• Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 14

Topic: [SOLVED] Interested in very few upgrades, shall I move to sid?

Hi everybody,
I'm pretty new to crunchbang and to the forum, but I like the distro a lot. I do have a problem, anyway, with a few apps which seem to be too old to work properly with some stuff that I attach to my pc.

In particular, I noticed that rhythmbox doesn't recognize my mp3 player, and ufraw/rawtherapee are too old to properly convert the raw images from my camera. Both work fine on a different machine with a recent fedora.

I don't like the idea of moving to unstable, as one of the reasons why I like crunchbang is that it's so stable. I tried installing manually a newer version of rawtherapee, but I got lost in the dependencies. Do you think I have any alternative to going for the testing or unstable branch? Which one would you suggest, by the way? (I would just go for the unstable)

Thanks a lot.

Last edited by sambarluc (2012-02-08 17:13:28)

  • Registered: 2011-11-26
  • Posts: 123

Re: [SOLVED] Interested in very few upgrades, shall I move to sid?

I'd recommend checking out hardran3's guide to apt-pinning. It's one of the safer ways to upgrade only a few packages that you really want.

Welcome to the forums!

  • From: #! NightClub
  • Registered: 2011-06-02
  • Posts: 3,869

Re: [SOLVED] Interested in very few upgrades, shall I move to sid?

Welcome to #! Forum!

You heard already, there is apt pinning but it can have some issues and I personally am not a big fan of that approach. Maybe you could compile some of the needed programs or take them from backports if available.

I personally use Debian Unstable, you could begin first with Testing if you are a bit scared. It is not that scary in reality but you have to learn to administrate and maybe also troubleshoot such a system. Anyway we have here great threads and how to's about the transition to Testing/Unstable and can help you on that.

Font Task Force | The ultimate MPD guide | Little MOC how-to

The sound of #! COFFEE
  • From: United States
  • Registered: 2011-09-30
  • Posts: 138

Re: [SOLVED] Interested in very few upgrades, shall I move to sid?

Hi sambarluc, Id like to say welcome as well, always good seeing another #!er.   Ive been using Debian Unstable for the longest time in one form or another, and Ive only rarely, and I mean rarely, have had a problem with it.   Ive tried apt-pinning with iceweasel out of the experimental repo, and have never had a problem with it, but that was the only app I had pinned(as opposed to some people apt-pinning a whole slew of things).    Debian Unstable from what Ive seen is rarely any more unstable than a lot of stable, point release distributions, so I wouldnt be too worried, though like ivanovnegro says, there is always testing to whet your appetite.   I personally would just go with unstable, been using it for almost a  year and have never *knock on wood* had a system failing breakage.  But as far as your thread topic says, very few upgrades is not, in my experience, what unstable is.

The one thing I love about this distro is how Ive never seen a shortage on this forum for answers or help.    Any time I search google for a linux related problem, top on the list is 9 times out of 10 a thread from crunchbang answering my question.    So I say go for it, try it out, because either the problem you have had has been answered here, or people will have no problem helping you out.

Off topic, but thanks Ivanovnegro for the mpd link in your signature, Im just starting to set up mpd on my system, big help.

Last edited by cphayes0882 (2012-02-01 01:01:03)

Intel Pentium4-2.40GHZ RAM-1008.3MiB CrunchBang Sid Linux-3.2-6.slh.3-aptosid-686
  • From: #! NightClub
  • Registered: 2011-06-02
  • Posts: 3,869

Re: [SOLVED] Interested in very few upgrades, shall I move to sid?

cphayes0882 wrote:

But as far as your thread topic says, very few upgrades is not, in my experience, what unstable is.

Oh, I overread this. That is correct. You have to have to upgrade on a regular basis of course, either with Testing as well with Unstable.


cphayes0882 wrote:

Off topic, but thanks Ivanovnegro for the mpd link in your signature, Im just starting to set up mpd on my system, big help.

You are welcome.

Font Task Force | The ultimate MPD guide | Little MOC how-to

The sound of #! COFFEE
  • Registered: 2012-01-31
  • Posts: 14

Re: [SOLVED] Interested in very few upgrades, shall I move to sid?

Sorry for not replying anymore in the thread I strated...
Anyway, at least for now, I went for apt-pinning, setting the unstable and testing branches to negative preference values, which enables me to install what I really need and nothing more.
Incidentally, I found that the universal binary of Rawtherapee on their website works perfectly, so that solves (even if not in the neatest way) the problem for Rawtherapee.
Newer versions of Rhythmbox come with too many gnome dependencies, and I am, anyway, still looking for a music player that does what I want without getting in the way; in the meanwhile, I just keep the older stable version and load the music manually on the mp3 player...
I think I'll switch to the unstable branch, sooner or later, on my "fun" machine, but I really want to stick to the stable for the "workhorse". I just had far too many problems with point release distros and the like, and I have become kind of conservative. Well, at least for what concerns linux distros...

Anyway, thanks for all the replies. I have some experience with quite a few linux distributions, but none has a forum with such kind and sensible replies!

  • From: #! NightClub
  • Registered: 2011-06-02
  • Posts: 3,869

Re: [SOLVED] Interested in very few upgrades, shall I move to sid?

You need a decent music app, in my sig I talk about MPD. wink

Also you can mark the thread solved by editing the title of your first post.

Font Task Force | The ultimate MPD guide | Little MOC how-to

The sound of #! COFFEE
  • From: United States
  • Registered: 2011-09-30
  • Posts: 138

Re: [SOLVED] Interested in very few upgrades, shall I move to sid?

Another thing you might try sambarluc is using "apt-get install rhythmbox --no-install-recommends".   While rhythmbox will still pull in some gnome dependencies, this will cut back substantially the amount of packages installed(like brasero and nautilus being pulled in) . 

