10 things to do after installing Debian Wheezy XFCE

Debian Wheezy is a great operating system, and XFCE is a great desktop environment- especially for older computers, and for people who prefer a traditional desktop paradigm- but it does have a few quirks. I've just installed it on my old Presario 900 laptop, and I'm going to mention a few things I did after installing to make the computer more usable and nicer looking.

1. Install necessary firmware

Debian doesn't come with non-free firmware installed by default. On booting after installation, I noticed some warnings about firmware not found. Enabling the non-free repository and installing the firmware-linux package and its dependency firmware-linux-nonfree got my graphics card (such as it is) working.

2. Put a volume control icon in the panel

I don't know why this isn't there by default, but it's easy to rectify: right click on the panel, select Panel and then Add New Items, and add the Mixer. Click on it and then on Select Controls. Tick Master or PCM- whichever works best for you.

3. Sort out screensaver and power management

XFCE in Debian Wheezy comes with two applications capable on controlling power management, which can result in some perplexing behaviour.

• The screensaver comes on, but the screen doesn't shut down after the set period.
• The screen blanks, but the backlight stays on, leaving a ghostly illumination.
• VLC is set to disable power management, but the screen blanks 10 minutes into a video.

I suspect that Power Manager works if a screensaver (set in Screensaver) is off, but if a screensaver is set in Screensaver, it doesn't, except in VLC. If a screensaver is set in Screensaver, then the power management settings in the  Screensaver Advanced tab are the only way to shut down the screen.

Confused? You should be!

There's more. A random screensaver is enabled by default, but not all of the screensavers selected are installed, meaning that sometimes a screensaver will start, some times the screen will blank.

Practically, if you want to use a screensaver, enable power management in Screensaver (note that all three settings, Standby, Suspend and Off are the same- this sems to be fine for a laptop anyway) and make sure the On AC > Monitor > Put display to sleep when computer is inactive for: value is greater than that set in Screensaver.

[Update: although this originally worked for me, my screen started going blank while watching videos again a few days ago. I don't know why, because the settings seem to be the same and I haven't had this problem for months.  Setting the XFCE Power Manager slider to Never seems to have fixed it. Not sure why I didn't do that in the first place.]

If you don't use a screensaver, Power Manager Monitor settings can be used to shut down the screen.

4.  Create some special folders icons for the Tango icon theme

Tango is the default icon theme for XFCE, yet it has a very annoying bug: it has no icons for special folders in the home directory, meaning that these folders are displayed with an icon from the Gnome icon set. You can of course use another icon set that does include special folder icons, but I rather like Tango. The only solution I have found is to copy the default folder in the Tango theme and rename it for all the special folders. (Well, actually creating symlinks would be a more elegant solution, come to think of it...) You can see what I've done in this screenshot.

Of course what is really needed is for somebody to produce some special folder icons for Tango...

[Update: if changes don't take effect, update the icon cache,

gtk-update-icon-cache /path/to/theme/directory/

as described on XFCE Docs.]

5. Enable anti-aliasing

If fonts look bitty, go to Settings > Appearance > Fonts and enable anti-aliasing. Experiment with the level of hinting for the best appearance.

[Update: also see this post on enabling LCD hinting (it's not a GUI option).]

6. Enable the compositor

Go to Settings > Window Manager Tweaks to enable compositing. XFCE has its own fairly minimal compositor. It provides windows shadows and transparency, and will enable docks that require compositing to run.

Although the compositor on XFCE is very minimal, I found that video lagged severely with compositing enabled on this laptop. Watch out for this issue on older hardware (10 years in this case).

7. Enable multimedia

Enabling multimedia in Debian used to be a big issue, but not any more. Debian now has multimedia support. Wheezy plays my music and video files out of the box. There are only a couple of things to mention here.

Install flashplugin-nonfree if you want to view Flash content on web pages.

To enable DVD playback, download and install libdvdcss2 as described on debian.org.

8. Install a nice theme

Debian doesn't pay any attention to making XFCE look nice, but XFCE itself is very customisable. xfce-look.org has lots of themes. Themes need to be set in Appearance and Window Manager. Themes can be placed in /home/user/.themes, but for system applications like Synaptic, they need to be in usr/share/themes. Some themes may require additional engines to display correctly. GTK3 applications like Network Manager will require GTK3 support to display correctly.

Here's my own desktop. Keeping it minimal, this theme doesn't require additional engines. Its a modification of the Axiom theme with added GTK3 support. The icon theme is Tango, but with panel icons from the Elementary icon theme.

