Can I install Opera on Trisquel (Triskel)?
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Okay, I know Opera is non-free, but it is what a friend called the Ferrari of browsers and I want to make it available on my new Triskel system. However, GDebI fails to install it, and when I try to add the Opera repository apper gives me a 404, which is obviously not true as the repository works fine for my Kubuntu machines.
Any ideas? The Opera version is 12.15, what Opera offered me as a Triskel login. I installed Trisquel yesterday, making it into Triskel by doing the net install. Which BTW worked great though it took a long time. I'm impressed with the two installs I did, from a CD and the net install; the former was trivially easy and the latter required lots of attention but worked perfectly to give me a Trisquel with KDE. My computer is a Dell Inspiron, quad core AMD-64, 8 GB memory, and plenty of disk space since my new 2TB external arrived. Anything else that might be helpful, ask and I'll post the info.
Thanks in advance for any help that shows up!
We cannot help you to install non-free software.
Fine, thanks. I appreciate your position.
If you don't mind my posting the answer, I managed to figure it out. If you don't want this info distributed, feel free to delete my post.
I finally remembered that dpkg can do this kind of thing, Turns out that
sudo dpkg -i [OPERA_DEB_FILENAME]
worked fine.
On 04/07/13 04:25, chuck wrote:
> Okay, I know Opera is non-free, but it is what a friend called the
> Ferrari of browsers and I want to make it available on my new
> Triskel system.
Out of interest, what features of Opera are you requiring? There are
plenty of add-ons for Abrowser, IceCat, Firefox et al. that could
potentially replace the functionality.
Just a suggestion. :-)
Andrew.
If you want to install DEB packages by simply clicking on them, do the following:
- Open Add/Remove Applications located under Gnome Panel's Main Menu (Trisquel logo)
- Search for an app called GDebi Package Manager (there are two of them)
- Select the one that have GNOME GUI in its description
- Click on Apply Changes and install the application
- You're now set
Alternatively, you can use the following command to install the required packages from Terminal:
sudo apt-get install gdebi
This feature was cut out from the latest Trisquel 6.0 release in order to make space for GIMP on the installation CD.
> GDebI fails to install it
Sorry, I overlooked this. It's pretty common that installing pre-packaged proprietary blobs are failing to install, but it can be worse. I tried to install Skype on a Trisquel-loaded USB key some time ago (used the packages from the official website) just because I wanted to prove that Skype is not a Windows-only software and it also failed to install. Then I wanted to remove it but the uninstallation also failed (no matter what I tried to do), leaving the system in a broken state.
My advice for you is to try to look up for some reviews and comparisons of different web-browsers and give a try to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chromium which are not only the best ones you can get, but also the most popular and widely used. Should I mention that they are also free as in freedom?
I am a translator!
I'm guessing he chooses Opera because it integrates better into KDE. However, there are ways to make all GTK based apps look EXACTLY like the KDE theme one has in use. It also affects Abrowser.
Besides, there is rekonq, a lightweight browser for KDE.
Edit: reading the first post is definitely an advantage. A friend of him called it the Ferrari of browsers.
Forget proprietary Norwegians' Opera browser. QupZilla seems to be more of a liberated drop-in replacement. Rekonq is okay, too. Are you lazy to find a trustworthy PPA for it?!
Opera is moving (or has already) to Chromium for their base and no longer using their Presto engine. You might as well just use Chromium then.
Troll hole?
Hey folks, sorry I didn't reply sooner because I am interested in your comments.
My reason for loving Opera is that it offers a much smoother and more configurable user interface. I can't describe the difference briefly, but here's a trivial example. With Firefox, the Tor browser, I can set globally how I want to handle links opened in new tabs by setting or clearing the Tabs option labeled "When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately". From then on, when I right-click and open a new tab, I either switch to it immediately or not.
With Opera, which by the way had tabs for two years before Firefox got around to them, I can right-click on an individual link and choose "Open", "Open in New Tab", or "Open in Background Tab". And that is not a new innovation, Opera's had that since it started using the tab interface. This refinement of possibilities and options exists at many levels. If you compare the configurability of Gnome and KDE you get a sense of how Firefox and Opera feel to me.
Then there's the M2 mailer, which just seems to me the right way to handle email. It doesn't make folders where email's stored because it doesn't need to; you can search and sort the entire email database of received messages, or only the unreads, or just the sent messages, or whatever. Since this search is very fast, you don't need anything more than tags and labels to find stuff. And I never end up having to use web-based email interfaces; my email is in the left pane while I'm browsing.
