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Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the repos?

Graphical Environments, Managers, Multimedia & Desktop questions.
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kerryhall
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Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the repos?

#1 Post by kerryhall »

I recently upgraded to Debian 10 from Debian 8.

I held off for so long as I was afraid of reduced functionality in a new system, and sadly this appears to be the case.

I used to use this package for years:

https://packages.debian.org/jessie/utils/alarm-clock

Incredibly useful and extremely basic use case.

Unfortunately it is no longer provided in the repos. Is there any way to get this beloved package back into the repos?

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#2 Post by cuckooflew »

It might be possible. As for how, well let's see:
https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?qu ... sion=1.3.0
The best one, it looks like to me: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/dist ... g-yourself
The Path to Take

To integrate a software product with Debian, first you need to package it. You can either do that yourself, or you can ask a Debian developer to do that for you. In either case, you'll end up with a package in DEB format; you can then distribute it yourself or add it to Debian, or both.
The entire process is not simple, probably first you should find out why it was removed, you can do that by checking the information on the package:
https://tracker.debian.org/news/726034/ ... -unstable/
alarm-clock | 1.2.5-1.2 | source, amd64, armel, armhf, i386, kfreebsd-amd64, kfreebsd-i386, mips, mips64el, mipsel, powerpc, ppc64el, s390x
alarm-clock | 1.2.5-1.2+b1 | hurd-i386

------------------- Reason -------------------
RoQA; dead upstream, depends on legacy libs
----------------------------------------------
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/alarm-clock
Shows who the maintainer is and the e-mail, so you could simply ask them.
Or
Look at the right side of the page: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/utils/alarm-clock
There are links to the maintaners e-mail, bug reports, etc... and a list of similar packages.
Similar packages:

alarm-clock-applet
taskcoach
kalarm
php-horde-alarm
sanduhr
wyrd
dclock
tkremind
kde-notification-colibri
swisswatch
banshee-extension-alarm
Last edited by cuckooflew on 2020-09-05 03:18, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#3 Post by CwF »

You may mean you moved from 8 to a fresh 10. If you had upgraded in place you likely would have been able to keep it. It's dependencies were upgraded and the maintainer has not updated the build. I looked, and those dependencies can likely exist side by side with the newer versions. If you can think through it, gdebi can do this for you. Of course the masters will disapprove, who cares.

Specifically libgstreamer0.10-0 needs manually installed and tested for coexistence.
https://packages.debian.org/jessie/libgstreamer0.10-0

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#4 Post by stevepusser »

If you're using GNOME, gnome-clocks is probably what you want.
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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#5 Post by kedaha »

You could just download the alarm-clock binary package directly from jessie and install it when all dependencies are satisfied, at least on my system. Or try and build it from source but stability will hardly be compromised by installing one oldoldstable package.
However, I tried it myself after reading your post, set an alarm but for some reason I didn't hear anything. On my mate desktop.

Code: Select all

kedaha@debian:~$ /usr/bin/alarmclock

(alarmclock:3006): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 08:34:59.807: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(alarmclock:3006): GStreamer-CRITICAL **: 08:34:59.808: gst_element_get_bus: assertion 'GST_IS_ELEMENT (element)' failed

(alarmclock:3006): GStreamer-CRITICAL **: 08:34:59.808: gst_bus_add_watch_full: assertion 'GST_IS_BUS (bus)' failed

(alarmclock:3006): GStreamer-CRITICAL **: 08:34:59.808: gst_element_set_state: assertion 'GST_IS_ELEMENT (element)' failed
Don't know what that's all about—see CwF's post above about libgstreamer0.10-0— but at least the applet shows up in the upper panel. Would be nice if it were available in the current repository.
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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#6 Post by 4D696B65 »

kerryhall wrote:I recently upgraded to Debian 10 from Debian 8.

I held off for so long as I was afraid of reduced functionality in a new system, and sadly this appears to be the case.

I used to use this package for years:

https://packages.debian.org/jessie/utils/alarm-clock

Incredibly useful and extremely basic use case.

Unfortunately it is no longer provided in the repos. Is there any way to get this beloved package back into the repos?
If you are using gnome there is gnome-clocks.
https://packages.debian.org/buster/gnome-clocks

xfce4 has xfce4-timer-plugin.
https://packages.debian.org/buster/xfce4-timer-plugin

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#7 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

kerryhall wrote:Is there any way to get this beloved package back into the repos?
No. It relies on version 0.10 of gstreamer and that was removed from Debian long ago because it's a nightmare in respect of security issues (for example https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.com ... sktop.html).
deadbang

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#8 Post by oswaldkelso »

This is what I tend to use

wakeywakey.sh

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
echo
echo The time format = hours colon minutes e.g 07:30 for 7:30AM!
echo
printf "What time are you setting this alarm for? "
read date
echo
echo Okay!  Alarm set for $(date --date="$date") 
sleep $(( $(date --date="$date" +%s) - $(date +%s) ));
echo
echo Rise n shine!
echo
while true; do
  /usr/bin/ogg123 ~/free-software-song.ogg 
  sleep 1
done
Usage:
make sure the script is executable, open a terminal in a directory where you stuck the script or make a link to it'. Start the script

Code: Select all

wakeywakey.sh 
and wait for your favourite tune to blast you in to the NOW!

