Installing older versions of things in Linux

[motorollin]

This is driving me mad. There is a bug in the version of VLC which gets installed if I apt-get install vlc. So I want to install an older version. How do I do that if apt has already decided to install a particular version?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

I've browsed a little on the page, and I think there's a chance you'll have to compile it yourself (which is not too difficult to do)
This is what I found
IIRC if you use Apt, you use a Debian distribution (like Ubuntu). .deb files are installers for these kind of distros.

[motorollin]

Cheers Speel. I'll download the source and try to compile it. This is on my EFIKA, so it will probably take some time!

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Success! :-)

[motorollin]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Success! :-)

Not quite. Couldn't compile VLC as configure told me that the C compiler couldn't create executables. I Googled the error and apparently I need libc-dev. Tried to install it, and apt-get gave me a 404 error for the package.

Problems like this are exactly why I stopped using Linux :roll:

[Speelgoedmannetje]

motorollin wrote:

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Success! :-)

Not quite. Couldn't compile VLC as configure told me that the C compiler couldn't create executables. I Googled the error and apparently I need libc-dev. Tried to install it, and apt-get gave me a 404 error for the package.

Problems like this are exactly why I stopped using Linux :roll:

Linux just isn't user friendly and I don't think it'll ever be, when you want to do something more than the default package contains. Linux is made for server applications, you just feel it when you use it that way, it then blows any other OS miles away. When I use XBMC I also notice that it's really intended for media usage, you can notice that because it works like you want it to work in every tiny detail.

But then again, there's XBMC for linux.
Maybe you can use that instead of VLC. :idea:

[motorollin]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Linux just isn't user friendly and I don't think it'll ever be, when you want to do something more than the default package contains.

The most friendly Linux I have every used is Ubuntu. Sadly I don't think it will work on the EFIKA :-(

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
But then again, there's XBMC for linux.
Maybe you can use that instead of VLC. :idea:

Maybe, but since I only want to use it to display a slideshow (in Quicktime format) XMBC seems a bit overkill.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

motorollin wrote:
 XMBC seems a bit overkill.

It is:

XBMC Media Center software requires that your computer graphics hardware supports OpenGL 1.4, at a minimum, to function. We do however recommend a ATI/AMD, Intel, or NVIDIA graphic controller that support OpenGL 2.0 or better to fully experience XBMC Media Center at its best. Please also check your graphics device drivers to see what version of OpenGL your GPU (graphics processing unit) harware supports, and update to the latest graphics device drivers if possible. If your platform of choice is Mac OS X and your system has an Intel chipset (Mac Mini, MacBook or a MacBook Air), then even though the graphics device drivers only support OpenGL 1.2, XBMC Media Center will still run smoothly since most of the required functionality in the graphics device drivers is implemented through OpenGL extensions which are support in those graphics device drivers on Mac OS X.

    * ATI Radeon R420 (X800) or newer supported, ATI Radeon R700 (HD 4000) or newer recommended.
    * Intel GMA 950 (945G) or newer supported, Intel GMA X4500HD (G45) or newer recommended.
    * NVIDIA GeForce 6-Series and newer supported, GeForce 8-Series and newer recommended.

But I do think for such applications as showing Quicktime slideshows, you need something more common than a EFIKA distro

[motorollin]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
But I do think for such applications as showing Quicktime slideshows, you need something more common than a EFIKA distro

Well, it is Debian Etch. Should be ok for playing Quicktime files shouldn't it? :-?

[motorollin]

Hmm, just found a boot image for an Ubuntu netinstall on the EFIKA. It's booting now so we'll see if this works any better!

[motorollin]

Ok, this bootloader seems to work. It's downloading the base installer components now. Hopefully Ubuntu will work better than Debian on this machine and the version of VLC it comes with will work properly. In case anyone is interested, the bootloaders can be found here:

http://genesi.hu/ubuntu/gutsyefika_netinst
http://esi.hu/ubuntu/efi804_netinst

I haven't tried 8.04 yet. I'm giving Gutsy Gibbon a try first.

[motorollin]

Ok, the Ubuntu installation has completed, but USB doesn't work. While it's starting up I get lots of messages that USB devices are being detected, but none of them work. I also get a few of the following messages:

FATAL : could not load /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-powerpc/modules.dep: no such file or directory

Could that stop USB from working? I have a modules.dep file (amongst other things) in /lib/modules/2.6.22-16-powerpc. Can I tell the kernel to use that instead?

[Speelgoedmannetje]

motorollin wrote:
Could that stop USB from working? I have a modules.dep file (amongst other things) in /lib/modules/2.6.22-16-powerpc. Can I tell the kernel to use that instead?

Yes, but I fear you have to recompile the kernel.
Or you could -very illegaly- change the dirname, I don't think there are much consequences to that.

This is one of the reasons why I think the os should have a change. It's way too rigid. A relational database file system would be much nicer.

[motorollin]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:

motorollin wrote:
Could that stop USB from working? I have a modules.dep file (amongst other things) in /lib/modules/2.6.22-16-powerpc. Can I tell the kernel to use that instead?

Yes, but I fear you have to recompile the kernel.

Probably not possible, since I can't boot to anything except the netinstall environment.

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
Or you could -very illegaly- change the dirname, I don't think there are much consequences to that.

Ok I did that and the errors about modules.dep went away. But still no USB :-(

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
This is one of the reasons why I think the os should have a change. It's way too rigid. A relational database file system would be much nicer.

I don't really understand that but I'm sure you're right ;-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

motorollin wrote:

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
This is one of the reasons why I think the os should have a change. It's way too rigid. A relational database file system would be much nicer.

I don't really understand that but I'm sure you're right ;-)

Well, the current filesystem structure is hierarchy based, which means there's one way to access a file. With a relational filesystem there would be more.