9. Enable the Print Screen button

The prt sc button is not enabled by default. The excellent ArchLinux XFCE Wiki describes how to enable it. Add the command as described then press the prt sc key to bind it to that key.

10. Enable quick search in Synaptic

Install apt-xapian-index. Building and rebuilding the index may take some CPU time, but will speed up searches.

Debian Stable to track Firefox ESR

Debian has up to now put its own version of Firefox (Iceweasel) into the stable release and maintained that version until the end of life of the release. This meant Squeeze users were stuck for two years with version 3.5, while Firefox had advanced to version 19. Wheezy users were going to be stuck with version 10 for the next two years, by which time Firefox could be at version 35 or more.

However, it seems that under the weight of security updates, and the hard work involved in backporting them to Debian's own version, Debian Stable will now track Firefox ESR (something testing already does, as I reported here).

Multiple security issues have been found in Iceweasel, Debian's version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser: Multiple memory safety errors, missing input sanitising vulnerabilities, use-after-free vulnerabilities, buffer overflows and other programming errors may lead to the execution of arbitrary code, privilege escalation, information leaks or cross-site-scripting.

We're changing the approach for security updates for Iceweasel, Icedove and Iceape in stable-security: Instead of backporting security fixes, we now provide releases based on the Extended Support Release branch. As such, this update introduces packages based on Firefox 17 and at some point in the future we will switch to the next ESR branch once ESR 17 has reached it's end of life.

lists.debian.org

Debian Wheezy users can expect to see an update from Iceweasel 10 to 17 (and one from 17 to 24 at the end of the year). So Debian Stable users can now have (reasonably) up to date features as well as stability.

And Debian Wheezy users who would like to try out the latest features in the release version of Firefox (currently 21 at the time of writing) can get that too, as described here.

Debian Wheezy released

Debian

I've been using Wheezy for months (as Testing), and found it very stable. Of course, I am now faced with what I've previously called the Linux dilemma:  whether to stick with the stability of Wheezy for two years, or switch to a more cutting edge release or distro to experience the latest software updates, and risk experiencing a few bugs. Wheezy is already out of date: Gnome 3.4, XFCE 4.8 and kernel 3.2- and Wheezy is not going to see feature updates for two years.

Debian gets multimedia support!

As of course users of Debian Testing have probably noticed (especially if they read this blog), Debian Wheezy has multimedia support:

Multimedia support

• In Debian wheezy, ffmpeg has been replaced by the libav fork, which is considered to feature a more conservative release process and thus fit better to Debian's needs. It provides all libraries and prepares an upgrade path for existing application packages. 

• Debian wheezy comes with full-featured libav (formerly ffmpeg) libraries and frontends, including e.g. mplayer, mencoder, vlc and transcode. Additional codec support is provided e.g. through lame for MP3 audio encoding, xvidcore for MPEG-4 ASP video encoding, x264 for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video encoding, vo-aacenc for AAC audio encoding and opencore-amr and vo-amrwbenc for Adaptive Multi-Rate Narrowband and Wideband encoding and decoding, respectively. For most use cases, installation of packages from third-party repositories should not be necessary anymore. The times of crippled multimedia support in Debian are finally over!

NewInWheezy

Debian Wheezy set for release on 4th/5th May

We now have a target date of the weekend of 4th/5th May for the release. We have checked with core teams, and this seems to be acceptable for everyone.  This means we are able to begin the final preparations for a release of Debian 7.0 - "Wheezy".

The intention is only to lift the date if something really critical pops up that is not possible to handle as an errata, or if we end up technically unable to release that weekend (e.g. a required machine crashes or d-i explodes in a giant ball of fire).

debian-devel-announce

Backports integrated in the main archive

From Debian News:

The Debian project is pleased to announce that the backports service for the next stable release Debian 7 (codename "Wheezy") will be part of the main archive. Backports are packages mostly from the testing distribution (and in few cases from unstable too, e.g. security updates) recompiled in a stable environment so that they will run without new libraries (whenever it is possible) on the Debian stable distribution. While as for now this service was provided on a separated archive, starting with wheezy-backports the packages will be accessible from the regular pool. The users of "Wheezy" will have to add to their sources.list file this entry:

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-backports main

Can't update Iceweasel from Experimental on Wheezy

I use the Debian Experimental repository to update Iceweasel to the latest Firefox release version provided by the Debian Mozilla team.

Trying to update to Iceweasel 18 produces this message:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies: iceweasel: Depends: xulrunner-18.0 (>= 18.0-1) but it is not going to be installed E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. 

