Hello Reader,

the good thing about Sid is that you can upgrade an ‘outdated’ release. The good thing about this, AFT, is that I can take a break from the grill. Not that it’s tiresome, or boring (quite the opposite), but there is indeed something called Real Life (you know, meat on two legs) that requires a bit more attention than this hobby project. In the next weeks I won’t be able to engage too much in the BBQ (due to technical reasons, more or less, and geographical borkage or dependency hell) and I have to leave upgrade-warning, troubleshooting and bug-fixing to the community. My fellow forum-grillers are reliable and dedicated people – I should especially mention my better halves rhowaldt, ivanovnegro, pidsley who have always covered my ass – thanks guys! I also want to thank the dedicated users of the grill (no matter if they run BBQ on their machines), it’s you who keep the project alive, indeed. In May we will continue, and expect some hefty surprises!

So, for upgrade warnings please check the forums section and don’t rely on the Upgrade Warning app (for those who use it), because it will only notify about *grave* or *critical* packages. Generally, be careful with upgrades and better delay them if you are in doubt. Pretty sure you don’t need the newest revision of glibclit-6.205-uber-0.1-rc (y’ know)

Wish you all a sunny springtime, and see you soon, hopefully in good health!

Dear to whom it may concern

Well yes, happy new year, first of all. The last two weeks of December were extremely busy, mostly due to the unplanned submission to DW. Personally, I spent even more time in front of the computer than doing anything else, to build up an infrastructure (that would have been built up anyway in January) and I am still unsatisfied with it. For what it’s worth, the Standing Committee of the BBQ (myself) has decided to change quite a few things for the future (to get the original idea of Roast your Own back into the game)

1. The positions of Saltimbocca/Escargot (the Openbox Base releases) are going to be replaced by LinuxBBQ “Boner” and “Virgin” (see posts below). Technically, the difference is a “sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-video-<yourcard>” but makes stuff easier for me to maintain. It also ensures that the user digs into several configuration files and learns to maintain a (working) system from the command line. Keep in mind that Boner/Virgin already use tmux and applications for production, so the user is not completely lost anyway. There are enough resources that can be used (wiki, forums, cookbook, integrated help, Aunt Google) to get things configured the way the user wants them to be, from scratch. Saltimbocca/Escargot will move to Trollinger. So the motto for 2013 is: “You can has boner!”, “Y U NO Virgin?” or “Trololol!”
2. User contributions will be collected and packaged as .deb files (downloadable as one-click) rather than being included in the spins. This helps me to maintain the horde of releases we have in the BBQ now.
3. The graphical browser in base releases (except MATE, which is a suite) is removed, keeping only “Roaster” as GUI browser (for a quick search) and “lynx” which is anyway the first browser in Boner/Virgin. I have had enough of discussions about Y U NO Iceweasel/Iceape/Firefox/Chromium/<any other browser here>. “Roaster” works on most websites, it can be used to get information from the internet, and is perfect as a temporary browser. Just to explain the obvious: some people download a Desktop base edition and forget that they are trying to ride a bicyle without saddle. The full-featured editions will ship with something nice, depending on the mood of the cook (with Weasel, it seems)
4. Talking of full-featured editions, there will be no new additions, only some changes and removals.

• It is very possible that LaTex gets an upgrade (to be available on 32 and 64 bit) with a different Tex suite behind it and some Stud applications, and that
• Mother will get a Father (so, a 32 bit version).
• SpeckDrum will be removed from the active releases (it was anyway only an i486 experimental release).
• The future of the GNOME base editions is unclear. I don’t really want to drop them, but given the fact that GNOME is still at 3.4 I think it is better to wait until the repos catch up to 3.6. Thanks to sid the users can roll up to newer versions even from “old” release candidates.
• It’s decided that there will be no KDE base (my last try to build a barebones KDE ended up with a 620MB image, and this has definitely nothing to do with bare or BBQ).
• The good experience with Trollinger means that a 64bit version is around the corner.
• Threesome (featuring i3) will remain 32-bit only and the build-script for 64-bit (to start from Boner) will be uploaded some time.
• The development of Rocks! (the recording studio) and Free! (the Linux for visually impaired) is slightly delayed, mostly due to lack of feedback from users regarding hardware support.

