Messages

Hello Fadi,

I have a x86 Mac mini, an Apple Cube and an Apple Powerbook Pismo. Wich one would be the best computer for Debian to test the applications?

Til now, I only have experience with MacOS X and Windows *shame*
And a few 68K Macs 

Hi Carlos,

You could use Debian on all of your machines 

I'm afraid the x86 Mac mini won't do for testing powerpc packages...
The m68k either.
The Powerbook Pismo is a G3 machine, so no AltiVec.

The Cube is a G4 (with AltiVec) 32-bit machine, but should be OK for the tests.
BTW, this was my dream machine for years...
A word of advice: use ext3 for the partition containing /boot.
It looks like yaboot has issues with ext4.

I'll update the main post with the new software suggestions this evening.
NOTE: we are not trying to do a new "distro" - we're just listing "needed" software to test. Other software would still be available for installation.

[evil]

Hi Avigot,

I have added your suggestions - but Kindle and Skype are ... "evil".

About LXDE v/s XFCE, people should be able to choose... (I will not even attempt to start a discussion about which is better/faster etc....  )

For the moment we're just putting up a list of software, then we will need people to test them on PowerPC hardware, and if possible participate in improving them.

Thanks,
Fadi.

[prioritize]

Hello All,

I have updated the original post with all your suggestions - thanks 
(If I missed something please point it to me).

Now I suppose we need to prioritize the list, and start working...

I have installed Debian testing (stretch) on my iMac G5.
I had problems with the official netinst alpha 5 CD image (issues with keyboard), but It finally worked with the 20160418_07:08 snapshot.
chroot was not a good solution - for GUI applications - some worked, but firefox didn't for example.
Maybe I was doing something wrong...

I suppose we'll update the original post with priorities, but then we can start a different post for listing Software that are running OK (a kind of "I got xxx running on ..." thread), and one post per issue we stumble upon.
What do you think about this?

Thanks,
Fadi.

[Debian powerpc]

Hello All,

This section and post are about the Debian powerpc port - but should also be applicable to other OSes.

The main objective is to create a list of applications and functionalities people want/need on the GNU/Linux PowerPC Notebook,
listing any compatibility and/or performance issues.
We will then prioritize the list, then try to solve the issues, or report and follow them.

The target OS is Debian unstable "sid" or at least Debian testing "stretch".
(unstable might be sometimes broken - so testing should be easier to work with).

When possible, please try to stick to "main" (DFSG) components - remember, we're trying to be as close as possible to the FSF definition of FREE.

REMINDER:
After some discussions, it seems Debian powerpc port will be our choice of OS for our GNU/Linux PowerPC Notebook - to start with.
Most of us believe we will need to move towards Debian ppc64, and specifically Debian ppc64el (little endian) - to be future proof.
But Debian powerpc seems like a good starting point - it has (very) good support from the community - for the moment,
and it support altivec (ppc64el doesn't).



So to start with, here is a list of categories with some example Software - please submit a list of Software you would like to have on the Notebook, with any eventual issues you have with them.


Internet:
    - Firefox - browser (*blocks/freezes, high CPU usage, unusable web videos)
    - Chromium - browser (*no powerpc package - secret binary blob issue on june 2015)
    - Empathy - instant messaging
    - HexChat - XChat fork
    - Transmission - torrent
    - Deluge - torrent
    - FileZilla - FTP client
    - Pan - news reader
    - RSSOwl - news aggregator (*free - but GNU GPL incompatible license)

    - XChat - IRC client (*not active)
    - SABnzbd - news grabber (**contrib)
    - Skype (**proprietary)
    - Telegram - instant messaging client (**proprietary server software)


Privacy:
    - GnuPG
    - Seahorse - GnuPG frontend
    - JAP/anon-proxy - anonymity proxy
    - KeePassX - password safe - crossplatform version

    - VeraCrypt - on the fly encryption (**nonfree Truecrypt license)