It seems Iceweasel 18 depends on xulrunner-18.0 which depends on Libnss3 2.3.14, which isn't in Testing or Experimental.

 The problem is described here and here.

Can't mount external drives or shutdown in XFCE on Debian Wheezy Live

As I mentioned in my review of XFCE Live on Debian Wheezy, I wasn't able to access external drives or shut the computer down properly. Plugging in and trying to access a USB drive produced this message.

Failed to mount [drive] not authorized

There are many posts about this problem on the internet. Reading around, it seems the problem is caused by the display manager not passing the required permissions to security services which control access and shutdown. I saw LightDM suggested in several places, but it was already installed.

In the end I found that dropping out of the desktop environment to the command line and running LightDM as root fixed the problem: XFCE started with access enabled.

To do this, press Ctrl+Alt+F1, then Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get a command prompt, then enter:

Sudo lightdm

It's quite possible that if XFCE is installed, LightDM will be set up to run and this problem won't exist, but I've only run XFCE from a Live USB, so I can't confirm this.

A look at XFCE in Debian Wheezy

The computer I'm writing this on came with Windows XP. It probably wouldn't run Windows 7, so is it reasonable to expect it to run the latest Linux desktops? Gnome 3 and KDE may need fairly recent hardware to run (well) but there are Linux desktops designed to run on older, less powerful hardware. I've looked at Crunchbang before which is indeed nippy on my older laptop, ten years old this year. Today I've been trying out XFCE 4.8 on Debian Wheezy from a Live USB. It zips along even from the USB, so I have no doubt it would be fast if installed- just about ideal for this or any other XP era machine.

The only real drawback with XFCE is that it is a 20th century desktop paradigm. Some see limitations in that paradigm, others comfort. The limitations are a potential dog's breakfast in the notification area, redundant icons with duplicated functionality, inefficient use of screen space, and inefficiency in a cluttered window switching mechanism.

It seems XFCE has tried to get away from the Windows 95 paradigm with the main panel now positioned at the top of the screen, and a second panel acting as an application launcher at the bottom of the screen.

The desktop is still very much menu driven.

With a full screen window open, the bottom panel restricts the space available: set it to auto hide.

I got rid of the bottom panel because of the redundancy issue mentioned previously: you can't switch applications using the icons in the bottom panel, so they have to appear again in the top panel as window buttons. If you really want the Apple look, a real dock like Docky might be a good idea- it works with XFCE compositing.

It's very easy to change the look of XFCE. Here's what I did, first with the BSM simple theme.

A bit of a Windows 7 look here with buttons only for windows switching, and programs automatically grouped.

The old fashioned window switching method in XFCE handles the GIMPs modal windows well.

Here's a full screen application, not quite as efficient as Epiphany in Gnome 3: the title bar takes up space unnecessarily. It doesn't seem to be possible to undecorate the window as it is in Openbox.

Here's another theme, my own modification of the Axiom theme, going for a Gnome 3/Adwaita look, but without any extra theme engine dependencies- this is supposed to be a light desktop.

Unlike Gnome 3, menu driven of course.

A full screen application again.

I've kept the notification area in these screenshots very minimal, but it is possible to put just about anything you'd want there: weather, email notification, kitchen sink...

In summary, XFCE is a great desktop for slightly older computers, or computer users who prefer a slightly older paradigm. With a bit of effort, it's possible to give it a more modern look and feel.

The only drawback to mention is a fairly serious bug which prevents removable media like USB drives being mounted, and the computer being shutdown normally. With Wheezy coming up to release soon, this bug will have to be fixed, so if you're thinking of installing, it might be worth waiting for a few months.

UPDATE: I found a solution to the above problem.

A look at KDE in Debian Wheezy

I don't think anybody who likes the minimalism of Gnome is going to feel entirely at home in the configuration heaven of KDE, and the other way round. However, this is a matter of taste: I prefer Gnome's minimalism, but if you enjoy configuration options, you'll enjoy KDE. I've been trying the latest Debian beta version from a Debian Wheezy Live USB available now.

The last time I tried KDE, the Task Manager icon previews were not working with my graphics card; now they are. This was the main feature I wanted to take a look at.

I've been using Windows 7 quite a bit recently, and the similarity is obvious. In KDE the default setting is not to group windows, but this can easily be more changed. I like this way of switching between windows. The GIMP's modal windows don't behave well with Task Manger- they go off and do their own thing, which is annoying, but Libre Office behaves well.

The main menu will also be familiar to Windows users.

The default theme looks good, although Iceweasel need the Oxygen theme to blend in.

