Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Any app that can handle pdf forms? Is Acrobat available for Debian Armel?

--denis

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

After installing mini-Gnome, I have found two Gnome apps to be very nice in OS2008 as well.

gThumb: A really nice little picture viewer, it can do simple picture manipulation, and it has a rocking fullscreen mode with an autohiding finger friendly menu bar.

Nautilus file browser: Wow. You can connect to just about any file source, be it FTP, SMB, SSH or just local files, and browse the files and folders easily. It also has really good support for mime types and "open with".

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Hi,

last year I tried to convince people to install debian on N800. But now the situation is much better, as lenny / armel is becoming official.

I wrote down some notes how I installed lenny / armel on N800 using vncviewer to get the graphical interface. Especially on N800 this has the advantage to have the maemo on screen keyboard availible.

I used debootstrap to install lenny, which is quite a clean way. Of cause it takes some time (for complete gnome environment some hours)
But you get a lot of applications, which probably nobody will port to maemo. I use kstars, octave, maxima (broken at the moment on armel, but I hope it will be fixed soon), and what you need. The armel port statistics say, that more than 95% of the i386 applications of debian work.

My aim is to get a one click installer for debian / lenny onto diablo distribution! The only hand made should be formating the sd card with some unix file system.

Who likes to take part?

Here is my howto: http://www.physik.de/770

Detlef

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

dschmicker, please look at the Deblet website for more info about current efforts to make a complete tablet Debian bootstrap installer. Also, my Easy Debian package does an easy install of a chroot Debian environment, using a big image file with all the apps pre-installed and the Xephyr nested x-server to host a window manager instead of VNC.

There was a mysterious user, "megami", who got me interested in Debian last January. Here is his teaser screenshot post, and then here's his explanation post. He even wrote up a wiki article on the subject.

Any relation?

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Thanks,

the guys from deblet project just contacted me. My problem is: The main problems and the main work is done for booting debian on tablet.

This is much more difficult, and it has licence issues. For me it is important to get as many applications as possible on the tablet. Therefore the vncviewer approach with chroot. vncviewer has the additional advantage that it offers a 800x600 virtual display, which makes most (all?) debian applications usable without screen size issues.

The big image approach is not option to me (I do not like it:-)

(by the way, no relation with this mysterious poster)

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

I found that a 770x770 virtual display is best; you get a single vertical scrollbar.

I prefer running my Debian apps in OS2008 rather than a secondary WM. See this post for my most recent chroot scripts that integrate Debian almost seamlessly ('debbie openoffice' runs Debian openoffice in OS2008).

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Vectoroids would be lots of fun if there was a way to remap the fire button to something other than the space bar. I bet it works well on the N810.

EDIT: I'm going to do some experimenting with xmodmap and xbindkeys to see if I can remap the N800 keys to be more useful for Debian programs. Should be interesting. (I confess, I'm adding this edit so I can use this post as reference for those two posts, oh and the xbindkeys info and some xmodmap info too :D )

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Ok, so here's what you do to make Vectoroids lots of (loud) retro-gaming fun:

Start up your Debian chroot, and enter the following (you could make a script if you find it to be as much fun as I do)

The important keys (after this mapping) are:
DPad up: thrusters
DPad left & right: rotate counter & clockwise
Menu key: fire gun

(note that this game seems to have been ported already, oh well. I'm going to chalk this one up as "I've figured out how to remap the keys on an application-specific basis...)

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

If they absolutely have to be in the "extras" menu.. open a terminal:
as root
Code:
cp /usr/share/applications/hildon/ooo.desktop /usr/share/applications/hildon/mynewapp.desktop
vi /usr/share/applications/hildon/mynewapp.desktop
Change to something like
Code:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=UberSoftware
GenericName=UberSoftware
Exec=debbie application
Icon=<find an icon, or leave it to be Open Office's>

Thanks, Fatalsaint. I got the app into my custom menu and when I click on the app it opens in Hildon window(sweeeet!!!). Now can you please write out the path where the Icon for Openoffice.png is so I can add my new Debian apps icon into that path. I will show a screenshot afterwards.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Qole The Debian bug I mentioned earlier has come back.

