Changing Distributions

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Index
1 A new distribution
2 Salix, first try
3 Packages and their problems
4 Live
5 Install and config
6 Packages and some remarks
7 Conclusion
8 Salix on Luks
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6. Packages and some remarks

6.1. General

There are some issues with the main repository for Salix. As said before, the solution is:
reposetup -m ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/salix/
reposetup

6.2. Blender

Blender

is a 3d sketch program. It is complicated and takes a lot of practice to get anything useful from it. Download the latest version from their website.

6.3. Calibre

Calibre is a e-book management program. Sorry, THE e-book management program. The best way to install it is to use Calibre's binary install:
wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin

The complete library is under Calibre Library (directory name contains a space), so if you have a backup of that, Calibre will find all your books.

6.4. GNS3

GNS3 is an installable package in Salix. Although it may not be the latest and greatest, it works for me. I installed GNS3 through gslapt ans installed dynamips too. In addition, you will need PyQT (version 4).

Because I need some specific interfaces to OS services, GNS3 must run as root. This is an issue if GNS3 runs on a remot machine. I use the following script to start GNS3:
#!/bin/bash
#INSTALL@ /usr/local/bin/gns3
xal=/tmp/$$.xal
xauth list > $xal
wd=`pwd`
sudo sh -c "xauth add `cat $xal | grep -v localhost | tail -1`; /usr/bin/gns3 $wd/topology.net"

In addition to PyQT, additional packages should be installed to get a working setup. I installed the following list:

There are some remarks. Because I connect my VirtualBoxes via vboxnets and I use Vagrant to start them, I did not look into vbox integration.

Visit edit -> preferences and all the tabs to get things working.

I wanted to get qemu working, but it is a mess. Qemu provides different binaries, depending on the architecture. But GNS3 only accepts a single binary. So I when I will actually need qemu, I will examine this further.

Next, add the Cisco IOS images that you have procured under edit->IOS images and hypervisors.

6.5. Igotu and Viking

slapt-get -i qt boost libusb chrpath marble openssl
ln -s /usr/lib64/qt /usr/lib64/qt4
qmake
make clean
make
make install

You may have to add /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf and run ldconfig.

Viking is just an installable package.

6.6. Iscan, SANE, vuescan

The main problem with these scanner applications is that I own an old Epson. To make it work, I used http://www.giustetti.net/wiki/index.php?title=En/iscan_software_64_bit where Simone explains far better step-by-step whet should be done.

For all your other scanners, Vuescan and Sane just works. For Vuescan, remember to save your license!

6.7. Sweet Home 3d

For some planning in the house, I use Sweet Home 3D. Use the Installer from their website.

There may be some issues when importing furniture.

6.8. VirtualBox and Vagrant

Although there is a package for VirtualBox, I downloaded the most recent version from https://www.virtualbox.org/ and ran the installer-script.

To my experience, whether you use pre-packaged VirtualBox or via the Oracle installer, there is always some fine-tuning necessary. Some additional tolerance between the vbox-addons and the VirtualBox versions has greatly reduced the need for tweaking. However, there are a number of things that I encountered:

For Vagrant, I dowloaded the latest version as a zip-file from HashiCorp's download page. The use of the latest is encouraged, because Vagrant has prblems with versions of VirtualBox that are more recent than Vagrant.

6.9. Imagemagick

There are some issues with Imagemagic. Therefore, I downloaded the latest source and did the magic incantations ./configure; make; sudo make install.

6.10. Ansible

First install Ansible with Python's pip:
sudo -s
easy_install pip
pip install ansible

A copy of the existing ansible trees under /home/ansible and /etc/ansible is made because I have some existing playbooks.

Next is the authentication. Of course, ssh-keys must be created

6.11. Webdav

I use an on-line storage cloud to safe-guard my data. TransIP offers this service via webdav.

Davfs2 is installable through gslapt. You must create the group and user davfs2 yourself. After that, just restore the directory /etc/davfs2 to be able to re-access your drive. If you did not yet have a webdav drive, you will probably need to edit the files in /etc/davfs2 to match your drive. They are extensively commented so that should not be a problem.

Mount the drive with

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