Obviously you can change your player and the path to your sound file. I use a "Rock" (damn near heavy metal version of the free-software-song) and don't forget to set your volume to max!

test first so you don't miss that cancer treatment/dole appointment then enjoy
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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#9 Post by CwF »

I just have a line in my user cron file. Almost always commented out, but it does all such things and the tv schedule.

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#10 Post by kedaha »

kerryhall wrote:Is there any way to get this beloved package back into the repos?
Head_on_a_Stick wrote:No. It relies on version 0.10 of gstreamer and that was removed from Debian long ago because it's a nightmare in respect of security issues (for example https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.com ... sktop.html).
Well, that puts paid to any idea of building it from source. :(
Just to add to that, I see at github.com/joh/alarm-clock it's no longer maintained and hasn't been for about four or five years.
LOOKING FOR MAINTAINERS
Unfortunately, this project is no longer maintained. If you're interested in maintaining Alarm Clock, please get in touch: [ ...]
So the only way to get the package back into the repos would be to update it and maintain it oneself.
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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#11 Post by kerryhall »

Thank you everyone for the help here!

Unfortunately gnome-clocks has two major issues.

1. No ability to easily change the alarm sound. It's possible, but it's an extremely convoluted method.

2. More crucially, no support for multiple sounds for multiple alarms. ie, alarm 1 has sound x, alarm 2 has sound y, etc.

I have also tried qtalarm but I could not get it to compile. I think the issue is lack of qt4 support in Debian 10.

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#12 Post by kerryhall »

Head_on_a_Stick wrote: No. It relies on version 0.10 of gstreamer and that was removed from Debian long ago because it's a nightmare in respect of security issues (for example https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.com ... sktop.html).
I'm definitely not a fan of gstreamer for that reason, but is gstreamer really needed to play a mp3?

I suppose the issue is that work must be done to port alarm-clock from gstreamer over to any other library that is capable of playing mp3s?

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#13 Post by kedaha »

kerryhall wrote: I suppose the issue is that work must be done to port alarm-clock from gstreamer over to any other library that is capable of playing mp3s?
Or update it to the current version of gstreamer?
But looks like it would involve more than that to judge from the News for package alarm-clock-applet from October of last year:
alarm-clock-applet was removed from Testing a year and a half ago
because it depends on libunique, an unmaintained GNOME 2 library. The
Debian GNOME team is trying to remove libunique from Debian.

There has been basically no activity on the bug. There have been no
uploads in 4 years.

Please remove alarm-clock-applet from Debian.
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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#14 Post by kerryhall »

kedaha wrote:alarm-clock-applet was removed from Testing a year and a half ago
because it depends on libunique
So the function of that lib is to simply guarantee a single instance of a binary running at a time?

What superseded libunique when it was deprecated?

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#15 Post by RU55EL »

Another possibility?

Code: Select all

russel@debian:~$ apt show wmclockmon
Package: wmclockmon
Version: 0.8.1-3
Priority: optional
Section: x11
Maintainer: Debian Window Maker Team <pkg-wmaker-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Installed-Size: 168 kB
Depends: libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.15), libcairo2 (>= 1.2.4), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.11), libfreetype6 (>= 2.2.1), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.16.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.8.0), libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libpangocairo-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libpangoft2-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libx11-6, libxext6, libxpm4
Homepage: http://tnemeth.free.fr/projets/dockapps.html
Tag: implemented-in::c, interface::graphical, interface::x11, role::program,
 scope::utility, suite::gnustep, uitoolkit::gtk, uitoolkit::xlib,
 use::timekeeping, x11::applet
Download-Size: 48.1 kB
APT-Sources: https://deb.debian.org/debian buster/main amd64 Packages
Description: Displays a clock in 12/24h mode with alarm mode
 wmclockmon displays a clock like wmtime, but with an alarm timer and
 different styles (14 + user customized ones). There's also a "binary
 clock" style available.

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#16 Post by kerryhall »

Thank you! I tried wmclockmon but I couldn't get any sort of gui to come up for whatever reason.

My workaround for now is to use a cron job, but it's certainly not an ideal solution for folks who have recently switched over to Linux.

Longer term, it would really be nice to get alarm-clock added back to the repos.

For people who have recently switched, I don't have a good answer to the alarm clock question.

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Re: Is it possible to get alarm-clock added back into the re

#17 Post by sickpig »

kerryhall wrote:For people who have recently switched, I don't have a good answer to the alarm clock question.
https://packages.debian.org/buster/orage
Is in gtk, supports reminders and todos. Ability to snooze/postpone. Audio as well as visual notifications. Works independent of xfce DE. Small resource footprint.

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