Technology Tales

Updating Flatpack applications on Linux Mint 19

Since upgrading to Linux Mint 19, I have installed some software from Flatpak. The cause for my curiosity was that you could have the latest versions of applications like GIMP or LibreOffice without having to depend on a third-party PPA. Installation is straightforward given the support built into Linux Mint. You just need to download the relevant package from the Flatpak website and run the file through the GUI installer. Because the packages come with extras to ensure cross-compatibility, more disk space is used, but there is no added system overhead beyond that, from what I have seen. Updating should be as easy as running the following single command too:

flatpak update

However, I needed to do a little extra work before this was possible. The first step was to update the configuration file at ~/.local/share/flatpak/repo/config to add the following lines:

[remote "flathub"]
gpg-verify=true
gpg-verify-summary=true
url=https://flathub.org/repo/
xa.title=Flathub

Once that was completed, I ran the following commands to import the required GPG key:

wget https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.gpg
flatpak --user remote-modify --gpg-import=flathub.gpg flathub

With this complete, I was able to run the update process and update any applications as necessary. After that first run, it has been integrated in to my normal processes by adding the command to the relevant alias definition.

Removing advertisements from uTorrent

BitTorrent may have got some bad press due to its use for downloading copyrighted material such as music and movies, but it does have its legitimate uses too. In my case, many a Linux distro has been downloaded in this way, and it does take the weight off servers by distributing the load across users instead.

Speaking of Linux, my general choice of client has been Transmission and there are others. In the Windows world, there is a selection that includes BitTorrent, Inc. themselves. However, many favour uTorrent (or μTorrent) so that's the one that I tried and there are free and subscription-based options. To me, the latter feels like overkill when an eternal licence could be made available as an easy way to dispatch the advertisements on display in the free version.

As much as I appreciate the need for ads to provide revenue to a provider of otherwise free software, they do need to be tasteful and those in uTorrent often were for dating websites that had no scruples about exposing folk to images that were unsuitable for a work setting. Those for gaming websites were more tolerable in comparison. With the non-availability of an eternal licence option, I was left pondering alternatives like qBittorrent instead. That is Free Software too, so it does have that added advantage.

However, I uncovered an article on Lifehacker that sorted my problem with uTorrent. The trick is to go into Options > Preferences via the menus and then go to the Advanced section in the dialogue box that appears. In there, go looking for each of the following options and set each one to false in turn:

• offers.left_rail_offer_enabled/left_rail_offer
• gui.show_plus_upsell
• offers.sponsored_torrent_offer_enabled/sponsored_torrent_offer_enabled
• bt.enable_pulse
• gui.show_notorrents_node
• offers.content_offer_autoexec

In practice, I found some of the above already set to false and another missing, though setting those that remained from true to false cleaned up the interface, so I hope never to glimpse those unsuitable ads again. The maker of uTorrent needs to look at the issue or revenue could get lost, and prospective users could see the operation as being cheapened by what is displayed. As for me, I am happy to have gained something in the way of control.

Installing Nightingale music player on Ubuntu 13.04

Ever since the Songbird project concentrated its efforts to support only Windows and OS X, the Firefox-based music player has been absent from a Linux user's world. However, the project is open source and a fork called Nightingale now fulfils the same needs. Intriguingly, it too is available for Windows and OS X users, which leaves me wondering why that overlap has happened. However, Songbird also is available as a web app and as an app on both Android and iOS, while Nightingale sticks to being a desktop application.

To add it to Ubuntu, you need to set up a new repository. That can be done using the Software Centre but issuing a command in a terminal can be so much quicker and cleaner, so here it is:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nightingaleteam/nightingale-release

Apart from entering your password, there will be a prompt to continue by pressing the carriage return key or cancelling with CTRL + C. For our purposes, it is the first action that's needed and once that's done the needful, you can execute the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install nightingale

This is in two parts: the first updates the repositories on your system, while the second actually installs the software. When that is complete, you are ready to run Nightingale and, with the repository, staying up to date is not a chore either. In fact, using the above commands brings another advantage: it is that they should work in any Ubuntu derivatives, such as Linux Mint.

On web browsers for BlackBerry devices

The browser with which my BlackBerry Curve 8520 came is called Web'n'Walk and, while it does have its limitations, it works well enough for much of what I want to do. Many of the sites that I wish to visit while away from a PC have mobile versions that are sufficiently functionality for much of what I needed to do. Names like GMail, Google Reader, Met Office and National Rail come to mind here, and the first two are regularly visited while on the move. They work well to provide what I need too. Nevertheless, one of the things that I have found with mobile web browsing is that I am less inclined to follow every link that might arouse my interest. Sluggish response times might have something to do with it but navigating the web on a small screen is more work too. Therefore, I have been taking a more functional approach to web usage on the move rather than the more expansive one that tends to happen on a desktop PC.

For those times when the default browser was not up to the task, I installed Opera Mini. It certainly has come in very useful for keeping an eye on the Cheshire East bus tracker and looking at any websites without mobile versions for when I decide to look at such things. Downloading any of these does take time, and there's the reality of navigating a big page on a small screen. However, I have discovered that the browser has an annoying tendency to crash, which it did it on one occasion while I was awaiting a bus. The usual solution, rightly or wrongly, has been to delete the thing and reinstall it again with the time and device restarts that entails. While I got away with it once, it seems to mean losing whatever bookmarks or favourites that you have set up too, a real nuisance. Because of this, I am not going to depend on it as much any more. Am I alone in experiencing this type of behaviour?

