Debian: M1, Packages, Excellent Experience with Debian Bullseye, and More

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Developer Announces GNOME Desktop Boots on Asahi Linux for Apple M1 | iPhone in Canada Blog
A terminal in the shot shows that it is running a pre-release of the 5.14 Linux kernel, Debian Linux, and GNOME 3.38.4. “No, it’s not GPU accelerated,” she said, adding: “Honestly, it’s usable. Not great, but usable, on a near mainline kernel. If ‘missing most drivers’ is this snappy, when everything is done @AsahiLinux will run like a dream on these machines.”
The important caveat though is that currently that desktop experience is relying just on LLVMpipe for OpenGL acceleration as needed by the GNOME desktop. LLVMpipe is the Mesa Gallium3D software implementation for accelerating OpenGL on the CPU.
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Thousands of Debian packages updated from their upstream Git repository
The Debian Janitor is an automated system that commits fixes for (minor) issues in Debian packages that can be fixed by software. It gradually started proposing merges in early December. The first set of changes sent out ran lintian-brush on sid packages maintained in Git. This post is part of a series about the progress of the Janitor.
Linux distributions like Debian fulfill an important function in the FOSS ecosystem - they are system integrators that take existing free and open source software projects and adapt them where necessary to work well together. They also make it possible for users to install more software in an easy and consistent way and with some degree of quality control and review.
One of the consequences of this model is that the distribution package often lags behind upstream releases. This is especially true for distributions that have tighter integration and standardization (such as Debian), and often new upstream code is only imported irregularly because it is a manual process - both updating the package, but also making sure that it still works together well with the rest of the system.
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Excellent Experience with Debian Bullseye
I’ve appreciated the bullseye upgrade, like most Debian upgrades. I’m not quite sure how, since I was already running a backports kernel, but somehow the entire system is snappier. Maybe newer X or something? I’m really pleased with it. Hardware integration is even nicer now, particularly the automatic driverless support for scanners in addition to the existing support for printers.
All in all, a very nice upgrade, and pretty painless.
I experienced a few odd situations.
For one, I had been using Gnome Flashback. Since xmonad-log-applet didn’t compile there (due to bitrot in the log applet, not flashback), and I had been finding Gnome Flashback to be a rather dusty and forgotten corner of Gnome for a long time, I decided to try Mate.
Mate just seemed utterly unable to handle a situation with a laptop and an external monitor very well. I want to use only the external monitor with the laptop lid is closed, and it just couldn’t remember how to do the right thing – external monitor on, laptop monitor off, laptop not put into suspend. gdm3 also didn’t seem to be able to put the external monitor to sleep, either, causing a few nights of wasted power.
So off I went to XFCE, which I had been using for years on my workstation anyhow. Lots more settings available in XFCE, plus things Just Worked there. Odd that XFCE, the thin and light DE, is now the one that has the most relevant settings. It seems the Gnome “let’s remove a bunch of features” approach has extended to MATE as well.
When I switched to XFCE, I also removed gdm3 from my system, leaving lightdm as the only DM on it. That matched what my desktop machine was using, and also what task-xfce-desktop called for. But strangely, the XFCE settings for lightdm were completely different between the laptop and the desktop. It turns out that with lightdm, you can have the lightdm-gtk-greeter and the accompanying lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings, or slick-greeter and the accompanying lightdm-settings. One machine had one greeter and settings, and the other had the other. Why, I don’t know. But lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings had the necessary options for putting monitors to sleep on the login screen, so I went with it.
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Bits from Debian: DebConf21 welcomes its sponsors!
DebConf21 is taking place online, from 24 August to 28 August 2021. It is the 22nd Debian conference, and organizers and participants are working hard together at creating interesting and fruitful events.
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Thousands of Debian packages updated from their upstream Git
Thousands of Debian packages updated from their upstream Git repository