What is the correct URL for the PureOS repository?

Hardware
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What is the correct URL for the PureOS repository?

I received my new Librem 15 v3 about a week ago (2018-03-22). I believe in the Purism mission and love the hardware, but I am having various freezes and full-speed fan events that are sometimes only recoverable by cold reboots.

I’m at coreboot 4.7-Purism-3 and have read in other forum posts here that 4.7-Purism-4 might fix some fan issues, but with the various GNOME environment freezes I’m concerned that I might not be using the correct repo(s). I see errors with Synaptic, which I installed because GNOME Software doesn’t give you enough feedback. I’ve searched this forum, and found 2-year-old and other conflicting information, so I am looking for the latest official word. Maybe also put the answer in the FAQ or a sticky forum post that is always kept current.

Thanks!

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https://tracker.pureos.net/w/pureos/software_center/software_sources/

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Thanks, but that reference has the same inconsistency I’ve seen in at least one other forum post. The first screenshot gives: https://repo.puri.sm/pureos/
However, at the end of the page the content of /etc/apt/sources.list is said to be:
deb https://repo.pureos.net/pureos green main

So which is correct: https://repo.puri.sm/pureos/ or https://repo.pureos.net/pureos/ ?

And what about http://deb.puri.sm/pureos/ ?

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https://repo.pureos.net/pureos is the correct link, however, https://repo.puri.sm/pureos for now points to repo.pureos.net, so it doesn’t really matter, the links basically have the same target. I’ll correct the screenshot image, thanks for pointing this out.

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Thanks, my Librem 15 v3 came with https://repo.puri.sm/pureos set as the software source. Since it sounds like “for now” might not last, I’ve replaced it in /etc/apt/sources.list with:

deb https://repo.pureos.net/pureos/ green main
deb-src https://repo.pureos.net/pureos/ green main

Since I was looking for packages that aren’t in main, I added:

deb https://repo.pureos.net/pureos/ green contrib
deb-src https://repo.pureos.net/pureos/ green contrib

but contrib doesn’t exist.

So then I tried something I saw on another post in this forum. I’m trying to install packages like Shutter and GnuCash, and they are not in the PureOS repo. Interestingly, gnucash-docs is in the PureOS repo, and I don’t yet understand the process of how packages get added to PureOS. So I added these sources and was able to install GnuCash, though I did not get the latest version:

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch main contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates main contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates main contrib
deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib

After GnuCash installed, I disabled the Debian repos. GnuCash works, but text input and editing are very sluggish, just as they continue to be in GNOME Files when renaming a file (but that’s another issue). I’ve kept the system up to date with:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt full-upgrade

although so far the full-upgrade has not made any difference.

Is installing a package from a different repo, then turning off the repo, a bad idea?
I can imagine that some libraries depended on by a package might get updated and break functionality.

Should I be building from source?
I could do that, but not even GnuCash source packages are in the PureOS repo.
What do you recommend?

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You are using stretch repo, PureOS is based of buster. Even Debian does not have GNUCash in buster (testing).

It can be.

Sources are easily available on the GNU Cash website/repo, or just use Debian sources. Alternative is just to wait until GNUCash hits our repos again.

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Aha! Thanks, I didn’t know PureOS was based on buster (testing). I’m coming from various versions of Ubuntu, like Xubuntu and Lubuntu, so I’m now getting used to the GNOME environment and educating myself about Debian and its other variants besides Ubuntu.

I’ve been using GnuCash for 10 years, so I needed it right away if I wanted to make the Librem 15 my main machine. Since it’s such a NICE machine, I persevered. Luckily, flatpak came to the rescue and GnuCash was already on flathub.org. Between flatpack and snap I’ve installed the few things I need that aren’t in the PureOS repo.

By the way, the sluggishness with the Backspace and Del keys in GNOME apps was apparently caused by logging in while choosing GNOME on Xorg instead of GNOME from the gear menu :gear: .

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@nochelibre see the Debian wiki entry DontBreakDebian, especially section Don’t make a FrankenDebian

This could be a nice reference in PureOS wiki, @mladen. It seems I can edit it. Should I add an entry in the Maintenance section of the wiki?

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@thib thanks for the Don’t make a FrankenDebian. A little Frankenstein was exactly what I was thinking to myself with my repo experiments, which is why I’m still on this thread. I suppose I was lucky because wouldn’t packages from Debian stable be upgraded by Debian testing? If it had been the other way around, where PureOS was based on stable, then I could have wrecked my system. So far it looks like I am OK.

That brings up a question: why is PureOS based on Debian testing and not stable? Testing is great and necessary, but in a testing environment. Why is testing the base OS for a production machine as shipped? That seems to be asking for a lot of end-user trouble. I am no guru, but is there something I’m missing here?

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Well, Debian testing does not mean Debian willcrash. Actually, there are three layers for Debian:

  • SID (named after the Toys Story character who breaks everything) which stands for Still In Development. This one is dangerous
  • Testing. When a package spends enough time in SID and is stable enough not to break a system
  • Stable, which is mostly used for servers. The updates are sporadic. It is mostly targetted at people who want to build low maintenance machines.

Testing is what most users chose for their day-to-day use in a workstation.

See DebianTesting for reference

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@thib Shocking! :slight_smile:

Debian Testing says that testing gets a package from sid after being in sid 2-10 days and does not introduce new release critical bugs, among other requirements. The timeframe seems a bit short for thorough testing, but if testers are always quickly and thoroughly testing new packages and this is the Debian Way and it’s working, then OK. The page does say, Don’t prefer testing if security is a concern, which strikes me as a bit ironic because PureOS is advertised as being focused on security. But I’m new here, so what do I know?

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You can be both new and right, your question is very relevant :slight_smile:

The whole difficulty is to make an OS both secure and usable. You could run a Debian stable on your laptop, and it would be very secure. Your packages would constantly be outdated, not from a security standpoint, but from a features standpoint. It would generate so much friction when you want to try anything that you would end up installing another distribution.

Still, I agree this balance is hard to find. Purism is still a small company, and does not have the resources necessary to build their distribution from scratch. Debian testing is the best compromise :slight_smile:

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@thib, thanks for your insights. it does look like testing is the best compromise. I was happy to see GIMP get updated from 2.8.20 to 2.8.22 (stable) in the past few days. GIMP 2.10.0 RC1 came out last month, and I’ve been testing it on my Lubuntu box.The GIMP team has made impressive progress.

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