Here is what happens. I'm in Easy Debian I only have one app running say Iceweasel Web Browser. I have turned off all non essential background apps, applets, status bar, etc..( clock, bluetooth, omweather). After about 45 minutes my screen will go white and the sound and light status menus reappear and my wifi gets re-started. Now I did re-flash both sdhc cards, re-did my easy dual boot by PB, installed Easy Debian on my mmc1 card, have almost no apps loaded yet so I could see if this bug came back as before. Anyone know how to trace it so I can post results. Last time it did this I was in Synaptic manager upgrading and it trashed both Debian and Hildon that I had to completely redo do both. TIA

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

This is a little off-topic from the situation but:

Emelfm2
The ultimate filesystem tool now available for Deblet!

This is a raw port of emelfm2 witch will make the need of editing/minipulating/reparing components of Deblet from Maemo allmost obsolete! :D

Special thanks: fatalsaint for helping in porting this powerful program to Deblet using scratchbox.

Download

Screenshots:

Btw,i'm running xkbd.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

That actually wasn't ported from Ubuntu.. that was the latest source downloaded from emelfm2's website... it's newer than the latest Ubuntu version :).

Ubuntu is 0.3.5; this is 0.4.1. I'll be making another thread for software people want ported.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Wops, thanks for pointing that out :p

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

This is a really cool program. I would love to see this ported to maemo.

GParted

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3253/...6053de39_o.png


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3037/...2ec5c94e_o.png

Notes:

I found I had to do this to get the dbus side of things working. Don't know if I needed to do it or not; gparted-bin seems to work even if I don't set up the dbus stuff.

In Maemo xterm (not Debian), after mounting Debian partition:

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Flyback works pretty good in debian with all the python dependencies installed.

It's got some bugs but I'm not sure if they are bugs with the software or bugs in the way it runs on the tablet lol.. but it is a good way to keep backups of your tablet to an external USB drive :)..

It follows the idea of the Macintosh "Time Machine"..

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Flyback isn't technically a Debian app... ;)

Actually, with the python dependencies in place, it should work in Maemo, too, right?

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

If you're looking for an awesome calculator, try qalculate - makes also algebraic, fractions, conversions, plots and also other maths I'm not smart enough to understand :-)

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Theoretically yes.. but I don't think all the dependencies are ported to Maemo..

Especially the Gnome2 and maybe the sqlite3...

But yeah.. as long as all the python dependencies are there it should work.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Well I got the Debian chroot apps installed into my menu(see below). I still need advise on where to put the icon files(perferably where the ooo-gull icon resides since it seems to be friendly with the apps in my menu).

Anyone get QTStalker running. I've got it installed with all the libs and dependencies but can't seem to get it going, same for GMPC. All the others work great. I love being able to load from my menu and then go into maemo apps if need be.
Great work guys, especially Qole, B-man and Fatalsaint(Hope I didn't forget someone).

Qole I'm requesting for next Easy Deb. KDE full, QTStalker, flash, Android, MPD, GMPC, Emelfm2, QT apps for starters. I'd be willing to assist in testing.

Once I get rotation and speed into dual boot I will start Full Debian( I think its Deblet now with KDE v4).

I'm slow but I get it done eventually. :)

TIA

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Just a follow-up. If you want to mess about with partitions at all, GParted officially rocks.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3031/...7e0347eb_o.png

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Qole, Will GParted work for Easy Debian and it like it would allow me to make a duplicate copy of entire mmc2 including dual boot with Diablo. I need a quick way to make a backup mmc2 for testing purposes. I do this with mmc1 where I put Easy Debian. It allows me to redo Easy Debian in 3 minutes flat. TIA

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

It seems that I spoke a little too soon. GParted works great with unmounted ext2 partitions. I have tried to resize the fat32 partition on an 8GB card and the fat32 partition on my external USB HDD, both with no success. In both cases, the fat32 partition filled the entire device. In both cases, the fat32 partition was auto-mounted in Maemo. GParted couldn't unmount the partitions (because they were mounted in Maemo, and the chroot mounts were just bindings, I think) so I closed the chroot, unmounted the partitions, started the chroot back up and tried again... However, when the fat32 partitions were unmounted, GParted claimed that it couldn't read them, and so wouldn't allow me to resize them. So I mounted them within the chroot and tried again. GParted won't let me resize because the partition is mounted. So I unmount from within GParted. This time, the unmount is a success. However, the same error occurs. When unmounted, the fat32 partition becomes unreadable and so cannot be resized. Argh!

