On Tue, Apr 04, 2023 at 01:20:57AM +0000, Stephan, Corey J wrote: > Fellow OpenBSD Users, > > What are academics and others who require citation management using in > OpenBSD nowadays?
I use ‘ebib’ with emacs.[1] ebib is excellent for managing bibtex databases and inserting citations in LaTeX, org-mode or Markdown source files. Then, any of these files can be converted into .odt document files. > The two main open source citation management applications are Zotero > (zotero.org) and JabRef (jabref.org). A decade ago, Zotero could be run > as a Firefox extension, and JabRef could be run with Java as a simple > .jar, but both only have been available as larger stand-alone > applications for several years. > > In FreeBSD Ports, thanks to a push there for porting end-user utilities > for academic and office work over the past 2-3 years, there is both > science/zotero (native Zotero build with patches) and print/jabref > (Linuxulator JabRef build based on the official portable GNU/Linux > binary). In OpenBSD Ports, as of this moment, there actually is not any > citation management tool available. > > I have tried several approaches to getting Zotero or JabRef running, > including (to see what might be doable) a few that are non-viable for > actual work (since they would not sync with LibreOffice, etc.): > - Running old Zotero extension (rather than current stand-alone) in > Seamonkey --> incompatible (always only for Firefox) > - Running 6-8 old versions of JabRef (spanning 3.X, 4.X, & 5.X) in all 3 > versions of jdk currently in ports --> all non-executable because of no > access to OpenFX/JavaFX > - (More seriously) compiling current Zotero --> halfway there? (see next) > > COMPILING ZOTERO? > > Here are the official directions to compile Zotero: > https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/client_coding/building_the_standalone_client > > A friend in irc helped find that `npm run build` works correctly in > OpenBSD 7.2+ if we first set `export NODE_OPTIONS=openssl-legacy-provider` > > Yet, the subsequent build steps fail for me, regardless of whether `-p > l` (Linux) is chosen inside the official /zotero-standalone-build > repository or `-p f` (FreeBSD) is chosen from Mikael Urankar's fork with > clearly labeled patches for FreeBSD: > https://github.com/MikaelUrankar/zotero-standalone-build > > See also (GitHub) MikaelUrankar/zotero-pdftools for Urankar's patches to > Poppler PDF Tools for FreeBSD to go along with /zotero-standalone-build, > as well as MikaelUrankar/zotero-ports for his science/zotero FreeBSD > Port Makefile. > > The error messages in the second half of the Zotero build steps on > OpenBSD are many, but the core of what seems to me to be happening is > that (even in the expected Bash) OpenBSD is not manipulating the old > Firefox (runtime) upon which Zotero (stand-alone) is built in the way(s) > that Zotero requires. Presumably, part of the solution will be pointing > the script to old Firefox (xul runner) *for OpenBSD* (it currently > relies on firefox-60.9.0esr.tar.*). Someone here will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that at some point Zotero needs xul to be compiled, which has been dropped from OpenBSD. This is why I didn't even try to compile it. > ----- > > Bounty or simple "thank you"? There will be lunch on me at BSDCan in > exchange for the generosity of whichever person can help those of us who > rely on Zotero or JabRef by pointing us to a way to run either (or > both?) inside OpenBSD. > > Gratias ago vobis, et oro Deum vos benedicare, > Corey > > ----- Well, that said, I found a way to run Zotero from a Devuan VM with vmd(8). Once Devuan is installed, running Zotero is as simple as this: ssh -Y 100.64.1.3 zotero The overall process to achieve that is described here: <https://astro-gr.org/openbsd-vm>. (I preferred Devuan.) Then, from within the VM, you can connect back to the host with sshfs so that Zotero can see your files on the host. With this simple method, you can go as far as to run Zotero + LibreOffice from the VM. I tried, and it works suprisingly well, but in my opinion there is little point in doing this: you might as well use Devuan instead of OpenBSD. Personally, I needed Zotero as it is excellent for converting bibliographic databases into TEI xml format. > Corey Stephan, Ph.D. > coreystephan.com Footnotes: [1] http://joostkremers.github.io/ebib
