Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

Re. HardFP

If anyone has time and wants to play around. Make a new partition (or loop-mounted file), and try following this:

http://wiki.debian.org/ArmHardFloatChroot

Report your findings :)

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

I've finished preparing my ED partition for uploading. It contains all discussed tweaks (LibreOffice instead of Open Office, Chromium instead of Iceweasel, fixed pulseaudio) + few more. I'm now tar.gz'ing it.

I've spent few hours adjusting GUI settings and panel configurations, including portrait ones (which is quite funny, as I don't think I'll ever use that, but, whatever...). sulu's panels were totally depending on his applications (no offense, as he never stated, that it's looking otherwise) - on my image, being qole's v3e, dist-upgraded to Squeeze, with tweaks mentioned before - only 3 icons were pointing to existing things ;) so I decided to re-create them from scratch.
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In between, I got an idea, that allow us to save precious screen space, and have it all (namely, 800x480 pixels) available for programs, *without* sacrificing existence of panels. Configured to automatically hide, when setup properly, they pop-up on tapping just *outside* the screen. They're perfectly functional, and just disappear when not needed - popping up, they're also on top, so aren't covered by any application, despite it use all available screen.

It require (very) little practice, and, overall, getting used to, but works great. Added benefit, is that we can have larger icons (etc) in panels, to the point of (almost) finger-friendly - popping up and hiding on request, their size doesn't matter.

Honestly, it turned out to work so good (after little tweaking), that it feels just like having 2 new buttons outside N900 screen :) It may be hard to describe by writing, but You'll get what I mean. Just remember, to tap a little bit "outside" screen, on panel's side (tapping need to be a little bit stronger than usual).

Rationale:
Technically, we're using characteristic of resistive touchscreen - it's much less responsible on edges, so tapping "outside", result unavoidably on (registered) short, yet quick "swipe" from inside screen to the edge. Normally, it may be considered con, but in our case, it emulates moving mouse cursor "to the very edge".

On portrait with "docked" xvkbd, I've set top panel to be always visible - it use space from xvkbd head's border (not used for anything), so no reason to hide it.
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I wasn't able to find sulu's orientation.desktop anywhere, so I created one from scratch, using CSSU's image from orientation-lock applet - it fits perfectly as icon for rotating. Of course it's placed on top panel, being easily reachable.

The only glitch I've found, is that after rotation, desktop background doesn't refresh properly (I've set it up a way, that it *should* look good on both landscape [no change here] and portrait) - after "forcing" refresh (by changing desktop display setting, and changing it back), it looks OK, but fail to do so automatically.

Of course, it's *very* minor thing, yet, if someone know good way to force desktop's image refresh in LXDE (kill? What to kill?), I can still update orientation script inside tar.gz to do so.
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I'll upload it as tar.gz - so, perfectly ready for unpacking in dedicated ED partition (will post appropriate command + which file tweak to make chroot look @ for partition, not image file). I can also create image file, if someone tell me how to prepare one accepted by ED, step by step (never used images, and I'm not interested in doing so, due to *high* performance loss when using partition images vs real partition)

/Estel

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

Would it? As far as I understand it an armhf kernel should be able to execute programs compiled for armel. That would mean that the userland doesn't have to be recompiled necessarily, but it would benefit from it.

That was my idea too. But unfortunately I won't have time for that until late next week. So if you have any plans of doing it, please do it!
btw: Do you have any application in mind that might be a good benchmark for an armel vs. armhf performance test (ideall without having to install an X server in the chroot)? I guess video encoding might be a good benchmark).

Sounds familiar. ;)

That tapping outside thing sounds ingenious if it works as you described (not sure if the screens of all the N900s are equally responding). That would actually allow to have four panels, one on each screen edge.

You would have found it in /usr/share/applications of my image. However, whatever .desktop file you created it's surely better than mine since mine was really just made quick&dirty.

Try calling:I don't know if it works but that's what's written in the manpage.
If it works, add that command to the orientation script. I never bothered with that since I use no wallpaper.

Example for a 4GB image:Then just mount the file and copy your data.

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

I´m waiting for Estel new image to trie it opfully with instruction to make a partition or image that I´ve allways used
Thanks

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

I'm using a debian sid armhf chroot on my N9, and its running fine.
It does not have all squeeze packages yet, but I already installed all the devel environmnent, qt, pidgin and so on.

Harmattan itself is hard float abi.

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

I'm trying sulu's suggestions now (thanks, sulu!), so in meantime - to use ED on dedicated partition, You need to - obviously - have dedicated partition ;) You can just create one on microSD card, but best approach - performance wise - is to left microSD for swap, and create partition for ED on eMMC.

Rationale:
The worst things for performance, when talking about swap on flash medium, are I/O collisions. Having swap and /home/ + opt in the same (physical) storage is bad. Having /home/ + opt on one medium, and swap + ED on another is better, but You still generate I/O conflicts, while using ED.

On the other hand, having /home/ + opt and ED on one device, while swap on another is *much* better - normally, You would not create many I/O conflicts between /home + opt and ED (most likely, you won't be doing intensive I/O from both Maemo and ED), and even if, it still doesn't affect SWAP, which sit on microSD (another medium).

