Testing will have an unsecure browser until the new version of the browser passes through the update process from Unstable.

Users of Debian Trixie should ensure they have the security repository enabled and have updated Firefox. 

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Firefox ESR 128 has reached its EOL, which means no more security fixes, but the new version (140) has only just gone into Unstable, which means there will be a period of testing as 140 moves from Unstable to Testing to Trixie, the current version of Debian, and to previous still-supported versions.

There are currently seven security issues affecting Firefox ESR 128.

Just to be utterly sensationalist, I looked for anything scary about these vulnerabilities. Well, this is pretty scary:

A remote code execution vulnerability has been identified in Firefox versions below 143 and Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) below 140.3. This vulnerability allows attackers to execute arbitrary code on affected installations, which could lead to unauthorized access and manipulation of user systems. It is crucial for Firefox users to update to the latest version to mitigate potential exploitation risks.

securityvulnerability.io

The reason for the (again) in the title is that this is not the first time this has happened. See this post from 2021.

I have no idea why Debian does not begin the process of switching to the new ESR version before EOL. If anybody does, please let me know in the comments.

Debian users concerned about the security vulnerabilities present in Firefox ESR 128 can use an alternative browser like Chromium, or install Firefox directly from Mozilla.

wiki.debian.org

No updates possible (sources list empty) after installing Debian Trixie

There is an issue in Debian Trixie where some people who have installed it find that updates do not work. This is a serious problem for new users who naturally expect to be able to update their system, and who may not have the technical ability to solve the problem.

Debian User Forum

The problem arises in the Debian Trixie live image, which has two install options: an "expert" install from the boot menu, and a user-friendly install option from the desktop after the system has booted.

For somebody trying out Debian for the first time, the advice is simple: use the user-friendly installer after booting into the desktop. It's called Calamares. Why is it named after fried squid? I don't know, but it works.

The problem exists because the expert install has no option to set up network mirrors (ie internet sources of new and updated software, called repositories). After booting, the Debian file that contains this information (sources.list) will be empty. Previous versions of Debian the expert install prompted users to set up network mirrors, and the file was populated with a list of repositories.

This apparently is a deliberate decision. The rationale seems to be that any expert with an internet connection is going to use the net installer, to get the latest package versions during installation.

A similar logic has always applied to the DVD installation media (ie not a bootable live image): if you're using the DVD, you probably haven't got an internet connection. The default here was not to set up network mirrors by default, but there was a tick box to enable them. Not ticking the box when an internet connection was available would also result in the same issue of updates not being available.

The issue has been confounded by confusion with the entirely unconnected issue of Debian support for a new software source format. People seem to be thinking that the empty sources list is because they haven't "modernised" their sources list. No! The new format is not the default, and won't be for some time.

For anybody who has installed with the "expert" installer from the boot menu of a live image, (or from the DVD iso without enabling mirrors), a reinstall is not necessary: just populate the sources.list manually. 

For new users I would recommend the traditional format, since the modern format is not yet supported by all tools and apps in Debian. For instructions, see the following posts:

Edit apt sources safely

A working sources list in the old format