I guess the workaround is to format the drive and create a half-size fat32 partition, then use GParted to mess about with secondary partitions.

Dan: GParted has "copy" as one of the options for a partition, so I suspect what you want would work.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

I wonder now hard it would be to port Gparted to maemo, besides hildonization. after all, it's practicly available for armel, all that probably needds tweaking (becides hildonization) is the library files that run it.

Btw, i will be a little busy, I acsidently killed my deblet install and i'm working with Stskeeps to try to bring it back from the dead.. I worked too hard to have to just re-install deblet and loose all the work i put into it (my awsome desktop and all the apps i installed allong with marrine pluse all my costom themes and screenlets).

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Qole, I installed Gparted and it gave me a Hal error but I have Hal installed, then it gave me a gnome-device-manager error but I have gnome-device-manager installed, etc... Below is screen shot of Synaptic manager and the debian chroot. Anyway to get Gparted working on Easy Debian? I need Gparted for copying mmc2. TIA

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Dan, I discuss the error you show in your second screenshot in my post above:

I suggest trying gparted-bin first. If you are not happy with that, try the mount command and then try gparted again.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Qole,

Thanks got it loaded. I don't see any devices though? Below is a screenshot. I have Debian in mmc1 and dual boot in mmc2. Any ideas?? Newbie question

Also how do I set up the menu path to apps like GParted, GTKOrphan etc... that require you to go in from chroot? Newbie question

B-man sorry to hear about your lost Debian. :( This happened to me about five times before I created a backup solution to Easy Debian that I regularly update so that as I test new apps, features, etc.. in Easy Debian, I know that I can be backup in 5 minutes or less.

This is why I drive everyone crazy on these forums looking for a backup solution to mmc2 with dual boot and Diablo. So if mmc2 gets fried I can just reload the entire mmc2 card in a few minutes with a mirror backup of my previous mmc2 setup. So far no one has shown me a way to completely create a mirror backup. I can do it for Easy Debian on mmc1, but no go on mmc2. Let's find a way to do this so we can test to our hearts content and know that if it get's fried we can replace and be backup in a few minutes.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

You have to run gparted with arguments i.e. your different storage medians. So, I would run at the debian prompt "gparted /dev/mmcblk0 /dev/mmcblk1" ;)

As for the proper commands to launch debian apps from outside the terminal, what is it qole? 'sudo debian hilda <app>' or 'debbie <app>' or 'sudo debian -u user <app>', I don't know, it seems like it keeps changing... :confused:

Edit: Ok, I just tested it, and "sudo debian hilda <app>" seems to work. So that is what you'd put in the Exec= line of your .desktop file.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

BrentDC many thanks.
Gparted and Emelfm2 are very powerful apps for Nxx's.
Would you happen to know how to make a mirror copy of mmc2 using Gparted?
Also do you happen to know how to activate GMPC and QTStalker?? I got them loaded but I can't seem to activate(similar to GParted problem you just solved).
I know the sudo debian hilda <app>. When I try to launch Gparted from a menu I get an error message saying, 'Gparted must be run from root'. Just testing to see if it can be run from menu so I don't have to remember all these commands. GTKOrphan is the same way. On the Maemo side I have several apps that need to be run from command line. Any ideas?? TIA

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

"sudo debian hilda <app>" is the first, oldest, and always the safest way to launch an app from the menu. If you have the newest scripts from the "Running Debian in a chroot" thread, you can use the shorter (and, I suppose, more 'correct') "debbie <app>". The debbie script had some problems in previous versions of the scripts.

EDIT: If you want to run a Debian app as root, drop the "hilda" so that it is just "sudo debian <app>".