And now just one wish: please, please – don’t bother me with ‘additions to the base releases’. There will nothing be added. The list of the defaults is short and hopefully stays this way:

• GUI file manager PCManFM (except XFCE – Thunar, MATE – caja)
• GUI text editor Mousepad (except MATE – pluma)
• GUI web browser Roaster (except MATE – Iceweasel)
• GUI media player GNOME Mplayer
• GUI music player DEADBEEF
• GUI radio player Radiotray
• GUI screen temperature switch gtk-redshift
• GUI FTP client gFTP
• GUI download manager uget
• GUI mail client Sylpheed
• GUI network-manager-gnome
• CLI file manager mc/ranger
• CLI text editor nano/mcedit
• CLI web browser lynx/elinks
• CLI media player mplayer2/mpg123
• CLI music player mocp/mpg123
• CLI radio player BBQradio
• CLI screen temperature switch redshift
• CLI FTP client wput
• CLI download manager wget
• CLI mail client mutt
• CLI network manager ceni

plus the CLI apps that are anyway in Boner/Virgin (wordgrinder, sc, abook, wyrd). Of course desktop-specific helpers (obconf/obmenu or XFCE4-panel applets) are there, too, depending on the base. I hope this satisfies most users. Please remember that everything is an apt-get away, and the stuff that is provided on the stick should be good enough to get things done even if there is no network available.

I want to thank everybody who has contributed and helped so far in the development of the Q. Many people wished us to get a ‘larger user base’, which would be a nice side effect, but most of all I am very happy to have dedicated fellow barbies and grillmeisters who invest their time and knowledge, their talent and their trust into our collective BBQ, and I will give my best not to disappoint anybody

Thank you all, and thank you for reading! Happy 2013, let it roast!

I am extremely proud and happy to announce the immediate availability of the coolest no-X release in Debian country, that’s the 32-bit version of LinuxBBQ “Virgin”, sporting a pure tmux session with all productivity CLI applications an average virgin-lover needs:

•     alsa
•     wyrd calendar
•     bc calculator
•     abook address book
•     tina personal manager
•     wordgrinder text processor (yes, .doc stuff)
•     sc spreadsheet (yes, .xls stuff)    bbqradio radio player (“bbqradio”)
•     shell.fm last.fm frontend
•     streamripper
•     moc music player
•     mpg123 command line mp3 player
•     sox swiss army knife for audio
•     mc twopane file manager
•     ranger file manager
•     wikipedia2text wikipedia lookup
•     unp unpacker (incl. unzip)
•     lynx web browser
•     elinks web browser
•     newsbeuter RSS fetcher
•     mutt mail client
•     dvtm tiling window manager
•     ceni network configurator
•     bbqstart application launcher (“start”)
•     bbqsnapshot image creator
•     zsh shell (bash disabled, “ins bash” then “chsh” to change)
•     sudo enabled

All BBQ apps are reworked and slightly polished. The kernel in question is still coming from siduction in version 3.7-1. systemd is now slightly optimized: no more RAID (mdadm) as service, no DHCP (at first run please use ‘ceni’ to configure the network). There are a couple of upstream annoyances:

•     systemd and kernel debug spams into the login message (bug is reported, fix is promised for 3.8)

•     on certain screen resolutions ‘Ceni’ complains that the terminal window is too small. Reason: seemingly curses needs fixed positions. Workaround: sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup -> UTF -> VGA -> choose font size 8×8 -> run ceni again -> configure network -> change fonts back if wished. Annoying, yes. Predicatble? No. Another option is to pick one of the other boot menu entries and edit the dimensions there (see nomode, i915 etc).

