Software Installation / Replacement Ideas Needed

Rocky Linux Help & Support
1

I have finally gotten Rocky Linux 8.5 installed and working, but there are things I would like to add that I seem unable to find and/or replace.

I’ve been looking for a copy of Scribus that will run in RL 8.5. The other thing I’m looking for is preferably a copy of Amarok, and failing that, Clementine. Failing that, any decent music player. I’m also looking for VLC Media Player.

The other thing I’m looking to install is VMWare Workstation Player. Has anyone gotten the latest version installed in RL 8.5?

I’m sure there will be other bits and pieces that I’ll want to add as I try to clone and update my current Workstation onto RL 8.5

Thanks for your help.

D’Cat

2

RPM Fusion has media apps, like VLC. See Configuration - RPM Fusion

For Scribus, perhaps take source rpm from EPEL 7 or Fedora and rebuild EL8 package with mock. (Mock is in EPEL.)

3

Check out flathub flatpak applications.

4

I use the Scribus 1.5.5 appimage. Works fine for what I do with it.

5

As others have mentioned, flatpak or appimage (I tend to prefer appimage when given the choice) for Scribus, or you can file a bug in the Red Hat bugzilla to request that EPEL build it for EL8, or try building it yourself (but I would prefer any of these other options to that). You can find the appimage at AppImages - Scribus Wiki

Amarok is in EPEL.

VLC is (as previously stated) in RPM Fusion.

Workstation player is a proprietary product of VMWare, they seem to list RHEL and Oracle Linux as supported which means it should work in Rocky Linux as well. There is a 64 bit linux download which will probably work on their site at https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/details?downloadGroup=WKST-PLAYER-1621&productId=1039&rPId=77292#product_downloads

6

OK I’m back with a brief Update: I FINALLY got VMWare Workstation Pro Player 16.2.1 installed. For those who which to install it on Rocky Linux 8.5 here is the link:

VMWare now has its own dedicated VD

I was able to get grub-customizer installed, but have not yet managed to get it to work, even in basic form. Upon starting up Rocky Linux up from the NVMe Drive, Rocky appears on the top followed by openSUSE 15.3, however if I run grub-customizer the ONLY thing it sees is openSUSE 15.3 which is located in / by os-prober, (*30-os-prober) but *10_linux which is where I would expect to find Rocky Linux is MIA. That said the reason – I THINK – that RL buts at startup is that those files are located in /boot/loader/entries. I am not sure if I need to first run the

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

and then run grub-customizer… or NOT. Anyway for those who may interested installing grubcustomizer, Download grub-customizer-5.1.0-3.el8.x86_64.rpm from

https://app.box.com/s/y6ys01f4f8ls6q9w1hcazwoo3qrhtu02

as root cd to /Downloads then run dnf install grub-customizer-5.1.0-3.el8.x86_64.rpm

I got zsh installed; configured the konsole prompt to read:

[root@ocelot:/home/cats]/> as well as

╭─cats@ocelot: ~
╰─>

I had to customize the LightDM Login Screen as the DEFAULT screen was too light – and too boring – as there was not enough contrast. I installed some BRIGHT Abstract on a BLACK background. Plenty of contrast now, and some POP!!

I installed Google Earth Pro (Downloand and install dnf install google-earth-pro-stable-current.x86_64.rpm)

I downloaded “R” and “rstudio” (download and install dnf install rstudio-2021.09.2-382-x86_64.rpm) and set up the VD for “Statistics and Math”.

Got Libre Office Downloaded and various graphics programs including GIMP At some point I may need to separate Graphics, Office, and Desktop Publishing into one or more VD’s, but in the past I’ve used my second monitor for overflow so I can have to related programs running side by side. Downloaded Sublime

Tried to install Amarok – supossedly in EPEL but wonder if it is Amarok for CentOS 7, I have EPEL active but I keep getting the following:

No match for argument: amarok
Error: Unable to find a match: amarok

OK so left on my Punch List to do:

  1. See if I can get grub-customizer to recognize and find RockyLinux 8.5 in addition to openSUSE 15.3 which was found without a problem by os-prober.