I also love how much of Opera can be controlled from the keyboard rather than the mouse. I can type so much in the time it takes me to reach for, orient, and move the mouse, then return my hand to the keyboard that I don't want to mouse if I can avoid it. That's just my usage style, I'm not claiming it has any validity beyond that. But for my style Opera remains the Ferrari of browsers. From the point of view of user interface Firefox is, in the best sense of the term, a Chevrolet.
Finally, I don't know about Opera's underlying engine but if you try it out and compare it to chromium you'll quickly see the difference. It may not be a difference that appeals to you, but they are not comparable UI experiences for my approach.
Okay, in re-reading your comments I'm getting the impression that the UI issues are not really playing for you. I get the surveillance implications of the use of non-free software; I've been writing about the so-called intelligence community for twenty years. But what about UI stuff, does it matter at all, and if so to what extent?
On 08/07/13 07:50, chuck wrote:
> Okay, in re-reading your comments I'm getting the impression that
> the UI issues are not really playing for you. I get the surveillance
> implications of the use of non-free software; I've been writing
> about the so-called intelligence community for twenty years. But
> what about UI stuff, does it matter at all, and if so to what
> extent?
The Opera EULA tramples freedom 0, to run the program for any purpose:
http://business.opera.com/eula/browser
The EULA says it reserves the right to censor your web browsing if you
are using Opera Turbo. They say they can also re-route you to other
pages (see section 4.1 and 4.2). You can't let someone use their
computer unless they also follow parts of the EULA. If you own a net
cafe, you can't use Opera on those computers. They can update the EULA
during updates to the program without necessarily notifying the user of
an update.
Their privacy policy says they may use personal data for sending users
advertisements. They say they can share and disclose your information if
required by law enforcement. They don't say how long they will keep
their users' data for (only that it will keep personal information until
it is no longer being processed for a service). They say they also
cooperate with Google Analytics (which seems unusual for a web browser).
Freedom 1: They don't let you view the source code. You can't reverse
engineer it, except for lawful purposes, or for debugging changes to
LGPL libraries linked to by the software.
Freedom 2 and 3: Opera doesn't let the user distribute their software.
If you don't mind having rights, then maybe it is okay to use. ;-)
Andrew.
So you're saying there's a stark choice to be made between giving up my rights and having comfortable UIs? I was hoping there was room for discussion on that point. 8-)
Seriously, what do you do in day-to-day life? Do you never watch Flash videos or enable Javascript and and restrict your use to only FSF-style free software? That would seem to be somewhat isolating, and I wonder if one simply adjusts; if so, how? I'm not a social media person so I don't have to adjust to life without Facebook. But must I also give up watching Stephen Colbert over the net, and have everything load verrry slowly?
On Mon, 8 Jul 2013 05:15:54 +0200 (CEST)
name at domain wrote:
> Seriously, what do you do in day-to-day life? Do you never watch
> Flash videos or enable Javascript and and restrict your use to only
> FSF-style free software?
I can only speak from my experience here, others may vary and even
disagree but that's ok.
I haven't watched any Flash videos in a very long time (almost 3
years?). I either use the built-in Gnash to watch Youtube videos, or
just download them using youtube-dl command. For more info on watching
videos without Flash click on these links:
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/play-videos-without-using-flash
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/watch-youtube-videos-using-youtube-dl
I've forgone Javascript just lately by using both NoScript and LibreJS
at the same time. It broke a lot of websites to the point it became
unreadable, but I was able to find alternatives to read them (RSS, Lynx,
Identicurse, CLI, etc). Still a work in progress.
> That would seem to be somewhat isolating,
> and I wonder if one simply adjusts; if so, how? I'm not a social
> media person so I don't have to adjust to life without Facebook. But
> must I also give up watching Stephen Colbert over the net, and have
> everything load verrry slowly?
I admit I missed watching Comedy Central and the likes as well, but I
made a choice to discontinue watching them. It was extremely hard at
first, but eventually I got used to it and found other venues for
politics and comedy. Old habits are hard to break, but they can be
broken.
We must differentiate freedom from convenience. There are times we can
have both and sometimes we need to choose one over the other. What you
choose to do will be up to you.
On 08/07/13 13:15, chuck wrote:
> So you're saying there's a stark choice to be made between giving up
> my rights and having comfortable UIs? I was hoping there was room
> for discussion on that point. 8-)
>
> Seriously, what do you do in day-to-day life? Do you never watch
> Flash videos or enable Javascript and and restrict your use to only
> FSF-style free software?
I disable JavaScript (my personal choice - others use LibreJS) and I
don't use Flash or its free replacement Gnash. I watch YouTube videos
using youtube-dl or UnPlug, and there's quite a few websites that don't
work. But it's not that bad, as I have just got used to using other
websites.
