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Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Hi,
I am liking the look and feel of Artix KDE so much that I am thinking of migrating from Devuan. Prior to Devuan I had been using FerenOS KDE at the start of lockdown in March 2020 working from home and then I moved to a SystemD free OS in December last year, Devuan 3.0 and when my hard drive started failing in June, Devuan 3.1.1 (beowulf) on the new drive. I am currently running Artix KDE and loving it.
Now I need some guidance on how to migrate external applications. I found my workflow at home improved greatly using SoftMaker Office 2021 (I started off with 2018 and upgraded when the new version came out) - it is tons better than anything provided by the producer of that closed source OS but more compatible than LibreOffice was for work compatibility purposes. The other applications are VueScan (Scanning application as simple scan/document scan only ever worked in Fedora (which I hated the moment I tried version 28!) and pdf Studio Pro 2021 by Qoppa software. I would also be interested to know how I could install brailleblaster, a free braille translation software application from American Printing House. I was able to run it on Feren OS but I got a lot of screen flicker and could not get it to work on Devuan at all which ended up with me having to run a VM in Virtual Machine Manager of Windows 8.1 to use the Windows version and an old Okular 32-bit version to extract text for students with no vision for Brailleblaster. Also I have used Evolution for accessing Microsoft Outlook whilst at work but would like to use Thunderbird that does not appear in the repos - happy to use Claws Mail as used this in the past. I am very happy with falkon browser - this is the first distro I've been able to use it without crashing - good job! Thanks for reading!
My rig is: Asus X470-Prime with AMD Ryzen 7 1700X, 16 Gb (2 x 8 Gb) Corsair RAM and 2 Nvidia GT1030 graphics cards - the second of which only ever got picked up in FerenOS - would be interested to know how to configure in Artix but not essential as now I have retired will be donating my second 27" monitor to a family member who only has a 20" TV Monitor.
Asus X470 Prime, AMD Ryzen 7 1700X, 16 Gb Corsair RAM, 2 x GT1030 GPU

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #1 –
For starters, you should enable some more repos:
https://wiki.artixlinux.org/Main/Repositories
Then install an AUR helper or learn how to manually install with makepkg (an AUR helper will automatically check for and install updates of your AUR packages)
That should get you most of what you are after.
Possibly some of these repos might have some of the remaining things you want, I don't know anything about the contents in most of these though:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/unofficial_user_repositories

If there's still something missing after that - well check back here and someone might have more ideas  ;D

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #2 –
Hi #######, thanks for responding. In terms of AUR helpers and using Yay is my intention, would this guide be of use or not as am aware that Artix has its own repositories separate from Arch, which is good and I'm a big fan of systemd-free systems as the co-ordinator of our Linux User Group explained to me in the simplest terms that systemd is like giving your pc a bar code that anyone can read, or simpler yet, like having a Cartoon flashing red arrow above your head - yes systemd is an agent!  :)
If I followed this guide would it work?
https://averagelinuxuser.com/which-aur-helper-yay/#install-yay-in-arch-linux

Thanks for your time.
Asus X470 Prime, AMD Ryzen 7 1700X, 16 Gb Corsair RAM, 2 x GT1030 GPU

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #3 –
Systemd is popular because it tries to have every feature anyone could ever possibly want, so wins the checkbox challenges - yet the more knowledgeable user realizes this just equates to useless code you personally will never need or want clogging up your HDD.
As for the guide, it gets a "yay" I think. ;D

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #4 –
Quote from: ####### – on
Systemd is popular because it tries to have every feature anyone could ever possibly want, so wins the checkbox challenges - yet the more knowledgeable user realizes this just equates to useless code you personally will never need or want clogging up your HDD.
As for the guide, it gets a "yay" I think. ;D

Hey, I know all about the dangers of systemd:

https://unixsheikh.com/articles/the-real-motivation-behind-systemd.html

And artix is his favourite GNU/Linux distro:

https://unixsheikh.com/articles/some-of-the-great-gnu-linux-distributions.html

I don't want something that becomes Lennart Linux!
Asus X470 Prime, AMD Ryzen 7 1700X, 16 Gb Corsair RAM, 2 x GT1030 GPU

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #5 –
Well the guide should be a "Nay"! :D
When I followed the command to clone the repository for yay it came back with:
Code: [Select]
bash: git: command not found

LOL!

Perhaps I am just better of using Pacman as much as possible and if I can't find anything, oh well!  ;)
Asus X470 Prime, AMD Ryzen 7 1700X, 16 Gb Corsair RAM, 2 x GT1030 GPU

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #6 –
Quote from: swarfendor437 – on
Well the guide should be a "Nay"! :D
When I followed the command to clone the repository for yay it came back with:
Code: [Select]
bash: git: command not found

LOL!

Perhaps I am just better of using Pacman as much as possible and if I can't find anything, oh well!  ;)

You just need to install git (for some reason it's not included in base-devel)

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Chris Cromer – on
It's not in base-devel because it doesn't need to be in base-devel... :)
But isn't base-devel supposed to be for packages releated to the building of other packages? Surely git fits that purpose more than some other in base-devel?

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Krellnus – on
But isn't base-devel supposed to be for packages releated to the building of other packages? Surely git fits that purpose more than some other in base-devel?
git isn't a program related to compiling software from source code. It is a version control system. There are other version control systems by the way, like Mercurial, Subversion and CVS.

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #10 –
Quote from: strajder – on
git isn't a program related to compiling software from source code. It is a version control system. There are other version control systems by the way, like Mercurial, Subversion and CVS.
Neither is bison/yacc and it's in there all the same, that's why confused, at least with git there's the argument that you can't compile the source, without the source, although I suppose you could wget/scp the source from a git repository couldn't you?

I take back my comment about including git.

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Krellnus – on
Neither is bison/yacc and it's in there all the same,
yacc and GNU Bison are tools producing parser source code from grammar source code. There are many programs which require them in order to be compiled.
Quote from: Krellnus – on
that's why confused, at least with git there's the argument that you can't compile the source, without the source, although I suppose you could wget/scp the source from a git repository couldn't you?
The traditional way of obtaining source code was by downloading .tar.gz archives, even Github supports that method. git is not strictly necessary to obtain source code, although it is very popular.

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #12 –
Quote from: strajder – on
yacc and GNU Bison are tools producing parser source code from grammar source code. There are many programs which require them in order to be compiled.
Yeah I had a vague idea of what they do, but I personally to my knowledge haven't encountered any programs that required them to compile.

Quote from: strajder – on
The traditional way of obtaining source code was by downloading .tar.gz archives, even Github supports that method. git is not strictly necessary to obtain source code, although it is very popular.
Ah cool thanks, I was always curious as to what the traditional way of obtaining source was, but it was a bit before my time.

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #13 –
Quote from: Krellnus – on
Yeah I had a vague idea of what they do, but I personally to my knowledge haven't encountered any programs that required them to compile.
Any better known program which parses input uses yacc or GNU Bison. Whenever you see a file ending in .y, that's yacc source. From the top of my head: perl, Apache, Bash, Wine and many other programs. If you built any of them from source you would need either yacc or GNU Bison.
 

Re: Migrating proprietary Linux software ...

Reply #14 –
Thanks for your input guys. I found out about installing git elsewhere either on here or youtube video - the grey cells are failing after retirement!  ;D
Asus X470 Prime, AMD Ryzen 7 1700X, 16 Gb Corsair RAM, 2 x GT1030 GPU