Gtk3 is coming to get you

[pidsley]

indeed, what happened to epdfview? seems it's gone, too.

Yes, WTF? I noticed this a while ago, and xpdf is OK, but not really as nice as epdfview. Every other pdf reader is bloat compared to epdfview and xpdf.

The source for epdfview is here: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/vi ... fview.html

and it builds on my 64-bit sid box. I'll try it on 32-bit and LFS tomorrow.

[ivanovnegro]

Yes, they removed it, cannot remember why but I guess it was some bs we just mentioned.

But guys, really, zathura is top notch, keyboard only, too.

[machinebacon]

Thanks.
Recently I am between zathura and mupdf, and both are equally OK to view PDFs, though they lack certain functions that might be interesting for some (e.g. filling in form fields)
Quite ridiculous that evince-gtk relies on gtk3. WTF do they package evince and evince-gtk if they are both equally bloated. Sad.

[ivanovnegro]

Found it:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=710550

The best part:

We believe that the bug you reported is now fixed; the following
package(s) have been removed from unstable...

[pidsley]

Yes, any of those will do I guess (I just tried zathura and mupdf again, and they're OK). Oh well. Kind of like browsers -- you like what you get used to. I can adapt. :-)

[rhowaldt]

Unvortunately, epdfview upstream developer announced he didn't have any
nor interested anymore in maintaining epdfview. As evince-gtk has been
brought back, it might not make sense to maintain a separate PDF reader.

So I'm asking for its removal, since I don't intend to maintain it for
Jessie.

damn. blatant disregard for the bloat-differences here. Jessie? > Distrowatch :)

[ivanovnegro]

They are forcing Gtk3 all over the table, Xfce is the next one as a whole.

[machinebacon]

...the more they push it down my throat the more I hate it. fuck gtk3, you will never get me. unfortunately, qt4/5 is not an option, too.

so yes, xpdf/mupdf/zathura/fbi/fvi, just for the sake of it.

[machinebacon]

Completely derailing the thread: we could give xournal a chance, actually I like it for being something like a notebook for PDFs.

[GekkoP]

My wife uses xournal and she always tells me "use it, smart ass!". It's a fine tool, she says.

[GekkoP]

Real shame about epdfview, though. Giving zathura a try then.

[rhowaldt]

xournal is really nice, but does more than just displaying your PDF. has options for annotation and such. so that's something to consider - for example, 99% of my PDF use-cases don't require that.

[dkeg]

I had used zathura for awhile now. Real nice and like the keyboard driven setup. However with colin, I didn't install and have been using xpdf which was already installed.

[ivanovnegro]

Moved it here, damn, my internet connection died on me when I did it, lost totally track. :)

[GekkoP]

Yes, xournal does a lot more than xpdf and zathura. Loving zathura, by the way.

[machinebacon]

Some alternatives: apvlv - very VIM-ish, like zathura, very neat UI (none), uses the poppler libraries. Apparently it can also display dejavu files.

and there is "pdfviewer" (what a lovely name), which is really just a PDF viewer but - yesh, guess what - depends on a few qt4 libs (no problem if you have VLC or Skype already on your box)

Similarly slim on dependencies for the same setups is 'qpdfview', as the name suggests.

Calibre and Okular are bloat.

Then there is Foxit Reader (Free), a 3.6 MB download from http://cdn01.foxitsoftware.com/pub/foxi ... 0_i386.deb

Code: Select all

wget http://cdn01.foxitsoftware.com/pub/foxit/reader/desktop/linux/1.x/1.1/enu/FoxitReader_1.1.0_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i FoxitReader_1.1.0_i386.deb

acts very similar to mupdf and epdfview, doesn't pull in much more, and does what it says on the tin.

[bones]

My work requires that I use Acrobat Pro (mega-bloat) on the Mac, of course, but otherwise I use xpdf. Gonna have to try some of the mentioned alternatives.

[ivanovnegro]

Wow, apvlv looks nice, same behavior as zathura and even tabs.

[rhowaldt]

fwiw, i use Foxit (on Win7) at work because Acrobat is a piece of shit, and it is quite good. had no idea it was available on Linux too.

[bones]

...because Acrobat is a piece of shit...

True, dat. I also use Apple's Preview for PDFs, which is simple, non-bloated, fast.