Please point out any likely problems you can see down the road, I'd be grateful for any observations about use of backported major components over the life of a stable release.
This is likely to become my 'production' system when gNewSense makes it to version 4 (based on Wheezy).
Installed from the netinstall iso using the default text mode 'Install' choice, with only 'standard' and 'laptop' package groups selected at tasksel stage.
Current /etc/apt/sources.list
Code: Select all
#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 7.5.0 _Wheezy_ - Official i386 NETINST Binary-1 20140426-12:25]/ wheezy main
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main
deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main
# wheezy-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main
# adding backports for mate
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian wheezy-backports main
Code: Select all
aptitude install xorg lightdm
aptitude -t wheezy-backports install mate-desktop-environment
aptitude install network-manager network-manager-gnome
Code: Select all
aptitude install iceweasel
aptitude -t wheezy-backports install pulseaudio
aptitude -t wheezy-backports install pavucontrol
aptitude install iceweasel synaptic
aptitude install hugin gimp inkscape audacity lftp curl rsync rdesktop brasero cups-pdf pdftk leafpad vlc ffmpeg guayadeque
I've added OpenOffice 3.4.1 from the deb pack downloaded from OpenOffice.org as a personal quirk (don't ask, it is complicated). I'll also add Oracle Java 1.7SE from the Oracle site and Eclipse from Wheezy repos along with R, pyxplot, gnuplot from the Wheezy repo and RStudio as a deb download. Just installed the laptop-mode-tools package to get battery use sensible. The Thinkpad Intel wifi card won't accept power management as usual.
GUI wars disclaimer: I rather like Gnome 3, but composited desktops (Unity, G3, KDE) stutter rather than fly on this 2007 laptop. My students find a single bottom panel with applications available on a menu on the left hand side easy to grok in lessons when I hand this laptop around for asking google things.