Now the end-user info that you should please scribble down:

login: bbq, password: bbq (remember, the login is probably buried under systemd’s puke)

After logging in, you find yourself in a tmux session. Run ‘bbq’ for a quick overview of starter tools. Run ‘bbqfix’ to get networking and to adjust alsamixer. Run ‘start’ for the application launcher. The BBQ tools link to each other, so you won’t get lost (hopefully). You want to look into ‘tmuxhelp’ to find out how to navigate in tmux. Give yourself a few minutes, it is definitely worth it. A nice (side) effect is that the mouse works, so you can use copy-paste (with middle-mouse click) like in graphical terminal sessions. The display of images or videos is not enabled, but doing so is easy and a nice way to dive into the beauty of framebuffer imaging.

What it is:

•     a bare-virgin system without X
•     ~920MB in installed size
•     the BBQ base in perfection
•     the base system for future 64-bit BBQ releases with version >1.0.5
•     offering more comfort and functionality than a Debian netinstall
•     a fully-functional desktop
•     very 1980s hacker style

What it is not:

•     a competitor of Ubuntu, Linux Mint, the Other Distro or anything that comes with an X session
•     a one-click solution for lazy users
•     beginner-friendly

If you think want to pop the cherry, feel free to dd it to a stick or burn a CD (<4x) and have a ride. The system is installable (“bbqinstaller”) and a produced bbqsnapshot will contain the traditional live-installer (GUI) as well as the CLI installer. But you don’t want GUI anymore, I promise.

Direct download: http://linuxbbq.org/releases/noX/linuxbbq-virgin.iso

md5: 7d499cc1ebd25658b47a43e86ff8862c
size: 283,115,520

Gauchito returns after 35 years! LinuxBBQ “Argentina78″ is featuring the brand-new MATE 1.4.2 desktop environment and kernel 3.7

LinuxBBQ MATE Argentina78

This is a full-featured desktop with following applications:

Internet:
Iceweasel ESR web browser (simple update to Aurora channel preconfigured, please check the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bbq.list)
Sylpheed 3.3 mail client
Pidgin 2.6.10-2 instant messenger/chat
Remmina remote desktop

Graphics:
Atril PDF viewer
GIMP 2.9 image manipulation kit
eom image viewer
ImageMagick command-line image manipulation tool

Office:
LibreOffice Suite 3.5.4

Media:
Deadbeef 0.5.5 music player
GNOME Mplayer frontend for mplayer2 audio/video player

Emulation:
PlayOnLinux front-end for WINE 1.4.1-4

LinuxBBQ MATE Argentina78

Download link:
http://linuxbbq.org/releases/Argentina78/linuxbbq-argentina78.iso
md5sum: fc788b638cdbf7c688321fe510419a8f
Size: 692MB (fits a CD, if that matters -> burn at 4x or slower)

LinuxBBQ MATE Argentina78

Username: bbq

Password: bbq

Installer in Menu -> System -> Install LinuxBBQ

Another special edition for 32bit is LinuxBBQ “Threesome”, featuring the brand-new i3 window manager in version 4.4 from their repos.
Included packages are slightly different this time due to the minimalist nature of this fabulous tiling WM:

Web browsers
- dwb
- roaster
- elinks
(Flash plugin enabled, for adblocking please check ~/bin/adblock-host)

File managers
- gentoo
- ranger
- mc

Editors
- leafpad
- nano

Viewerz
- mirage
- feh
- epdfview

Media players
- deadbeef
- mplayer2
- mocp

plus a few more.

username: bbq password: bbq

check the README and APP files in the home folder, and install with ‘gksudo live-installer’
The keybinding Alt-F1 is bound to a simple xmessage menu (to customize it, edit /usr/bin/i3menu as root) so please use it
99% of the setup is i3′s default – only added autostart for nm-applet/volumeicon/clipit/redshift and put the menu in floating mode
unimportant note: I disabled xsession-error logs because processes spammed their debug there and it grew continuosly. I have kept two websites in dwb’s buffer (about customizing xmessage and disabling xsession-error logs) so you can see what it is about.

