PS viewer should come preinstalled: suggestion

General system Applications
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First of all, compliments to the EOS team for a very well thought out, well executed distro. I am an exclusive Linux user since 2009, and have used over 25 distros (some no longer in service) and I can say EOS is right up there.

I have a small suggestion: I know that PS is not a format that is used that much nowadays, but there is still a lot of stuff in PS format out there. I had to install software to read that. I think it might be good to have it pre-installed. It takes up v. little extra space, and having to (a) figure out that it is not installed in the pdf viewer package and (b) installing it I thought was a bit of a chore.

Anyways, thank you.

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That would seem to indicate that it’s a niche format which doesn’t need to be supported by default?

However,

Most Linux PDF viewers will open Postscript too (Atril, Evince, and Okular do) - what did you try to open it with?

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Well, so let me clarify: if one is to create a document TODAY, you would likely create PDF. However, till recently, PS was the default. Due to this, there are a large number of legacy PS documents. For example, lot of lecture notes from, say, 2010, are in PS.

The only pre-installed pdf viewer on EOS was epdfviewer. It does not view PS.

I had to install another viewer, and its PS modules (zathura and its PS module) to view PS. 3 packages in all (the 2 mentioned, and libspectre which is what zathura uses to view PS).

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Still a pretty niche requirement. Next you’ll be asking for LaTeX support. :wink:

OK, so I assume this is the Xfce “offline installer” default. In which case, the feature request would be to switch this out to a more fully-featured PDF viewer (e.g. Atril shouldn’t bring in too many other deps).

However,

What’s the package name for this? It’s not in the Arch repos or the AUR… :thinking:

1 Like
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Probably this:

Repository      : community
Name            : epdfview
Version         : 0.1.8-11
Description     : Lightweight PDF document viewer
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : http://freecode.com/projects/epdfview
Licenses        : GPL
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : poppler-glib  desktop-file-utils  hicolor-icon-theme  gtk2
Optional Deps   : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Download Size   : 115.96 KiB
Installed Size  : 391.80 KiB
Packager        : Felix Yan <felixonmars@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Tue 07 Jul 2020 01:00:05 PM CDT
Validated By    : MD5 Sum  SHA-256 Sum  Signature
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Yes, sorry it is epdfview, not epdfviewer

Yes, offline install.

I would disagree on the analogy on Latex. PS was the default document format till PDF. Latex is a document compilation system. Indeed, to use your analogy, till recently Latex itself used to be used mostly to output DVI format which would be changed to PS using dvi2ps. I would think support for the till-recent default document format would be important. For anyone who works w/ academic docs, you encounter PS a lot. You cannot do w/o it.

Maybe add it to the welcome app? If you like, I can do the writeup. LMK.

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Epdfview is low in bytes for some is good enough to start. But mupdf zathura xreader would be better. When i use pdf i like to select a tekst en copy and paste somewhere… Epdfview cannotndo that, but is small and a good startpoint (•‿•)

But endeavouros is stil a lego blocks otherwise iso goes over 2 gb :upside_down_face:.

Think xreadernis nice because depency wise goes correct and user friendlier then mupdf, but also pretty subjectiv3 too

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Understood. No worries. Another option would be to have ps2pdf so users can go that route. Or put it in the “tips” in welcome. Those are some suggestions I had. And totally agree w/ keeping ISO below 2GB (my USB is only 2G so anything above I am unable to try anyway :-)).

Thanks,
Vinay

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Frogatto and Friends should also come preinstalled, in my opinion. :frog:

Oh, and LATEX support out of the box would be nice, I use LATEX almost every day… :smiley:

You see, everyone has something they’d like to include on the ISO. So if everyone’s wishes were granted, the ISO would become completely bloated and EndeavourOS would stop being a minimalist, terminal-centric distro we all love.

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I use latex free! :rofl: :gloves:

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Wine version which is only one working? :rofl:

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No, someone (specifically, someone who is not me) should build the 1.3.1 version with the old build dependencies and make it work. :frog:

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Agree to your point. That’s why perhaps it should be in the “post install tips” on welcome. Or maybe not, you guys know your distro best. I can only speak from my perspective. I don’t know how many of your users are document management people. If many, I can offer my help to create the tips onwelcome. If not many, no worries.