LMDE - Installation notes, VLC cannot play from Samba shares, gvfs-fuse, Wine 1.4.1 has no audio devices

Some notes on installing Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE)

Install as usual, system will then run on testing version of packages.
It works like an slightly outdated version of Linux Mint.

Make it possible to update selected packages to unstable by creating and editing /etc/apt/preferences to the following:

Package: *
Pin: release o=linuxmint
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: origin packages.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian a=testing
Pin-Priority: 500

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 490

Also edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add unstable line there.

To do this you need to generate a line suitable to your georaphical location.
Go here: http://debgen.simplylinux.ch/
Select country, release: unstable, architecture: select yours, sources: main contrib non-free, also include source packages. Then choose to generate. You will get lines like the following:

deb http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free

(Source: http://hamwaves.com/debian.unstable/en/ )

Run apt-get update or do a reload in synaptic.

In synaptic you may now do Packages->Force version and then select unstable on selected packages.

Not all are possible to do this on and sometimes you are prompted to uninstall packages.
Sometimes it whines about broken packages, it then proved to work better using the terminal:

apt-get install <package> -t unstable

IMPORTANT: Turn off sid/unstable repos after using it in Synaptic. Do not leave it on as it then constantly will update the sid-upgraded packages when new ones arrive in sid. It may sound nice to have the system updated when new packages arrive, but not from sid as it has proved to break the system.

Follow this tactic: when you need to update a package to the latest one, enable the sid repo in synaptic, update the package, then disable the sid repo. Stay with the "normal" testing repo as much as possible.

Some problems as of 2014-04-27:

- VLC cannot play from samba shares

LMDE 2014-03. VLC cannot play from a Samba share. It whines about no suitable access module for smb.

The problem turned out to be related to gvfs-fuse, which manages the underlaying bridge between the share and the applications. This part of gvfs was missing and the logged in user was not a member of the fuse group.

Typical symptom of this is that /run/user/<number>/gvfs is empty even if there are shares on other hosts mounted/opened on the desktop.

To solve this I did the following:

Updated gvfs to sid - not sure if this is really needed, try to avoid this step first and see if it works: apt-get install gvfs -t unstable

Installed the missing gvfs-fuse: apt-get install gvfs-fuse

Added the current active user to the fuse group in System -> Administration -> Users and groups

Rebooted the system

After reboot the /run/user/<number>/gvfs got filled with the current shares as it should.

If nothing works, then there is a workaround. It is possible to let VLC handle Samba on it's own.
This can be done by entering a suitable username/password in the advanced (not simple) preferences, under Input/Codecs, Access modules, SMB.
The downside of this is that you need to change the credentials if you connect to hosts with different usernames and passwords.

Update for Debian Jessie 8: apt-get install gvfs-fuse is still needed. Adding the user to fuse is not, it seems like this group is removed.

- Wine does not have any audio device / no audio in Winamp

To fix this do apt-get install libwine-alsa
You may also update it to unstable as wine is quite outdated in testing repo:

apt-get install wine -t unstable
apt-get install libwine-alsa:i386 -t unstable

When installing unstable wine you may get stopped by a conflict between systemd and systemd-sysv, solution is to install unstable version of systemd-sysv:

apt-get install systemd-sysv -t unstable

Warning, this is not a very good idea as this may trigger further updates to sid.

- Broadcom wifi is slow and messy

To fix it, apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms
This will enable drivers from Broadcom with higher performance