Office / Productivity:
    - LibreOffice
    - Evince Document Viewer - pdf and others...
    - Calibre - ebooks
    - Scribus - publishing
    - GnuCash - accounting
    - Evolution - email/calendar/contacts etc...
    - OwnCloud client - file hosting
    - Tesseract - OCR
    - Simple-Scan
    - LaTeXila
    - TaskCoach (not in stretch/testing, but included in jessie/stable and sid/unstable)
    - ProjectLibre (*free - but GNU GPL incompatible license)
   
    - Okular - pdf viewer (KDE)
    - Kontact - calendar/contacts (KDE)
   
    - Kindle - mobi ebooks (**proprietary)


Video / Music / Entertainment:
    - Minitube - youtube player
    - VLC - media player
    - MPlayer - media player
    - MEncoder - transcoding tool
    - ffmpeg - multimedia libraries and programs
    - OpenShot - video editor
    - Pitivi - video editor
    - Flowblade - video editing
    - LiVES - video editing
    - avidemux - video editing
    - Clementine - music player
    - Ardour - sound reader/editor/mixer
    - Jack - CD ripper/encoder
    - HandBrake - DVD ripper/backup
    - Audacity - digital audio editor
    - Shotwell - photo organizer
    - Shotcut - video editor (*ppa - not in official Debian repositories)
   
    - Amarok - music player (KDE)
    - digiKam - image organizer (KDE)
    - Kdenlive - video editor (KDE)
   
    - Lightworks (**non-free freemium license - not in official Debian repositories)


Graphics:
    - ImageMagick - software suite for displaying/editing/converting images
    - GIMP - graphics editor
    - Inkscape - vector graphics editor
    - Darktable - photography editor
    - Blender - 3D graphics and animation
    - DIA - diagram creation


System Utilities and Tools:
    - Synaptic Package Manager
    - package management - update
    NOTE: Automatic upgrade of packages is NOT recommended in testing or unstable systems as this might bring unexpected behaviour and remove packages without notice.
    - GParted - partitioning
    - preload - read ahead daemon
    - Back In Time - backup
    - Launchy - application launcher
    - Remmina - remote desktop
    - Clam AntiVirus


Window Managers:
    - LXDE (yay!)
    - XFCE
    - KDE


Editors:
    - SciTE
    - Zim - graphical text editor based on wiki technologies
    - Atom (NPM / Node.js)
    - Etherpad - collaborative editing (*not in official Debian repositories)
    - Lime Text (*specific Open Source license - not in official Debian repositories)


Programming:
    - Arduino IDE (*outdated)
    - nodejs
    - CoffeeScript
    - GNU Octave
    - Android SDK (*no powerpc port)
    - Apache Cordova - mobile application development framework (NPM / Node.js)
    - OpenJDK / HotSpot
    - Eclipse (*free - but GNU GPL incompatible license)
    - Code::Blocks - C/C++ IDE
    - LLVM - compiler/toolchain
    - clang - C family front-end
    - Arduino Eclipse Plugin - alternative to Arduino IDE
    - Qt - application framework
   
    - Vulkan - graphics API (**proprietary)


Basic OS functionnalities - hardware dependent:
    - power management - fans / cpu-freq / sleep / hibernate
    - sound
    - hardware GPU acceleration
    - wifi
    - scanning
    - printing (USB/wifi)


Games:
    - Speed Dreams
    - Battle for Westhnoth
    - SuperTuxKart
    - HedgeWars
    - SCID - chess
    - Lincity - SimCity like game
    - Freeciv - Civilization like game



When looking for issues, consider the following items:
    - high CPU usage (does it monopolize the CPU)
    - speed of execution (is it slow compared to Mac OSX / Windows counterparts)
    - reactivity (does the application block/freeze ?)
    - up-to-date-ness (is the version current?)
    - license (free?)



Best Regards,
Fadi.