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Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

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kerryhall
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Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#1 Post by kerryhall »

Hello,

It looks like the version of awesome that ships with Jessie was compiled in feb 2013. (!!)

I understand keeping a "stable" version around in the main repos, but what's the harm in throwing a half dozen newer versions into the jessie backports repos?

I've also been told not to "run a franken-system" so manually installing debs or building from source is off the table.

Right now I've run into a half dozen bugs already, making awesomewm completely unusuable.

I've run into a bunch more bugs with fluxbox, so I'm trying to move away from using that. And xmonad isn't capable of doing what I want (which is switching all workspaces on all monitors at the same time)

So....my system doesn't have a usable window manager anymore, and everything in the repos is four years old.

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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#2 Post by arochester »

1) There are no Debian developers here. This is a User Forum. So asking here for an updated package is not going to produce results.

2) The Don't break Debian page does say
This page lists common mistakes made by new users. Some of the things listed here can be done safely, but only if you have enough experience to know how to fix your system when things go wrong.
You have made 98 posts to date. Do you think you have enough experience to proceed?

3) It is not much good to say
I've run into a half dozen bugs
and
I've run into a bunch more bugs
You need to tell us EXACTLY what problems you are experiencing - so we might be able to help you. What error messages WORD FOR WORD have you received?

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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#3 Post by debiman »

kerryhall wrote:I've also been told not to "run a franken-system" so manually installing debs or building from source is off the table.
i wouldn't say it's "off the table", even according to this page. very little is actually really "off the table" according to that page.

also, debian stable is about to be replaced with a new stable version very, very soon. any day now. can't you hold it in a little longer?

also, i happen to know awesome and while it probably is awesome, its development is somewhat scattered, i can't blame debian for that.

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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#4 Post by None1975 »

kerryhall wrote:So....my system doesn't have a usable window manager anymore.
You can try i3wm, or spectrwm. I use it for about four months, or so, and can't find any bugs.
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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#5 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

deadbang

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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#6 Post by stevepusser »

Backports has a mailing list where you can make a request, but if nobody there has much interest in it, it'll sink without a trace. Reference several requests to do a simple backport of broadcom-sta-dkms to build with the current backports kernels...

Any, if you want something done quick, you can do it yourself. The 4.0 in Stretch took about a minute to backport on my i5-6200u machine, and a quick look at the build-depends doesn't seem to have any that aren't in the stock Jessie repositories. If you want to share your work with others and rake in some kudos, you can set up a backport of it for the i386 and amd64 platforms on the openSUSE Build Service and share the repository with the world.

https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 50#p626350
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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#7 Post by kerryhall »

arochester wrote: 3) It is not much good to say
I've run into a half dozen bugs
and
I've run into a bunch more bugs
You need to tell us EXACTLY what problems you are experiencing - so we might be able to help you. What error messages WORD FOR WORD have you received?
I realize this, but the point of this post isn't to try and debug fluxbox, the point is to get awesomewm working.

From talking with the awesomewm devs, the bugs I have run into have been fixed years ago.

Trying to walk through the same bugs again is counter productive. The fix obvious: use a version that has been compiled in the last year.

I'm guessing that debian uses some sort of automation to build packages that are included in the official repos, is that correct?

What is the downside then to including a package for awesome that is say, one year old, and not four years old?

I'm going to proceed with building and installing awesomewm from source I think, but seriously, having devs from every project laugh at me when I try and file bug reports is getting pretty tiresome.

I'm struggling to find an answer when project devs ask me "Why don't you use a sane distro?" etc etc.

I'm just an end user and this is my experience using Debian.

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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#8 Post by kerryhall »

debiman wrote:
kerryhall wrote:I've also been told not to "run a franken-system" so manually installing debs or building from source is off the table.
i wouldn't say it's "off the table", even according to this page. very little is actually really "off the table" according to that page.

also, debian stable is about to be replaced with a new stable version very, very soon. any day now. can't you hold it in a little longer?

also, i happen to know awesome and while it probably is awesome, its development is somewhat scattered, i can't blame debian for that.
Ah ok, fair enough. Every time I have asked questions on IRC about building from source, the response I get is "NEVER install a deb or do make install. ONLY use packages from the official debian repos"

I didn't realize that a new version of debian was about to be released. How do I know that Debian 9 will have a new version of this package though?

I don't blame debian for awesome's development practices, I blame Debian for including a version of a package that is four years old.

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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#9 Post by stevepusser »

Stretch has the 4.0 version. I guess you didn't see that part in my post, where I'm trying to show you how to rebuild from source that version on Jessie into deb packages the proper way, so that you're doing your own quick backport instead having to beg someone else to do it for you. Teach a man to fish, you know... Even if you have a very slow machine, it should compile in a reasonable amount of time, and doesn't have any tricky bits--if it had those, I might be more inclined to do it on the OBS.
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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#10 Post by bw123 »

You've asked several questions that can probably be answered by one of the pages here https://wiki.debian.org/FAQ

I'll try to help with a couple, though this is only my opinion
what's the harm in throwing a half dozen newer versions into the jessie backports repos?
Yeah it's sounds easy when you say it like that. If you think about it, you really don't want people 'throwing' software onto my computer do you? That would be kind of rude, I sort of expect a fairly reliable program, even from backports. I think it's not always as easy as it seems to take a program and "throw' it over an older version.
I don't blame debian for awesome's development practices, I blame Debian for including a version of a package that is four years old.
It wasn't four years old three years ago, and the reason that the old version is still 'the' version in stable is because of debian policy. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... tml#s3.1.3
How do I know that Debian 9 will have a new version of this package though?
I do this by going to the packages.debian.com page for the package I want to check on. On firefox-esr there is a search plugin that does this, I just type in the package name and click the debian swirl, and get a list like this:
https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=awesome

I'm just an end user and this is my experience using Debian.
Yeah me too, same experience, just different reaction. To me it all makes a lot of sense, but you seem annoyed, I don't really see why This way of doing it has been working pretty well. I started on squeeze, and every new version seems to be better and better. It does get frustrating near the new release though.