Because of Opera's instability, I decided on seeking alternative approaches. One of these was to set up bookmarks for the aforementioned bus tracker on Web 'n' Web. What is delivered in the WAP version of the site, and it's not that user-friendly at all. When it comes to selecting a bus stop to monitor, it asks for a stance number. Only for my nous, I wouldn't have been able to find the ID's that I needed. That's not brilliant, but I worked around it to make things work for me. The observation is one for those who design mobile versions of websites for public use.

Another development is the discovery of Bolt Browser and, so far, it seems a worthy alternative to Opera Mini too. There are times when it lives up to the promise of faster web page loading, but that is dependent on the strength of the transmission signal. A trial with the Met Office website showed it to be capable, though there were occasions when site navigation wasn't as smooth as it could have been. Up to now, there have been no crashes like what happened to Opera Mini, so it looks promising. If there is any criticism, it is that it took me a while to realise how to save favourites (or bookmarks). While the others that I have used have a button on the screen for doing so, Bolt needs you to use the application menu. Other than that, the software seems worthy of further exploration.

All in all, surfing the mobile remains an area of continued exploration for me. Having found my feet with it, I remain on the lookout for other web browsers for the BlackBerry platform. While it is true that OS 6 features a WebKit-powered browser, I'm not buying another device to find out how good that is. What I am after are alternatives that work on the device that I have. Though porting of Firefox's mobile edition would be worthwhile, its availability seems to be limited to Nokia's handsets for now. Only time will reveal where things are going.

A late "advance" sighting?

Somewhat infuriatingly, Google released its own browser, Chrome, into the wild near the end of last year, though only for Windows. My experiences with it on that platform are that it works smoothly, albeit without many of the bells and whistles that can be got for Firefox. While an unofficial partial port was achieved using Crossover Chromium and there is the Chromium project with all its warnings and the possibility to add a repository for its wares to Ubuntu's software sources, we have been tantalised rather than served so far. However, that was recently bettered by the release of early access versions. In reality, these can be said to be alpha versions so not everything works, but it's still Chrome and without the need for Windows or WINE. The rendering engine, most importantly, seems to be the equal of what you get on Windows, while ancillary functions like bookmark handling seem incomplete. In summary, the currently available deb packages are a work in progress, yet that's better than not having anything at all.

Trying out Firefox 3 Beta 3 on Ubuntu

Keeping an eye on future browser releases helps to avoid any shocks when maintaining publicly available websites. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I have been giving Firefox 3 a whirl. As it happens, I have had it going on both Windows and Ubuntu. With the former, I have not encountered any obvious problems, but I am wondering if the new bookmarking system will mean anything to me. For installation on Ubuntu, I used the following command (I think that I culled it from Tombuntu but can't remember offhand...):

wget -P ~ ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/3.0b3/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-3.0b3.tar.bz2 && tar xjf ~/firefox-3.0b3.tar.bz2 -C ~

The nice thing about the above is that it places the test installation in your home directory and away from Firefox 2. It also works regardless of what Linux distribution you have. The profiles get shared between versions, so a backup would be a good idea before you start to tinker. As with the Windows version, page loading and rendering is faster in the new version, but I found a problem with printing that, I hope, will get sorted before the final release. Another area for attention is font rendering: it could be sharper for sans serif fonts on Ubuntu and serif fonts on Windows. Otherwise, it works well on both platforms and I like the way that open windows are saved on exit, an excellent idea carried over from Opera.

A different Firefox…

On Ubuntu, I made a move to using Ubuntuzilla's deployment of Firefox. Because Firefox's Gecko engine is used by other parts of Ubuntu, any Firefox updates issued by Mozilla don't come through straight away. The idea of using Ubuntuzilla is that you get Mozilla's latest, be it Firefox, Thunderbird or Seamonkey, without having an impact on the rest of the Linux installation; while Ubuntu's Firefox is left in place, you are now presented with the vanilla Firefox for all your web surfing needs. Visually, there's not much change but for the built-in Firefox application fonts coming through in the new instance, a strange sight when you see Ubuntu's more subtle alternatives everywhere else. I tried the new tack to see if picked up RealPlayer in place of Xine, but that sadly has not been the case. Nevertheless, I now have 2.0.0.9 and the latest improvements this side of version 3.

Moving Emails from Outlook to Evolution

It seems a little strange to my eyes, but Evolution cannot import Outlook PST files. On one level, I see a certain amount of sense: after all, Outlook is a Windows application and Evolution remains resolutely on the Linux side of the divide. Nevertheless, it is still a pesky nuisance.

The cure is, very oddly, to import data from Outlook into Mozilla Thunderbird and pop the Thunderbird files into the Evolution mail folder. Both Evolution and Thunderbird share the same file formats, so all is hunky-dory, since Evolution should just realise that they are there and bring them in.

That's what happened for me, and I have now migrated all of my old emails. Evolution's single file import wizard is there for those times when a spot of extra persuasion is needed; the data files are those without the file extensions. As it happened, I didn't need it.

New FileZilla

First, I must admit that the release of FileZilla 3 passed me by until recently. From the user interface point of view, the changes don't look too radical, but it is now cross-platform, a bonus for Linux and Mac users. It can also co-exist with FileZilla 2 for those Windows users needing features from that offering that aren't yet available in FileZilla 3. That does pose the question: why upgrade when that which you have works just as well? It is just as well that transferring settings is as easy as importing the FileZilla 2 settings into its successor is as easy as importing an XML file: in version 3, go to Edit > Import... on the menus and pick up the FileZilla.xml file from the installation directory for version 2. Though you might get some warnings and I certainly did, the FTP sites that I had set up already came over intact.