Gnome Debian Package Finder 0.1.8 released

Recently a new version of Gnome Debian Package Finder became available to the public. This program is positioned for people either new to Linux or those who came with Windows experience and used to work with Graphical User Interface rather than type commands in the terminal.

There is a big difference between Windows and Linux on how software is distributed. Searching in the Internet and downloading from unknown web-sites, as Windows users used to do, is not suggested for Linux users, because most of the software can be found in the official repositories. So if one wants to find a music player for example, it is better to check what is available from the repositories first. That is where Gnome Debian Package Finder can help.

The major improvements comparing with the first release are:

• changed window layout to better fit small screens of netbooks (I tested it on my Asus EEE PC 701 with 800 x 480 screen resolution)
• more functionality available via right-click popup menus
• drag-and-drop facility

To my surprise when I googled for "Debian Package Finder" I found this article about my program at Linux.com. The review outlines some problems with user interface, which I hope I will fix in future releases, and also shows one my obvious mistake: I had never mentioned anywhere that the program window had two horizontal splitters, so this feature remained un-noticed. As for its functionality I don't target package maintainers or Linux geeks as its primary users, so some features of command-line programs, like search for maintainers, will likely never been implemented.

The program is still in its beta stage and available for downloading from
GTK_APPS.ORG
Softpedia.com

EEE PC as Photo Frame - adding music

It would be nice to add some background music while watching a slideshow (see my previous post about making a slideshow script). After playing with that script I ended up with the following version:

#!/bin/sh

xset s off -dpms
mpg321 --random --quiet /path/to/music/files/*.mp3 &
qiv -sfmir -d 8 /path/to/picture/files/*.JPG
killall mpg321
xset s on +dpms

You should obviously replace "/path/to/music/files/" and "/path/to/picture/files/" to your actual locations.

Below is the short explanation of the changes.
I noticed that after 20 minutes the screen went blank, although screen-saver feature was disabled. The command

xset q

revealed, that DPMS (Display Power Management Signaling) feature was enabled, so I changed the first command in the script as follows:

xset s off -dpms

to switch DPMS totally off. The last command re-enables this feature.

Using my Package Finder tool I found that my EEE PC had pre-installed command-line audio player, called mpg321. It appeared that this program was quite suitable for our purposes.

mpg321 --random --quiet /path/to/music/files/*.mp3 &

The above command launches mpg321 player and tells it to play all mp3 files in the given folder in random order; the --quiet option supresses unnecessary text output. The "&" at the end tells the OS not to wait for the player finished its work, but go to the next line of the script.

When we terminated qiv, playing the slideshow, we also have to stop music. The command

killall mpg321

does the trick.

That's all.

Gnome Debian Package Finder

Gnome Package Finder is my first project in Lazarus released to the public. It is also my first published program for Ubuntu Linux or other distributions, using Debian packages.

Unlike Synaptic Package Manager, which is the main tool in Ubuntu to deal with installed and avaialble from repositories (Software Sources) packages, Gnome Package Finder only provides information about packages, it can neither install nor remove the package, and because of this, it does not require administative rights to work. It also works about twice faster for the same search.

Gnome Package Manager allows to search through package names, their short or long descriptions for the given model. The matching packages are shown in the list, which indicates also the state of the installed packages. Another possibility is to search for a file name inside the packages. This search takes much longer and the output contains package names and the full path to the matching files, in case they were installed.

When one got the list of packages, for every one in the list common information about the package can be obtained, along with its dependencies and the list of files, this package would install.



Keyboard shortcuts provide an easy way to navigate and perform all operations without involving the mouse. The help system covers most of what you may want to know about Gnome Package Finder.

The installation binary package as well as the source files can be downloaded from:
http://www.gtk-apps.org/.

It is released under the terms of Gnu General Public Licence (GPL).