Scheduled Maintenance: We are aware of an issue with Google, AOL, and Yahoo services as email providers which are blocking new registrations. We are trying to fix the issue and we have several internal and external support tickets in process to resolve the issue. Please see: viewtopic.php?t=158230

 

 

 

What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

Here you can discuss every aspect of Debian. Note: not for support requests!
Post Reply
Message
Author
kedaha
Posts: 3521
Joined: 2008-05-24 12:26
Has thanked: 33 times
Been thanked: 77 times

What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#1 Post by kedaha »

Some users "upgrade" their stable system to testing or sid either to get newer software missing from stable, like for example, virtualbox or to get more recent version. So I thought it would be interesting to post this question, specially with regard to their possible backporting to stable. Thanks in advance for any replies.
DebianStable

Code: Select all

$ vrms

No non-free or contrib packages installed on debian!  rms would be proud.

User avatar
NFT5
df -h | grep > 20TiB
df -h | grep > 20TiB
Posts: 596
Joined: 2014-10-10 11:38
Location: Canberra, Australia
Has thanked: 10 times
Been thanked: 41 times

Re: What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#2 Post by NFT5 »

Whenever I see a question like this, or, indeed, nearly all the topics in this forum about running testing or sid, the first thing that comes to my mind is 'what features do they actually need that are in the development streams?'

I can understand needing a later kernel ( backported 5.10 in Buster to solve some annoying hardware issues) and I've been using Virtualbox direct from Oracle since they introduced USB3 support that wasn't available in the Debian stable repos. That I continue to do this is more habit and the result of the ongoing argument between Debian and Oracle, given that there are alternatives, but it works for me and I'm not introducing potentially troublesome sources that could bork my system.

I've been down the "sns" syndrome path and found that, for most software, particularly GUI, the differences are minimal and, in a disappointing number of cases, the 'improvements' were actually retrogrades or removal of features that I liked/used. So, I'd qualify kedaha's question to add "and why".

In the past I've been more likely to take packages from a prior version of Debian, especially where I'd been using those and they'd been dropped for one reason or another. Examples include gksu and pinta which I took from Stretch in Buster.

So,Virtualbox would be one, provided that I could be confident that Debian and Oracle could sort their differences and I wouldn't be left without a program that I use daily. Others, that I use regularly and run as flatpaks are balenaEtcher and FreeFileSync (not in Sid AFAIK).

kedaha
Posts: 3521
Joined: 2008-05-24 12:26
Has thanked: 33 times
Been thanked: 77 times

Re: What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#3 Post by kedaha »

Thanks for your reply.
I found that not a few users missed software available from releases older than Buster in my topic back in August of 2019. It's a pretty safe guess there are things folks will miss after upgrading to current stable too.
I've never used flatpaks but was interested to see that BalenaEtcher is there.
So far the only thing I've backported from testing to stable is postfixadmin and from sid, nomacs, after reading this topic.
There seems to be quite a demand for virtualbox, notably from recent forum members. I suppose the method given in the wiki for Bullseye would be preferable for most users to "upgrading" the entire system to testing or sid but, speaking for myself, I'm more than happy with QEMU.
DebianStable

Code: Select all

$ vrms

No non-free or contrib packages installed on debian!  rms would be proud.

User avatar
stevepusser
Posts: 12930
Joined: 2009-10-06 05:53
Has thanked: 41 times
Been thanked: 71 times

Re: What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#4 Post by stevepusser »

Debian isn't always on top of updates--I'm working on packages right now for MX because youtube-dl is broken and youtube-dlp needs packaging. That leads to SMPlayer also needing an update if you watch Youtube videos in it, and that's also not even a twinkle in any Debian maintainer's eye.

You could set up your own backports "PPA" (Not A PPA!) on the openSUSE build service. They'll build packages from the Debian source for various Debian releases...Sid has just transitioned to gcc-11, which means some programs may not build on it (Pale Moon in my OBS repo, for example).
MX Linux packager and developer

User avatar
craigevil
Posts: 5391
Joined: 2006-09-17 03:17
Location: heaven
Has thanked: 28 times
Been thanked: 39 times

Re: What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#5 Post by craigevil »

I am on arm64, so my options are some what limited. For example I can't just download Firefox and use it.

Even though I am running Sid, Snaps and Flatpaks have newer versions of several apps, and even have apps not in the repos.