I wonder if the QTStalker app is having difficulties because you ran it as root, and now the permissions are messed up? Maybe post any errors you get in the terminal...

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

I've never run QTStalker from root until now. Below is the errors I get.
chroot set up already!
Everything set up, running chroot...
[root@Debian: /]qtstalker
ASSERT: "i <= nodes" in /usr/include/qt3/qvaluelist.h (376)
QGDict::hashKeyString: Invalid null key
Config::getDbPlugin:/usr/lib/qtstalker/db/lib.0.32 Dll error

QGDict::hashKeyString: Invalid null key
QRangeControl::setRange: minValue 0 > maxValue -1
Config::getIndicator:can't open indicator file /home/user/.qtstalker/data0/indicator/Indicators/
ASSERT: "i <= nodes" in /usr/include/qt3/qvaluelist.h (376)
QGDict::hashKeyString: Invalid null key
Config::getDbPlugin:/usr/lib/qtstalker/db/lib.0.32 Dll error

QGDict::hashKeyString: Invalid null key
QRangeControl::setRange: minValue 0 > maxValue -1
QGDict::hashKeyString: Invalid null key
[root@Debian: /]
I hope you know what all this means because I'm too new to this to undestand. QTStalker does load and I can configure but it just can't seems to access the downloaded files from yahoo. TIA.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

No problem. It was mostly just me robbing the info from one of qole's posts a little while back :o

Yes they are; you know Emelfm2 is available for Hildon, too? I use it constantly...

Sadly, no. I haven't really looked to see what Gparted can do yet...

I'm not familiar with those applications. I may take a look in a while...

As qole said, drop the hilda and they run as root.

You mean Hildon apps? Then I strongly recommend you take a look at Personal Menu. It has nice little checkbox's for "Run in Terminal" and "Run as Root" [for hildon apps].

@qole: I happened to stumble across this one:

"sudo debian sudo -u user <app>" to run as user, and:

"sudo debian sudo -u root <app>" to run as root. Pretty kludgy though.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Yeah, that's kinda what hilda and debbie do.

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Dan:

I noticed you ran qtstalker as root. That's almost always a bad idea. I still suspect that your permissions are causing you grief.

From the [root@Debian] prompt, do this:

This should delete your qtstalker settings and force the program to re-create them. And since you're running qtstalker as user now (notice the "hilda" in there? Don't forget it!) your permissions should be correct.

If it doesn't run still, post your terminal output...

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Thanks Qole and BrentDC WOOOHOOO!! I got both Gparted and GTOrpan running from my menu. To run Gparted from menu properly you need to write out ' Exec=sudo debian gparted /dev/mmcblk0 /dev/mmcblk1 '. In case anyone wants to see their partitions. Now how to get GMPC and QTStalker running properly. TIA

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Here is my terminal output fot QTStalker.

[root@Debian: /]rm -r /home/user/ .qtstalker
rm: cannot remove directory `/home/user': Device or resource busy
rm: cannot remove `.qtstalker': No such file or directory
[root@Debian: /]hilda qtstalker
su user -c qtstalker

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Thanks BrentDC for fielding the questions; people seem to listen to you more than to me, for some reason. I guess I'm not spelling things out clearly enough...

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Um, yikes. You just tried to delete your entire home directory. There is no space before .qtstalker in that command!

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

OK that 'rm' just trashed my entire unit. I lost all my custom menus. I now have a mouse pointer on my screen!!! I don't have a mouse connected!!! HAHAHAHA!!!! In file manager my user/documents/image folder has disappeared. Any idea how to fix this. I can easily restore Debian the mmc2 dual boot works. But how do I bring up the Maemo stuff. Yikes!! HEEEELLLPPPP!!!

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

.... Ouch.

You just remove forced your entire maemo home directory... there likely isn't a way to get that back.. you gotta watch them spaces man o.o...

Looks like you need to re-clone your flash.... There isn't a trash bin when using rm =-(

Re: Debian Apps That Run Well On The Tablets
 

Boy I missed that one! So what do I do now? See why I need to backup everything. ;)