This is certainly a desktop I could live with. It will appeal to anybody familiar with Windows 7, as well as Linux users looking for a very configurable desktop.

I have to say, it doesn't seem like a very lightweight desktop environment. I can run a Live USB session of Crunchbang and hardly notice I'm not running from the hard drive, but with KDE the laptop fan was blowing frequently, and the computer locked up a couple of times. I don't know what it would be like installed, but I suspect not too zippy on this laptop's meager 1G of RAM; should be fine on more modern machines.

A more lightweight desktop for older machines (perhaps more appropriate for this computer) is XFCE. I've been using the Squeeze Live USB recently and have just downloaded the Wheezy version, which I'll be comparing and reviewing tomorrow.

MP4 video doesn't play in Totem on Debian Wheezy

This is an issue I noted when I first tried Debian Wheezy. Tonight my daughter was fixated on watching "Five Little Monkeys", which of course just happened to be an MP4 file. Totem wouldn't play it. I downloaded VLC and that would, but later I decided to see if I could track down the problem.

I found this post on the Ubuntu forum pointing to a Launchpad bug: it seems the problem has been fixed in Ubuntu. I don't know how quickly bug fixes make their way from Ubuntu to Debian, but at least there are some workarounds available: the easiest one obviously being to install VLC.

Static IP address in Gnome on Debian Wheezy

DHCP makes connecting to a router easy, but it does have drawbacks. I have the router set up with port forwarding for Transmission, Amule and now Skype, which I recently installed. I was trying to connect with Skype the other day but couldn't. Later I remembered that my brother had visited recently and used his iPhone and laptop on the network, and my computer's IP address had changed. I don't know for sure if this is why Skype didn't work, but I think it might be.

My printer has had a static IP address for a while now, so I thought it was time to move the wired laptop connection to a static IP address. Network Manager makes it easy: change the connection method to manual and enter the address, netmask and gateway (the router address). The static IP address has to be outside the DHCP "pool". (The pool range and netmask address should be available by accessing the router configuration page.)

I made the changes, and Network Manager established a new connection, using the existing DNS address, previously forwarded to Network Manager by DHCP: 8.8.8.8- the Google DNS server.

Everything  seemed to work fine. I could view web pages. But then web pages stopped loaded with a "Looking up..." notification, which suggested a DNS problem to me. Rebooting the router fixed the problem for a few minutes, then it started again.

In the end I found a solution, as visible in the screenshot above: I set the DNS address to the router address, and DNS requests are handled by the router. I have no idea why DNS server addresses in Network Manager don't work for me, or rather why they work for a short time, then stop working. I've been looking for an answer all day, but haven't found one, so maybe a kind reader (if I have one) who knows the reason will leave a comment.

Record from soundcard in Debian Wheezy

Today I wanted to record a radio program from the internet in Debian Wheezy. I've done this before with Sound Recorder in Squeeze without (as far as I can remember) any difficulty by simply selecting the soundcard as the source.

In Wheezy this doesn't seem to be possible, and it took me a while before I came across a solution on Stebalien:

1. Install pavucontrol and the gnome-sound-recorder.
2. Open the gnome-sound-recorder and start recording
3. Open the pulseaudio volume control and switch to the recording tab
4. Click on the down arrow of the "gnome-sound-recorder" Record Stream, Select "Move Stream" and move the stream to the "Monitor" stream for your sound card.

Gnome Shell GDM Greeter in Wheezy

I've been wondering for a while when the Gnome Display Manager Greeter was going to be updated to the Gnome Shell theme that's used in Fedora. I noticed a reference to the greeter.gsettings file in a recent thread at the Debian forum, and decided to have a look at it. For some reason, the Gnome Shell Greeter is not the default. Edit /etc/gdm3/greeter.gsettings so it looks like this to get the Gnome Shell look.

# session-name='gdm-fallback'
session-name='gdm-shell'

Here are some screenshots I ripped off from the internet to illustrate before and after:

10 apps to add to Wheezy

Having just done a fresh install of The Gnome desktop on Debian Wheezy, I thought it would be a good time to look at the applications I've installed in the past, and which have become essential additions to a new install, and also to see if the installation advice I've given in the past is still valid.

So here is my list of ten applications to add to Debian Wheezy. The first is a Gnome 3 application, but the rest are not desktop specific.

1. Mailnag

This useful application will notify you of new emails, without having an email application like Evolution or Icedove open. It can use Push-IMAP and integrates with Gnome 3. It will run on Debian, but not all of its dependencies are installed by default. The dependencies listed on the web page do not exactly match the names in the Debian repositories, so check my post to find the required Debian dependencies.