SNS is a way of life. If it isn't as new as possible it is old. And old just plain stinks. :P

Installed flatpaks:

Code: Select all

Name                                          Application ID                                          Version              Branch        Installation
Desktop Files Creator                         com.github.alexkdeveloper.desktop-files-creator         1.0.0                stable        system
Wike                                          com.github.hugolabe.Wike                                1.6.0                stable        system
Drawing                                       com.github.maoschanz.drawing                            0.8.3                stable        system
Flatseal                                      com.github.tchx84.Flatseal                              1.7.4                stable        system
Fluffychat                                    im.fluffychat.Fluffychat                                0.42.0               stable        system
FreeTube                                      io.freetubeapp.FreeTube                                 0.14.0 Beta          stable        system
LibreWolf                                     io.gitlab.librewolf-community                           93.0-1               stable        system
Chromium Web Browser                          org.chromium.Chromium                                   94.0.4606.71         stable        system
Codecs                                        org.chromium.Chromium.Codecs                                                 stable        system
Freedesktop Platform                          org.freedesktop.Platform                                20.08.15             20.08         system
Freedesktop Platform                          org.freedesktop.Platform                                21.08.4              21.08         system
Mesa                                          org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default                     21.1.7               20.08         system
Mesa                                          org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default                     21.2.2               21.08         system
ffmpeg-full                                   org.freedesktop.Platform.ffmpeg-full                                         21.08         system
GNOME Application Platform version 40         org.gnome.Platform                                                           40            system
Telegram Desktop                              org.telegram.desktop                                    3.1.9                stable        system
Snaps, only one actual app. Firefox Beta 94.0b6-1

Apps that I have installed that have .deb packages:
Koreader
opensnitch
Vivaldi
webapp-manager
Raspberry PI 400 Distro: Raspberry Pi OS Base: Debian Sid Kernel: 5.15.69-v8+ aarch64 DE: MATE Ram 4GB
Debian - "If you can't apt install something, it isn't useful or doesn't exist"
My Giant Sources.list

User avatar
wizard10000
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 551
Joined: 2019-04-16 23:15
Location: southeastern us
Has thanked: 75 times
Been thanked: 85 times

Re: What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#6 Post by wizard10000 »

NFT5 wrote: 2021-10-15 00:52...'what features do they actually need that are in the development streams?'
As one of those people I don't *need* anything in Sid :mrgreen:

For me computers are a hobby as well as an appliance and I've said it before but if I wasn't running Sid I'd probably be running Arch. Shiny New Stuff isn't a need but it does make me happy and I occasionally get to help out a little bit by filing bug reports.
we see things not as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin

marvink
Posts: 1
Joined: 2021-10-18 18:24

Re: What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#7 Post by marvink »

Not much at the moment, since Debian 11 is still fairly fresh and the software in the repos is largely doing the job fine for what I need.

I did grab a more recent version of Node.js because I needed that for something.

Another thing I wanted last week was a newer version of mpv because I wanted to switch from youtube-dl to yt-dlp to speed up load times, but mpvs config setting for using a custom yt-dl executable was added in a later version than the one I could get on Bullseye, and it wasn't in backports either. Ended up backporting a library dependency and mpv myself.

I do love to tinker on my machines and I find the experience of fetching source code and tinkering with it and compiling manually quite cathartic while keeping the important parts of the system stable.

CwF
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 2625
Joined: 2018-06-20 15:16
Location: Colorado
Has thanked: 41 times
Been thanked: 190 times

Re: What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#8 Post by CwF »

How about old stuff that left without alternative, or things never done.
Before VW got in trouble they did alot of work around kernel 4.5-8 for OBDII which never trickled into any thing general. XP still works. Wines' video rendering is to inaccurate, so was virtualbox's. VFIO pass does fine. So never mind...
Aweather lost the maintainer some time back. Formerly in high altitude back country I found the big picture possible with Aweather is much better than a weather man. It will run under bullseye but not available. It does need some work, source redirects and newer dependencies. It crashes on >10MB downloads as it renders, but always fires back up and finishes fine.

Bulkley
Posts: 6382
Joined: 2006-02-11 18:35
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 39 times

Re: What newer software do you want that's only in Bookworm or Sid?

#9 Post by Bulkley »

CwF wrote: 2021-10-19 19:11 How about old stuff that left without alternative, or things never done.
That is my major concern with every new Debian version. There is always something I need that isn't there anymore and I have to hunt for alternatives. It's not really Debian's fault. Developers can't be condemned to rebuilding their earlier work every time an OS does a version upgrade. If no one else can be persuaded to take over old programs are abandoned.

I also agree with NFT5, above, "what features do they actually need . . . ?"

Post Reply