But you're probably starting to realise how hard it is to have freedom
in computing. We've got a lot of work to do, because people should *not*
have to give up convenience for freedom.
There is a Firefox (and Abrowser) add-on collection to make it more like
Opera here, which you might be interested in:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/collections/iphigenie/25c0abb4-55a8-25c8-cfc1-a069ef/
Most of the add-ons are free, but some aren't, so I recommend checking
licensing before installing. :-)
Andrew.
This is great stuff and I'll check it out tomorrow, many thanks! Just got out of surgery Friday so I'm off to sleep right now.
One question that occurs to me is, what do you do about mobile telephony?
Here you hit a weak point. At the moment, there is no acceptable way to use a cell phone, which respects the user. Although you have no gps and use a phone which can not be considered to be a computer, your position gets tracked.
So mobile phones are tracking devices, at the moment.
I think it's a quite similar problem like the nonfree bios: hardly anyone can manage to avoid the technology and so many of us accept using cell phones, but we're searching for a solution.
Of course mobile phones which are a computer (the smartphones) can be an even bigger attack on your freedom; you're not only getting tracked by the telephone company, but also by big companies like apple or microsoft.
We should also refuse to use android, since it contains non-free software; there is a free alternative, called replicant, and there exists a free app store, called f-droid.
I understand your position; you got used to a software over many years and you're a bit shocked how much sacrifices have to be made for using the pc in freedom.
The goal is, that no one has to give away convenience for freedom, but that's not the case at the moment.
But you can do most things with free software at the moment, and you can do most things pretty good.
I'm sure you will find a way to browse the internet in a convenient and in a free way.
Take your time, but try hard to avoid proprietary software; it's worth doing it, and the community will help you!
"Do
you never watch Flash videos or enable Javascript and and restrict your
use to only FSF-style free software? "
I use youtube but I don't use flash. Youtube has for the same clip in
flash some variant in webm. So, I have instaled in Abrowser :
Greaseamonkey + ViewTube ( is a script) and I wach the webm files
even better than flash. This combination runs on vimeo , metacafe,
dailymotion, etc.
Again, many thanks for the comments and insights.
The video thing doesn't really kill me. I don't watch many of them, it's a nice-to-have item. I would miss seeing Colbert and Stewart/Oliver, and occasional replays from my favorite baseball team, but those are probably available in other ways. I'll check into the methods of watching without Flash, and I appreciate the links, blackomegarey!
I've looked at the "Make it more like Opera" thing and that looks useful, thanks Andrew! The thing is, when I arrive at that page I find not a single package to change my Firefox surface behavior but 40 individual add-ons which I'm free to select and install one at a time. Okay, that works, but you've got to admit it's suboptimal. Most people are going to balk.
Maybe what we need is to declare that basic OS and networking software is public infrastructure and the developers who build and maintain it should be publicly supported. That has its own issues, I realize, but it's a thought.
So given the depth of discussion here I would like to ask another question that is vital to me right now. Is it possible and reasonable to have a Triskel system with a perfectly functional Tor browser for security cohabiting with an Opera used for certain conveniences? Realizing of course that anything done with Opera would be insecure, would it then be possible to choose which browser to use based on the situation?
On 09/07/13 03:25, chuck wrote:
> So given the depth of discussion here I would like to ask another
> question that is vital to me right now. Is it possible and
> reasonable to have a Triskel system with a perfectly functional Tor
> browser for security cohabiting with an Opera used for certain
> conveniences? Realizing of course that anything done with Opera would
> be insecure, would it then be possible to choose which browser to use
> based on the situation?
You can use Polipo as a HTTP proxy which connects to Tor via SOCKS. It
requires a little bit of manual configuration, but should work as any
other HTTP proxy would.
You need to do:
sudo apt-get install polipo
gksudo gedit /etc/polipo/config
Make sure the socks lines are as follows:
> # Uncomment this if you want to use a parent SOCKS proxy:
>
> socksParentProxy = "localhost:9050"
> socksProxyType = socks5
Then run /etc/init.d/polipo restart. Then configure your web browser to
use localhost:8123 as your proxy.
Andrew.
Thanks, quantumgravity, for your thoughtful comments on telephony! It does seem to be an inherent problem with mobile phones. I'm interested in the Replicant thing and I love the reference too. I'm still using my six- or seven-year-old BlackBerry that's so old you can't buy the plastic guards for them any longer, so I'll be looking for a new one soon, I imagine, and confronting these issues more directly.
Hey, dadix, that's a cool setup and it sounds reasonably doable in my environment. Many thanks, I'll check into it!
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