[conspire] upgrade and grub

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> Of the 3 dozen programs that I checked, only these 2 do not have
> debian packages:
> 
> lxmed:  menu editor of LX.  
> Seamonkey:   Mozilla integrated browser, email, HTML and bottle opener.
> 
> I downloaded the tar balls, manually installed them and used lxmed to
> add itself and seamonkey to the pop-up menu.  Given the origin of
> these programs I don't think they are any significant risk of them
> breaking something.  

Admittedly not.

The problem isn't so much 'breaking something' as that, because the
Debian package tools don't know Seamonkey/lxmed is there, it will have no
compunction in the future against removing 'unneeded' libraries or other
dependencies that Seamonkey needs.  Also, your maintaining the system
via the apt-get dance will do nothing about upgrading Seamonkey (or
lxmed), even if it has developed severe security bugs that often plague
Web browsers and other Internet-facing user software.  Also (a minor
point, and it's a bit late to think of this now), you probably don't
have any clean way to remove Seamonkey/lxmed if you ever wish to, e.g.,
because you _did_ try to put in a new version, it's blowing up, and you
suspect some file left over from the old version might be causing the
failure.

By contrast, installing it via, say, a package from a third-party repo
restores most of those otherwise missing advantages.  You can most often
semi-automate picking up new versions of the package by appending the
third-party repo's line to sources.list.  (As always, one must however,
be extremely picky about what external repos one thus trusts.)

As I mentioned before, _exactly_ that way of doing it is recommended on
the Debian wiki:  https://wiki.debian.org/Seamonkey

I have no experience with lxmed, but cannot help noticing that it
requires Java.  Ugh.  There have to be better ways to add packages to
LXDE pop-up menus, _and_ I refuse to believe there aren't better ways.

In fact, the standard expectation with desktop packages from or for
Debian is that the software will register itself with the Debian
facility for that purpose called 'menu', whose purpose in life is to 
handle the exact task you mention (making sure installed graphical
packages have entries on the popup menus of any and all installed window
managers).  I'm betting that if you followed the procedure recommended
on the Debian wiki, you would find that Seamonkey was automagically
added to the pop-up menus of LXDE (and any/all other installed DEs and
window managers), because that's a base-level expectation on Debian
without the need for special add-on tools.

For whatever it's worth, although I obviously don't know where your
install-from-tarball files for lxmed and Seamonkey landed, a reasonable
bet would be into various subdirectories of /usr/local/ .  Personally, I
would want to hunt those down and delete them, and then reinstall
Seamonkey from .deb as described on https://wiki.debian.org/Seamonkey .

> Now for a new application.   Several people have suggested OPENSCAD to
> draw 3D parts.  Debian has it in stretch, but not buster
> 
> Any suggestions?  Or maybe Ross can suggest some alternative.

I hope so.

Solid 3D CAD is a bit of a specialised area, and outside my experience
entirely.  I'm guessing that your interest is specifically related to 
making designs for 3D printing, since you made that sidelong reference
to Ross.

Some brief looking around found:
https://wiki.debian.org/3DPrinting
https://www.sculpteo.com/blog/2016/07/05/top-7-best-3d-modeling-softwares-for-3d-printing-linux/
http://www.penguintutor.com/news/default/3dprinter
https://www.linux.com/learn/how-design-things-3d-print-open-source-software
https://www.linux.com/news/open-source-pushes-3d-printers-success
https://www.linux.com/news/guide-open-source-and-linux-compatible-3d-printers-part-two

This is Debian-specific and you might find its hints useful.  (In the
category in question, it recommends the blender package.)
https://fredfire1.wordpress.com/2016/09/07/usefull-tools-for-3d-printing/


By the way, p.d.o. claims that OpenSCAD _is_ available in Debian 9 'stretch':
https://packages.debian.org/stretch/openscad