Install Gnome GMail and clicking on Mailnag notifications will open the webmail page, if you're a GMail user.

2. KeePassX

 Keep all your passwords safe in the KeePassX encrypted database.

3. Iceweasel release version

Wheezy comes with Iceweasel 10. With Firefox following its rapid release cycle, by the time Wheezy becomes the stable release, Firefox could be up to version 20. By the time the next Debian Stable arrives two years later, Firefox could be up to version 40. Unless you're an enterprise or institutional user, get the release version of Iceweasel from the experimental repository as long as Wheezy remains in Testing or from the backports repository thereafter.

I recently experimented with using the latest Firefox release on Debian, but I found that Iceweasel is better integrated into the desktop, and am currently using Iceweasel from the experimental repository.

3. Opera web browser

It's not open source, but it's a great browser, and I like to have it installed, even if it isn't my primary browser. I've posted on installing Opera in Ubuntu and Fedora, but not in Debian. Previously I used the Debian Opera wiki page, but it seems to be a bit out of date, so I'll link to the The Opera .deb Repository.

4. Resynthesizer GIMP plug in

This plug in for the GIMP lets you remove unwanted objects in photos. It's now included in the gimp-plugin-registry package in the Debian repository, a collection of optional extensions for the GIMP.

5. Shutter

Take screen shots and edit them. I've used this application to produce screen shots for this blog, but haven't had it installed for a while: I'd forgotten how useful it is- highlighting and annotating is much easier than using the GIMP. It's in the Debian repository.

6. Audacious

A lightweight music player, great if you navigate your music collection by hand and just want to play folders. The old Winamp look is still an option, but the new GTK interface integrates well into Gnome. It has tabbed playlists, and a minimalist but funky album art and graphic equaliser display on the GUI.

7. Quod Libet

The thinking person's music player: good with large music collections, handles compilation albums, has an excellent tag editor, a brilliant album cover finder, is enormously customisable while still having the Gnome minimalism.

8. SoundConverter

Converts music formats. Simple, intuitive, elegant: great software.
MP3 output seems to be enabled in Wheezy without needing to enable the deb-multimedia.org repository, which is nice.

9. Easy Tag

A audio file tag editor which uses the CDDB database of discid fingerprints based on track length information.

10. MusicBrainz Picard

Another audio file editor, this time using an audio fingerprint database.

Quod Libet, mentioned above, has plug-ins for both the CDDB and MusicBrainz databases: another reason for considering that excellent music player.

Disable touchpad while typing breaks GTK

I've noticed some strange behaviour on Debian Wheezy recently, as I described on the Debian forum:

• GDM background persists as Gnome desktop background and is not changeable. 
• Terminal opens black and blank- unusable. 
• GUIs fallback to Windows 95 like blockiness 
• Screen does not shut down when computer is idle.

Another symptom is that it's not possible to change the GTK+ theme for example in Gnome-Tweak.

I eventually came across the answer on DebianFAQs:

There's a bug in touchpad setttings that means ticking Disable touchpad while typing will break GTK, and the Gnome GUI.

Things to do after installing Debian Wheezy

I was going to have a great long list with everything but the kitchen sink like other sites, but in the end there wasn't much to do. Apart from the bug mentioned in my previous post, everything went smoothly. The installer asked me if I wanted to install non-free software and I said yes. When I booted into Gnome, it went into fallback mode. I'd been here before, but this time it was easier to fix, as the non-free repositories were already enabled:

aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree

My Wi-Fi card also required firmware, which I found in Add/Remove Software. (Yes, the same Wi-Fi card that was blocking my installation.)

But I could play MP3s out of the box and most of my videos too, with the exception of .mp4 files, which don't play because of a regression in a library which should be fixed soon.

Who said Debian is difficult? OK. I might need to add Adobe Flash from Add/Remove Software if I really want to watch BBC news or tubes, but I have a usable system pretty much out of the box, and good looking too. (Yes, I like Gnome 3.)

So the things to do after installing Wheezy are to install your video and Wi-Fi card firmware.

In my next post I'll look at some of what I think is the most essential software to add to Wheezy, although still in minimalist mode.

Wheezy installer chokes on non-free firmware

Debian has a strict attitude to non-free firmware: since Debian 6.0 non-free firmware are no longer provided by a standard Debian installation.

The Wheezy/Testing installer however seems to go a step further and chokes if your computer needs non-free firmware. The solution is to rip out the wireless card that requires the non-free firmware.

OK, it's a bug* not a feature, and there is a workaround here.

* These seem to be the same bug: #681656, #683690, #684581.