As for repartitioning eMMC, there is wiki article about it - basically, it's bets to install backupmenu or backupmenu-multiboot (if You don't have it yet...), then connect N900 in backupmenu's mass-storage mode (read&write) to linuxbox - it may be any system run with linux liveCD. Then, You change partition layout using GUI tools.

Recommended size for Squeeze-based Ed is as least 3GB. It should be sufficient, but if You plan to install plentora of huge things (on top of already installed LibreOffice, GIMP etc), You may think about 4GB. I'm using 3GB and I'm still using only 1,8 GB ;)
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When You have free partition ready, installation would be as simple as untar'ing one (big) file, and modifying small ED script.

/Estel

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

Guess what, it works :)

I would say "ready for prime time", but I've noticed strange, worrying issue. Many times (most), after tapping the screen, LXDE register it as "still clicked", despite fact, that stylus isn't touching screen anymore. Thus, it enables "right-click" when not asked for (cause long-press works like that).

It's not very easy to notice it at beginning, but there is easy way of testing it - open xvkbd, terminal, and try to write something, by taping on virtual keyboard. Tap any letter, then, without touching screen any more, wait for a while. In my case, letter auto-repeat, just because cursor is still "over" letter on vkb.

Sulu, could You check, if it also happens in Your case? Any way, ideas what may be causing this, anyone?

Of course, I've tried restarting LXDE, closing ED image etc, to no avail. I don't remember facing this issue before - it *might* have appeared, after installing patched server xephyr. Yet, don't quote me on it, as it's quite hard to notice. Most of the times, you think that long-press menu appeared by accident, and while I was irritated by it few times today, I acknowledged bug only, when, accidentally, deleted top panel and canceled "this dialog is needed to gain keyboard focus in LXDE", so I was forced to use terminal and xvkbd to properly shutdown LXDE. Writing on virtual keyboard clearly indicated bug, by auto-repeating letters (they auto-repeat on moderate speed, when letter is keep pressed), that's why I suggested checking it this way.

On 2 devices that I've tested, it works flawlessly - 100% of times - by tapping every edge of the screen. 4 panels are 100% possible - it's just me, who use 2 panels and still have much free space on them - my invention on filling it with content seems small :p

/Estel

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

I can't confirm this. Starting a terminal and clicking a letter in xvkbd doesn't produce any other letters afterwards.
I'm not sure what might cause this bug but it kind of reminds me of the ctrl button issue that I encountered after my dist-upgrade (see regressions list in ED wiki article). I didn't pay attention to it anymore but now that I checked it sems to be gone. No idea if it has to do with the xephyr backport.
However, can you please try if pressing ctrl stops writing further letters? Just to make sure it's not a coincidence if it works, please try Shift too.
It might also be interesting to know what xev says when this happens.

I can confirm that it works for me too.
But I noticed one minor problem: If there is an icon in the panel where the mouse cursor will be placed, that icon will be launched. So you'll have to take care to click only areas where no icons are in the panel.

Four panels might be overkill, but I think three could be useful:
The two long sides for an application launcher panel with big icons and a task bar panel. One of the short sides for status indicators like a clock or notification area.

Have you been able to test the iceweasel/chromium touchscreen addons yet?

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

@Estel
So are we seeing your new ED img. soon?

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 

I've tested ctrl, shift, and blue arrow (also thought about it) - bug still exist.

Yet, thanks to Your suggestion with xev, I've noticed something, which makes this bug even more strange. Xev doesn't have anything to tell about it - just like it doesn't happen (register one click). Then, trying it again with xvkbd, it seems that I was wrong initially - it *isn't* long-press. Long press looks different - xvkbd key becomes "black" (virtually pushed down), and keys repeat quite fast.

In case of my bug, after initial press, xvkbd doesn't look pressed at all, and keys keep repeating at quite slow rate (I called it "moderate" in last post). It looks, like just having cursor over xvkbd key, makes it repeat.

On the other hand, if I *really* long-press some xvkbd key (making it repeat quickly), and then lift stylus (stop it, not touching screen anymore), keys are *not* repeating - of course, until I tap on other key. So, long press before, negates strange "repeating" presses.

I have no fckn clue about what is happening here...

BTW - on other parts that xvkbd, it isn't 100% reproducible - most times, tapping is recognized properly (as one click) - yet, when I try some clicks repeatedly (for example, switching between 4 available LXDE desktops), it start to appear as long-press (submenu appear 0.5 second or so after tap).

Trying the same on xvkbd, I can *never* make it to register "real" long-press wrongly (i.e, key *never* look like pressed - black, pushed down, etc) - of course, unless i long-press it really.

Very strange, but, overall, for other scenarios that using xvkbd, it isn't entirely critical, so I'm going to publish my image - I wonder what other people reports will be. Still, any clues *highly* appreciated.

So, I'm using Scrollbars Anywhere (Chromium) from the very beginning, and it's working great. As for Iceweasel, I haven't tested it - I'm not using it any longer.