Debian Squeeze

BigAl-sa said:
Hey Koffie (and others) what 64-bit Firefox are you using. I've been trying to get the 32-bit version to work, but am getting "wrong ELF class" errors on several of the 32-bit libraries. FF works, but it doesn't look very pretty compared to that on 32-bit Squeeze.

[edit]FF 5 that is.[/edit]
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I'm using Ubuntu at work, FF5 64bit came with the updates. At home, I just compiled it (can give you instructions, it's not hard) but since that box only ever visits one site, I haven't updated it since 3.6.15.

Then again, since FireFox 4, the mozilla guys have 64bit builds too:

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/5.0/linux-x86_64/en-GB/

I don't see the point of bothering with 32bit browsers on a 64bit OS. The 64bit flash plugin works just fine, and so does the java plugin.
 
koffiejunkie said:
I'm using Ubuntu at work, FF5 64bit came with the updates. At home, I just compiled it (can give you instructions, it's not hard) but since that box only ever visits one site, I haven't updated it since 3.6.15.

Then again, since FireFox 4, the mozilla guys have 64bit builds too:

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/5.0/linux-x86_64/en-GB/

I don't see the point of bothering with 32bit browsers on a 64bit OS. The 64bit flash plugin works just fine, and so does the java plugin.
Click to expand...

Thanks - that works a treat. Got the 64-bit flash, haven't bothered with java just yet.
 
Compiling Firefox

For those who are interested, this is my method.

Grab the sauce. You need a newer yasm than the one in squeeze, so I grabbed it from http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/amd64/yasm/download. I install mine in /opt/firefox/$VERSION. Create /opt/firefox and chown it to your user:group. Then, drop the following into a script called /opt/firefox/configure.sh:

Code: 
# https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Configuring_Build_Options

CURDIR=`pwd | awk -F/ '{print $NF}'`
echo $CURDIR
../firefox-$CURDIR/configure --enable-official-branding \
--enable-application=browser \
--disable-debug \
--enable-xft \
--enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2 \
--disable-tests \
--enable-optimize \
--enable-libxul \
--disable-crashreporter

Now, prepare the build.

$ cd /opt/firefox
$ chmod +x configure.sh
$ wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/5.0/source/firefox-5.0.source.tar.bz2
$ tar xfjv firefox-5.0.source.tar.bz2
$ mv mozilla-release firefox-5.0
$ mkdir 5.0
$ cd 5.0
$ ../configure.sh

You'll probably have to repeat that last step a few times, because it will break every time it encounters a missing dependency. Install whatever it needs, until it completes successfully. Then:

$ make (takes 33min on my box, will probably be much longer on a netbook)
$ cd ..
$ ln -s 5.0/dist/bin/firefox firefox
$ ln -s 5.0/dist/bin/icons icons

When the time comes to upgrade it, I go through the same process, and just update the symlinks so I don't have to fool around with menus and default browser settings and stuff.
 
For those interested, I used the debs on this page to install wine in wheezy.

Any really pressing reason for me to install the nvidia non-free drivers? I'm currently using the default nouveau drivers and they seem to have handled everything I've thrown at them so far.

The virtualbox's shared folders are *way* faster on the new machine than my old one. I haven't done any physical measurements yet, but I actually feel like editing my photos now (have to use win as programs using dcraw really mess up the conversions from my camera's RAW files).
 
koffiejunkie said:
$ make (takes 33min on my box, will probably be much longer on a netbook)
Click to expand...

It should be safe to compile Firefox on a Core2 with
Code: 
make -j7
or on a quad core with
Code: 
make -j11
I've done plenty 'make -j11' jobs with Firefox and Thunderbird on an old C2Q.
 
BigAl-sa said:
still 40d. Would love to up to a 7d, but there's really nothing wrong with the 40d
Click to expand...

True. I would never have bought the 50D if my 40D didn't get nicked.

But this demonstrates why I don't bother with the opensource RAW tools. If they can't make the most of files from a 4-year old camera, what are the chances it'll be any good for the 7D?
 
koffiejunkie said:
True. I would never have bought the 50D if my 40D didn't get nicked.

