Hello:

Since I moved from Mint 17.3 32bit to Mint 18 64bit I have been without Barry Desktop (originally from Net Direct Inc. then maintained by Chris Frey).

http://www.netdirect.ca/software/packages/barry

The motive:
---

From:
Chris Frey <cdfrey@fo...>
2016-08-02 20:28:03

Hi, Unfortunately there are no plans to update the binary packaging available on Sourceforge at this time. The packages that are there are pretty old, and are only there for historical reasons. Also, Barry has been removed from Debian unstable due to lack of upstream and Debian maintenance (I was the main guy for both and just didn't have the time). So this means that future Ubuntu and Mint distros are unlikely to have Barry either, even without opensync support. - Chris

---

So it seems that, to all extents and purposes, the software has been abandoned. It's a pity because it is simple and worked quite well.

Although the sync did not work, it was not an issue as I never used any of the software it synced with and incredibly enough, the BB software did not have an address book/calendar to sync with.

But I could edit the address/telephone/appointments/etc. databases perfectly well as well as do backups, all I needed.

There is an up to date (2016-02-03) version for Fedora (RPM package), maintained by Dennis Gilmore but I have not been able to contact him about a port to Mint 64bit.

http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/rpms/barry.git

Running the crap software from Blackberry under Wine is really not an option as it didn't even run half decently on its native Windows platform so at cannot expect anything much there.

I tried using Alien (RPM to DEB) but it did not work.

Does anyone know of a suitable replacement?

Thanks in advance,

A.

I fear there is little interest in supporting or using Barry desktop. I do not use it, and so am unsure of what features or benefit a Barry user might consider key.

For a somewhat minimal desktop I like fluxbox, but lxde and openbox are viable alternatives as well. There are SO MANY others, your best bet may be to research it yourself. There are LiveCD versions of many distributions available: and with different desktop environments that you can try and test before making your decision.

If your PC will boot from a USB device, I would get a cheap USB key and install EASY2BOOT on it, then drop on as many livecd ISO files as you might want to test. Boot from each in turn, keeping notes about what you liked and hated about each, until one wins or you decide you need to search further.

Personally, I try to avoid the big, bulky desktops like Gnome and KDE, but: KDE-Plasma has some of the finest desktop effects, applications, and eye-candy! Gnome and offspring are solid and dependable with powerful toys of their own. While I dislike how they slow my machines, you might decide they are worth consideration.

Best of luck....

1 members found this post helpful.

Good morning:

Thanks for taking the time to write. =-)
Please do accept my apologies. I fear I have not explained myself correctly.

If you check the link submitted in my original post, in the first paragraph titled "Overview" you will a comprehensive description of Barry Desktop.

---
" ... an Open Source application that provides a Desktop GUI, synchronization, backup, restore and program management for BlackBerry ™ devices.

Barry is primarily developed on Linux, but is intended as a cross platform library and application set, targeting Linux, BSD, 32/64bit, and big/little endian systems."
---

As of the latest version (2013), it works with all BlackBerry devices older than the Z10, many of which are still out there working perfectly well.

Although I use Linux Mint 18 64bit, I have kept a separate Mint 17.3 32bit installed just for using Barry desktop, eventually to be migrated to VirtualBox as soon as I have time for it.

Barry Desktop is exclusively directed towards Blackberry users who use Linux and not Windows and that's exactly where the interest lies.

As soon as more Linux 32bit installs move towards 64bit versions, there will be still more Linux users needing to use Barry Desktop or something equivalent.

Blackberry has shown little interest in proper Windows support or anything else that was not Windows related, irrespective of the fact that the quality of the software which is regular to bad, to say the least.

As a result, it is all but impossible to use the native BB application under Wine, which is not surprising as to install and use it under its native environment (ie: Windows) is more than anything a source of frustration.

Unfortunately, apparently only Fedora has a working 64bit version.

Just my $0.02, YMMV.

So, as you can surely gather, we're actually talking about two very different animals here.

In any case, once again please accept my apologies for not being as clear as I should have been in my original post, it happens that english is not my native language.

Best regards,

A.

Yes I see that. My company had me carry a Blackberry for a few years, then downgraded to iPhones. I never used software to communicate with it from the desktop and did not associate that. Ignore my earlier mis-posting.

Blackberry seems to be going away, and the latest news is that new ones will be android based. (Bad news, and good in a way. They were the more secure and productive option while it lasted.) I would assume that the new ones will be able to use fairly standard Android tools and techniques for integration and communication.

If, on the other hand, you have an older one that is not Android based then running the version of Fedora with adequate BB support for your device may be the only viable option. You may want to hit up DISTROWATCH and search through some of the spins that are fedora related or fedora based that might include this package. I used to know a couple of blackberry forums with a linux subsection, but I last remember hitting one of those about six years ago and do not recall the URL. Looking for such a group may be the faster option. As i remember, they were friendly and helpful.

it looks a bit like gnome2

install rhel 6 or cent6
or use lxde on mint