Hang in there, it's okay. really.
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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#11 Post by kerryhall »

stevepusser wrote:Stretch has the 4.0 version. I guess you didn't see that part in my post, where I'm trying to show you how to rebuild from source that version on Jessie into deb packages the proper way, so that you're doing your own quick backport instead having to beg someone else to do it for you. Teach a man to fish, you know... Even if you have a very slow machine, it should compile in a reasonable amount of time, and doesn't have any tricky bits--if it had those, I might be more inclined to do it on the OBS.
Ah ok, I understand what you mean. I have just had it drilled into me so many times to never build packages from source and never try to install anything unless it's from the official repos or from the jessie backports.

I'm frustrated enough now that I'm willing to do anything to just have a window manager that works, ie, windows can be moved and resized, they don't appear off the screen, the window manager remembers monitor, size, position, etc (which does NOT work in fluxbox currently, or rather, works about 30% of the time)

Thank you, I will definitely try this approach.

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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#12 Post by kerryhall »

bw123 wrote: Yeah it's sounds easy when you say it like that. If you think about it, you really don't want people 'throwing' software onto my computer do you? That would be kind of rude, I sort of expect a fairly reliable program, even from backports. I think it's not always as easy as it seems to take a program and "throw' it over an older version.
I'm not suggesting people throw the software on their computer, I'm saying that I would just appreciate the option to have a few misc versions in the backports. If people want "stable" they can stick with the standard repos. Maybe if a newer version of awesomewm was built via some sort of deb automation, it might not work at all. But when running "apt-cache policy" couldn't it just list the version in the standard repos, and a few versions in the backports repos, with the label "untested" next to the autogenerated debs from backports?
bw123 wrote: It wasn't four years old three years ago, and the reason that the old version is still 'the' version in stable is because of debian policy. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... tml#s3.1.3
Fair enough, but from that same policy:
One can confidently say that the packages do not have any known severe bugs, security holes etc., in them
But this isn't the case with awesomewm. I would say if any window manager is configured to autostart a program upon startup, and when doing so, that window manager crashes, that qualifies as a "severe bug". Do you know anyone that has a window manager that doesn't autostart anything? What about some sort of daemon that allows you to lock your screen? I would say at the very least that is needed in order to make a window manager useful. It's subjective of course, so just my opinion.
bw123 wrote: I do this by going to the packages.debian.com page for the package I want to check on. On firefox-esr there is a search plugin that does this, I just type in the package name and click the debian swirl, and get a list like this:
https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=awesome
Ah awesome, thank you!
bw123 wrote: Hang in there, it's okay. really.
Sorry, just frustrated because right now my system is nearly unusable. I can't use eog, evince, firefox's save dialog, transmission, etc, etc. It seems like my debian end user experience is just getting worse and worse over the years. (I'm particularly upset at how gnome3 style dialogs and windows have somehow found their way into my wm, despite me taking particular efforts to avoid them)

(see this post here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 8&p=638820 )

This is an issue I have been trying to resolve for three months now, but it seems like just trying to resolve this issue I'm going down a deeper and deeper rabbit hole, learning haskell for two months to try and learn how to configure xmonad, then only to learn that xmonad doesn't even support switching multiple workspaces at once (one per monitor, in the same way that gnome2 and fluxbox have been able to do for at least a decade)

I then spent a week trying to debug why awesomewm takes me back to lightdm as soon as I try to log in, only to discover that the issue is some ancient bug.

So what are my options for wms now? Maybe the gtk3 dialog bug I'm running into has to do with fluxbox specifically, but the version of fluxbox in the repos is 1.3.5, which was released in 2013.

I'm trying to work around the firefox save dialog issue with wget, but that doesn't help for gmail and google drive crap.

Chromium is no better, when I click on the download button nothing happens. (in gmail and google drive only)

I'm seriously considering using w3m next just so I can save email attachments.

All I want to be able to do is use firefox, evince, eog, and transmission, without the dialogs popping up off the screen and being unable to move them.

I can be patient and wait for Debian 9, but not being able to save files in firefox is getting extremely frustrating.

Thanks!

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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#13 Post by stevepusser »

OK, I backported the 4.0 version from Stretch. Currently, something is broken with the OBS that creates a link to the instructions to add the repo and the key, so you'll just have to manually download & install the deb file from the i386 or amd64 folder, whatever platform you are using. http://download.opensuse.org/repositori ... ebian_8.0/

Also note that the new version will also need a new runtime library for libxcb-xrm0, which is also in jessie-backports already. Since you are familiar with that repo, just get it from there.
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Re: Can we please get an updated package for awesomewm?

#14 Post by kerryhall »

Ahhh thank you so much!! I really appreciate the help here! :)

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