Edit:
For example, with just apt-get install rhythmbox, it wanted to install:

The following extra packages will be installed:
  brasero brasero-common cdrdao gir1.2-clutter-1.0 gir1.2-clutter-gst-1.0
  gir1.2-cogl-1.0 gir1.2-coglpango-1.0 gir1.2-evince-3.0 gir1.2-gconf-2.0
  gir1.2-gtkclutter-1.0 gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0
  gir1.2-peas-1.0 gir1.2-rb-3.0 gir1.2-soup-2.4 gir1.2-sushi-1.0
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0 gnome-desktop3-data gnome-js-common gnome-sushi
  gnome-sushi-common grilo-plugins-0.1 growisofs gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
  hwdata libbrasero-media3-1 libclutter-1.0-0 libclutter-1.0-common
  libclutter-gst-1.0-0 libclutter-gtk-1.0-0 libclutter-imcontext-0.1-0
  libcluttergesture-0.0.2-0 libcogl-common libcogl-pango0 libcogl5
  libcurl3-nss libdmapsharing-3.0-2 libexempi3 libgdata-common libgdata13
  libgjs0b libgmime-2.4-2 libgnome-desktop-3-2 libgrilo-0.1-0 libgssdp-1.0-3
  libgtksourceview-3.0-0 libgtksourceview-3.0-common libgupnp-1.0-4
  libgupnp-av-1.0-2 libmozjs185-1.0 libmx-1.0-2 liboauth0 libpeas-1.0-0
  libpeas-common libquvi0 librest-0.7-0 librhythmbox-core5 libseed-gtk3-0
  libsushi-1.0-0 libtotem-plparser17 libtracker-sparql-0.12-0
  media-player-info nautilus nautilus-sendto python-gnomekeyring
  python-gst0.10 python-mako python-markupsafe rhythmbox-data
  rhythmbox-plugins zeitgeist-core
Suggested packages:
  vcdimager eog tracker evolution icedove claws-mail pidgin gajim
  python-gst0.10-dev python-gst0.10-dbg python-beaker python-mako-doc
  gnome-codec-install gnome-control-center rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
  zeitgeist-datahub
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  brasero brasero-common cdrdao gir1.2-clutter-1.0 gir1.2-clutter-gst-1.0
  gir1.2-cogl-1.0 gir1.2-coglpango-1.0 gir1.2-evince-3.0 gir1.2-gconf-2.0
  gir1.2-gtkclutter-1.0 gir1.2-gtksource-3.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0
  gir1.2-peas-1.0 gir1.2-rb-3.0 gir1.2-soup-2.4 gir1.2-sushi-1.0
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0 gnome-desktop3-data gnome-js-common gnome-sushi
  gnome-sushi-common grilo-plugins-0.1 growisofs gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
  hwdata libbrasero-media3-1 libclutter-1.0-0 libclutter-1.0-common
  libclutter-gst-1.0-0 libclutter-gtk-1.0-0 libclutter-imcontext-0.1-0
  libcluttergesture-0.0.2-0 libcogl-common libcogl-pango0 libcogl5
  libcurl3-nss libdmapsharing-3.0-2 libexempi3 libgdata-common libgdata13
  libgjs0b libgmime-2.4-2 libgnome-desktop-3-2 libgrilo-0.1-0 libgssdp-1.0-3
  libgtksourceview-3.0-0 libgtksourceview-3.0-common libgupnp-1.0-4
  libgupnp-av-1.0-2 libmozjs185-1.0 libmx-1.0-2 liboauth0 libpeas-1.0-0
  libpeas-common libquvi0 librest-0.7-0 librhythmbox-core5 libseed-gtk3-0
  libsushi-1.0-0 libtotem-plparser17 libtracker-sparql-0.12-0
  media-player-info nautilus nautilus-sendto python-gnomekeyring
  python-gst0.10 python-mako python-markupsafe rhythmbox rhythmbox-data
  rhythmbox-plugins zeitgeist-core
0 upgraded, 72 newly installed, 0 to remove

74 packages, yikes, but with apt-get install rhythmbox --no-install-recommends you get this:

The following extra packages will be installed:
  gir1.2-clutter-1.0 gir1.2-cogl-1.0 gir1.2-coglpango-1.0 gnome-js-common
  libclutter-1.0-0 libcogl-pango0 libcogl5 libgmime-2.4-2 libpeas-1.0-0
  libpeas-common libquvi0 librhythmbox-core5 libseed-gtk3-0
  libtotem-plparser17 media-player-info python-gst0.10 rhythmbox-data
Suggested packages:
  python-gst0.10-dev python-gst0.10-dbg gnome-codec-install
  gnome-control-center rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
Recommended packages:
  libclutter-1.0-common libcogl-common gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio
  rhythmbox-plugins
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gir1.2-clutter-1.0 gir1.2-cogl-1.0 gir1.2-coglpango-1.0 gnome-js-common
  libclutter-1.0-0 libcogl-pango0 libcogl5 libgmime-2.4-2 libpeas-1.0-0
  libpeas-common libquvi0 librhythmbox-core5 libseed-gtk3-0
  libtotem-plparser17 media-player-info python-gst0.10 rhythmbox
  rhythmbox-data
0 upgraded, 18 newly installed, 0 to remove

18 packages, 36 if you add the rhythmbox-plugins package(it pulls in audio stuff, no brasero and whatnot),  much better than 72 either way tongue

Last edited by cphayes0882 (2012-02-09 15:33:27)

Intel Pentium4-2.40GHZ RAM-1008.3MiB CrunchBang Sid Linux-3.2-6.slh.3-aptosid-686