But this demonstrates why I don't bother with the opensource RAW tools. If they can't make the most of files from a 4-year old camera, what are the chances it'll be any good for the 7D?
Click to expand...

The irony is, dcraw can handle the 40d's RAW files very well. I found a site that shows how it can be done, but you have to use the CLI - that's really a pain when you're wanting to see what happens in real time. The okes that use dcraw (such as ufraw and even Raw Therapee), don't take the 40d's nuances into account.
 
BigAl-sa said:
The irony is, dcraw can handle the 40d's RAW files very well. I found a site that shows how it can be done, but you have to use the CLI - that's really a pain when you're wanting to see what happens in real time. The okes that use dcraw (such as ufraw and even Raw Therapee), don't take the 40d's nuances into account.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've heard that. And while I'm a huge fan for the CLI, visual arts (for lack of a better term) is one area where I think WYSIWIG is the only sensible kind of interface and there's really no justification for having to fool around with a CLI tool.
 
BigAl-sa said:
For those interested, I used the debs on this page to install wine in wheezy.
Click to expand...

I've just been trying these debs on my squeeze installation, and there's a whole boatload of dependencies that aren't met, and the required versions of the packages aren't in the squeeze repos :(

I really had high hopes for squeeze as a stable alternative to Ubuntu, but it's starting to look a bit too tied (bolted rather) down.
 
BigAl-sa said:
I've just been trying these debs on my squeeze installation, and there's a whole boatload of dependencies that aren't met, and the required versions of the packages aren't in the squeeze repos :(
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Having a look at pinning to get the required files from testing. Wish me luck when stuff starts breaking :D
 
koffiejunkie said:
But this demonstrates why I don't bother with the opensource RAW tools. If they can't make the most of files from a 4-year old camera, what are the chances it'll be any good for the 7D?
Click to expand...

A while back I recall have LightZone installed which was free at the time for Linux but it's no longer free.
Maybe have a look at http://www.lightcrafts.com/lightzone/

Edit: I just had a look and found a .nzb for linux V3.6.1
 
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BigAl-sa said:
Having a look at pinning to get the required files from testing. Wish me luck when stuff starts breaking :D
Click to expand...

A long time ago X.org introduced a bug that broke FBMerge (?) on the older Radeon cards (still not fixed). I was using Sarge or Etch at the time. I rolled it back, pinned it, and continued to use the box through Etch, Lenny and Squeeze. It's a fantastic tool!
 
ponder said:
A while back I recall have LightZone installed which was free at the time for Linux but it's no longer free.
Maybe have a look at http://www.lightcrafts.com/lightzone/
Click to expand...

It wasn't great on the 50D files. My biggest issue (after losing detail) is how the raw converter handles noise at higher ISO, since I do a lot of that kind of shooting. For interest's sake, in my opinion all the converters that rely on reverse-engineering the files (except ACR and Capture One) do worse at CR2 files than Canon's DPP. I don't, however, see the same difference on the Nikon NEF files, which leads me to think that the NEF files are better understood than CR2 files.

A colleague of mine who shoots Nikon, feels there isn't much difference between NX, ACR and the opensource tools (I don't remember which one he uses), so I think things are better on the Nikon side. Ditto Pentax, since they use DNG.
 
BigAl-sa said:
Having a look at pinning to get the required files from testing. Wish me luck when stuff starts breaking :D
Click to expand...

Well got wine 1.3.24 installed on squeeze. I'll blog my pinning recipe once I'm satisfied that nothing has broken.

[I really must thank Mr Shuttleworth and his team for pushing me away from Ubuntu - I would never have tried these things otherwise :D]
 
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Well, I broke my wheezy GUI yesterday by trying to install the nVidia drivers using the Debian nVidia howto. For anyone wanting to install the non-free nVidia drivers do not use this wiki. The nVidia drivers in the testing repo are broken at the moment. Rather use the sgfxi script to build and install the drivers direct from nVidia (or ATi if you have an ATi card). The script does pretty much what the envy script used to do in older Ubuntu versions.

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon and evening trying to get the GUI back, until I found a rather obscure reference to sgfxi. I'll post more later as to why I wanted to install the non-free nVidia drivers when I've had a chance to check whether GLX is actually working properly.
 
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