Just two really dumb questions...

[jpsimm]

So many distros are proud to say "Debian based" so when shopping for a linux distro that I could trust I thought why not just use Debian instead of a spinoff? Anyway I just installed Stretch 9.3 MATE (my favorite desktop) and I have two questions.

!. Where is bluetooth? I don't see it on any menu or on the panel. I do see in the respository that Bluetooth support is installed. Could it be that we are expected to use the terminal to configure it. Isn't there any GUI for Bluetooth? The Debian manual does not address this.

2. It has Firefox 52. I understand this is the stable release and there is a lag but does anyone have a guess about when 58 will show up in the repository?

Thanks...

[dotlj]

You probably have firefox-esr 52.6 which has the security updates that the firefox 58.0 includes if you download from Mozilla. Since Firefox upgraded to 57.0 a number of extensions have stopped working until they are updated, so ESR may be better for you. It's not insecure.

Bluetooth? I don't use Mate, so not sure. However,

Code: Select all

aptitude search blue | grep ^i
i A bluetooth - Bluetooth support
i A bluez - Bluetooth tools and daemons
i A bluez-obexd - bluez obex daemon
i A libbluetooth3 - Library to use the BlueZ Linux Bluetooth stack
i A libkf5bluezqt-data - data files for bluez-qt
i A libkf5bluezqt6 - Qt wrapper for bluez

You may have more or less depending on Mate. Unlikely that you need to use a terminal, there is probably an option somewhere to install or configure bluetooth.

[arochester]

https://wiki.debian.org/BluetoothUser ?

[Thorny]

It has Firefox 52. I understand this is the stable release and there is a lag but does anyone have a guess about when 58 will show up in the repository?

The short answer is never, the stable release is called stable because it doesn't change not because it doesn't ever crash.

This might help you to understand.
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... ng.en.html

dotlj has explained firefox-esr to you and I agree, it is probably what you should use.

However, it is possible to download a current release from Mozilla and run it from your /home and leave the esr on your system. Since you are a very inexperienced user, if you attempt that, be careful and make sure you understand what you are doing, do a lot of research first.