Direct link: http://linuxbbq.org/releases/Threesome/linuxbbq-threesome.iso
md5: d29e3c53d441ce9257866844f72153c8
size: 371 MiB (389,021,696 bytes)

Happy i3-ing

This is the second release candidate of LinuxBBQ Kielbasa, an XFCE4 desktop on a Debian sid base. The image is a snapshot of 2012-12-13, and comes with the customized Siduction kernel 3.6-10, XFCE4.10, Thunar 1.6.1 and the Iceape Suite. Deadbeef is the default music player, along with GNOME-Mplayer for videos. Further applications are: Leafpad simple text editor, Geany intergrated development environment, Searchmonkey search tool and a sane selection of CLI apps. Included are new wallpapers (a big thank you to Kexolino) and the git-version of Greybird and Albatross.

Due to problems with the wireless drivers in the 64-bit version this spin is set up in ‘the traditional way’ without staging drivers. This means, users who had a working wireless in the previous versions of LinuxBBQ will have no problems here (BCM, I look at you)

Please have a try! username:bbq password:bbq

http://linuxbbq.org/releases/XFCE/linuxbbq-rc2-xfce.iso

md5: 2ea4210b04ed870e05c660b23552a8d9

Size: 399MB

The RC2 of the 64-bit MATE edition is up and alive at http://www.linuxbbq.org/release_linuxbbq-rc2-mate64.php

username:bbq password:bbq

No major changes here: 3.6.7 kernel (two versions behind, but that’s okay – 3.6.9 just came out on the day I uploaded this ISO and didn’t enjoy much testing), Iceweasel got replaced by Iceape, the Broadcom staging drivers are now included, and the new artwork is added. Those who use RC1 don’t need to do anything, the new artwork-metapackage will be packed in a few days and can be pulled in via APT.

There is a known bug when running mate-appearance-settings: the application doesn’t quit cleanly and spikes the CPU to 100%. The only solution so far is to killall the application through a terminal after changing the background or the theme. More about it in the README in user’s home.

Best wishes and thanks for the kind words!

It had to be. Winter is coming (or already arrived), the new year should be started with a fresh (roasted) deep breath. Blame Kexolino and his newest tripod’ed photos for the new mood. The Cookbook also got a new black dress:

This should be the new design for the 1.x releases. Albatross/Shearwater/FlatStudio, Clarity icons, Kexolino’s wallpapers, Petita/Adobe Sans fonts.

Now gotta wait for the 3.7-kernels. Little change in the DE base releases (XFCE, MATE, GNOME) is the inclusion of IceApe (replacing Iceweasel). The simple reasons are: IceApe’s browser performs way better than any other competitor (I have tested it against different versions of Iceweasel, Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, and Opera), and as a plus it comes with a built-in mail client, address book and HTML (WYSIWYG) editor. Furthermore, the Siduction experimental repos are enabled – this brings for example Inkscape 0.49 (opposed to Sid’s 0.48) and GIMP in version 2.9. Probably some other gems like Wine, if needed.

Greetings all!

I have spent the last days working on a desktop for Visually Impaired users and found it quite hard to find the balance between Universal Design (which means being usable and useful for everyone without annoyances) and Assistive Technology (adjust the desktop to the needs and not vice versa). Until now “Free” is quite talkative during boot, login and inside the session, and as next step comes barrier-free launch of applications (using shortcuts, an audio menu and voice control) Pidgin reads the incoming messages, unfortunately it is not (yet?) possible to answer with spoken words, but at least keystrokes give audible feedback. Podcasts are downloaded in the background and stored in a /Podcast directory, and radio stations known from Radiotray can be accessed without GUI. Of course there’s also the Speech Synthesis output when text is marked (Ctrl-A) and this works in every application. The “Upgrade Warnings” tools has a new function, it acts as news reader that fetches the Top 10 headlines every 15 minutes and reads them on mouse-click.
If anybody has other ideas or recommendations, I’m all ears!