  2. See if I can find and install Scribus from either in flatpak or appimage

  3. See if I can find and get either Amarok or Clementine for tunes and VLC installed.

  4. Blow away a temporary file I’ve been using as a template from the 2 TB HDD, scrub, and set up for BackUps, setup BackupNinja, make the first backup of both openSUSE 15.3 and Rocky Linux 8.5

  5. Temporarily connect my second monitor to ocelot to see if I’m going to have any problem in switching from leopard to ocelot

  6. Other things

7

Sorry, apparently Amarok is only in EPEL for EL7, you can request it for EL8. The trinity desktop appears to offer Amarok for EL8, but I don’t know if the build will work on other desktops or not:
https://centos.pkgs.org/8/trinity-r14-x86_64/trinity-amarok-1.4.10-14.0.11_1.el8.x86_64.rpm.html

The Raven multimedia 3rd party repo has Clementine, I can’t speak for the repository as I’ve never used it, but it seems to come from Russia with love, here’s a google translate of the main repo page with instructions on how to install it:
https://sysadmins-ws.translate.goog/viewtopic.php?f=96&t=22598&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB

I’ve always just used Rhythmbox which is in appstream.

Glad you got VM Player working for you.

I can’t speak for grub-customizer, it’s not provided by Rocky Linux so you’ll need to get support for it from them.

Good Luck

8

Well I got Grub-Customizer downloaded and installed (!!) Unfortunately it does not work (at least and until I can figure out a work around). I am pretty sure I know what the problem is, and I am not too sure how to solve it. The problem is that Red Hat got way to cute and instead of locating the boot files in /boot/grub2/grub.cfg, they only reference it while shuffling off the boot files (?) to /boot/loader/entries.

One possible workaround would be to use a Custom Menu located in /etc/grub.d/40_custom. Good idea but not sure how to create the menu especially since /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober references the SATA drive that hold openSUSE 15.3.

Something to THINK about.

9

You can add custom entries as file custom.cfg into same directory where your grub.cfg is.

10

?!? Are you saying to create a file called “custom.cfg” and then copy it into /boot/grub2 which is the directory where grub.cfg is located?!?

It is 0600 hrs and my mind is mush. I’m not even sure HOW to create a file called “custom.cfg”. Not even sure what goes into it. Do I simply copy and paste the contents from /boot/loader/entries + the contents of /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober , then run Grub-Customizer ?? Need SLEEP and then Caffeine.

Night all… or maybe Good Morning.

D’Cat

11

On a dual-boot machine I seem to have in custom.cfg:

menuentry 'Windows Boot Manager (on /dev/nvme0n1p2)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-efi-68E4-3036' {
        insmod part_gpt
        insmod fat
        if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
          search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root  68E4-3036
        else
          search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 68E4-3036
        fi
        chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

No recollection how I generated that content in the first place.

12

A QUICK update: I sort of did a hack of Grub-Customizer + The Standard Grub2 Menu a la Red Hat (Rocky Linux , et al). Running Grub-Customizer alone will give you any other drives and / or OS’s but no Rocky Linux. This is how to get Rocky Linux to appear with a Grub-Customizer effect. You have to start this process from within the Rocky Linux menu. Booting RL from a menu from outside of RL will give you some “interesting” results. I use that only as a “Backdoor” into Rocky Linux (for reasons unknown sometimes Rocky Linux starts throwing error messages after it has been sitting idle for some time, and then refuses to log in. Logging into RL from the menu of a different drive will unlock the door).

  1. Start Grub Customizer and select your Font Colors (White and Gray drives me CRAZY) .

  2. Save in Grub-Customizer

  3. Run in Console as root: grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

  4. GoTo => /etc/defaults/grub and edit adding the following lines: Example

export GRUB_COLOR_NORMAL=“light-magenta/black”
export GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT=“light-green/black”

  1. Run in Console as root: grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

  2. Reboot: You should now have a menu that has your choice of colors… other than the annoying White & Gray

  3. Now if you want the full Grub-Customizer effect and want to add a picture on which that colored text will appear it gets a wee bit more difficult: In /etc/default/grub edit the entire file:

Set => GRUB_DEFAULT=“0”
Set => # GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT=“console”
Set => # GRUB_GFXMODE=“saved”
Add => GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=“false”
Add=> right under the entry:
export GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT=“light-green/black”
GRUB_BACKGROUND="/path/to/your/background/picture"

  1. Now Run in Console as root: grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Now if you reboot the machine you will now get your colored menu but no picture. There is a simple hack:

Start up Grub-Customizer and set a different font. For reasons unknown it insists that the font be a Mono font. I selected DejaVu Sans Mono Bold. Select the Size as 12. Bigger than 12 and the entries run off the page. Now Go back to the Grub-Customizer SAVE function and SAVE your changes.

  1. Now go back to a Console and once again – as root – run:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

  1. NOW Reboot an you should come up with the background picture + your Colored Text Menu.

D’Cat