Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Sorry guys, I didn't get the new images built this weekend. I will keep trying.

Addison: You need to format the card into two partitions. The first partition should be FAT32 and it should be fairly small, no bigger than 2 GB. The rest of the card should have an ext2 partition.

GParted is quite graphical and straightforward. Make sure you choose your SD card in the drop-down box in the top right, and then you can repartition just by clicking on the different coloured partitions. Since you seem to have blanked the card anyway, I'd delete the existing partitions and create new ones. In fact, you could probably tell it to make a new partition table, wiping the whole card.

One thing that might help when making the first FAT32 partition is to uncheck the "round to cylinders" option and make sure that you leave 8MB free at the beginning of the card. Lots of cards leave a bit of space at the beginning like that. Not sure why, just something they do.

Can you try to use the GParted live CD to do repartition your card, and then ask specific questions about places in the procedure where you're having problems?

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Yeah, I'll give it another try with gparted in about 15 minutes.

Anyway, in Windows XP, I right clicked on the SD card and formatted the whole thing to fat32 but the card still remains corrupted no matter what I do.

Good times! *lol*

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison: In XP, try

Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage \ Disk Management

Right-click on the SD card, choose "Delete Partition" and then make a new partition and format it as FAT32.

If it is still corrupted, take the card out of the computer, and see how far away you can stand and still hit the garbage can with the card. :(

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Okay. I'm currently in the middle of doing this though.

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/9561/killi.png

Looks like it might take about 10 more minutes. I'll let you know how it turns out. :)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Balls. *lol*

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/833/kill2b.png

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/5770/66754924.png

What filthy crap have I done now? :D

I never should have tried this over the weekend while getting bubbly on a few beers.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Delete Partition is not available.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/8058/58292362.png

Do these SandDisk cards microwave easily? :D

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison:
Try the GParted Live CD.
After that, I'm fresh out of ideas. I don't know why things aren't working for you. I'm no SD card format guru...
Weird that the card looks fine ("healthy") in Windows but not in the tablet!

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I just put in another memory card that has been faithful to me for over two years and the tablet is saying that even that is now corrupted.

I have Easy Debian installed but no image file.

I think what happened is that I had your image file on the memory card but didn't have it partitioned correctly.

Your app then started to download the image and I tried stopping it in some stupid way.

Looks like a reflash is needed. :(

Oh well. This way I can screw up, I mean start up all over again.

Let this be a lesson to all of you kids... Never drink and (use a computer) drive. *lol*

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Hi Qole

Dunno what the problem for most people is this seemed to go really easy on my 800. BUT.......

Maybe I didnt do it right.

I installed easy debian from maemo and downloaded the image to my pc. I then unpacked the ext2 image and copied it to my external SD.

When I ran chroot it said it found the image I then ran lxde and it loaded fine.

Browser works, xterm works, su works, filemanager works, open office ....well i am still waiting for any of the ooapps to load 30minutes.

When I look in filemanager at home/user it says I have 935mb free from a total of 1.5gb. So did I miss a step and not install it correctly since other posts i have seen say there should only be about 80mb left?

Would this be why openoffice wont load?

Also I want to install XAMPP is there any advice you can offer.

Other than this I think this is awesome.

BTW how do I get the package manager to work within debian it says i need a password but cant find what it might be. su seems to work without needing one.

cheers

Jim Barnes

-edit-

Just ignore the question about the loading speed of oo apps I didnt realise that i installed easy debian in my cloned install instead of in the internal which i have now done and the apps load in about 4 minutes.

-edit-

I also worked out what the issue with the size of available memory was about. it was because of the cloned install using a fs2 partition and easy debian automatically recognised it as part of its install and was showing the free space from the clone install.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison, hordeman, anyone else who is interested:

I have made a slightly smaller (1.9 GB) image file with exactly the same stuff that's in the N900 version. Can someone try downloading it and testing it with their N8x0? If it still says "not found" I will try making the image even smaller (1.8 GB? 1.7?), but I'm hoping that this will be enough.

Here's the file. It needs lzma (or 7zip) to decompress it, so you may have to do that on a desktop computer. I haven't really had much time to check these things on my N800 lately...

debian-n8x0-v3c.img.ext2.lzma

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Okay. So I tried that Gparted CD twice and both times it crashed the poopies out of my computer. :(

Apparently, walking away from the computer for 10 minutes while the CD is trying to ask me questions was not a good idea.

So anyway, I'm once again trying to get my nerd on here.

I stayed this time while the CD was booting and I think I might be finally there.

Does this look about right to you, qole?
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/3994/gpartede.png

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison: looks good so far.

New image update: works for me!

I installed p7zip-full (sudo apt-get install p7zip-full) and extracted the image on the tablet with:
OpenOffice writer in LXDE takes 3.5 minutes to typable window with processor set to "performance".

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Wow. This new image is SUPER FAST. Without even using turbo, I too got 3 and 1/2 minutes for the OO startup. LXDE is up and going in second as well. Everything is much more responsive. Qole, you are a god!!!

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

new image works great for me as well. Oddly enough, the desktop seems to be in the same icon configuration as it was before I had to reformat my SD card (which contained the old image). Is the home folder stored locally or is this by sheer coincidence?

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

notnarb: LXDE configuration is stored in various sub-directories in the /home/user/.config directory and will remain the same even if you change the image file.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Newly flashed and I'm fairly sure I did this right.

On my mmc1 card, there's now only
debian-n8x0-v3c.img.ext2.lzma 283.0 MB
debian-n8x0-v3c.img.ext2 1.45 GB

I have yet to install Easy Debian yet because I caught that error.

Permission to swear excessively?!!?!??!? :p


Edit: Reflashing fixed that whole memory card corruption mess by the way.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison: did you partition the card now? If you did, you're doing it wrong. You want to dump the contents of debian-m5-v3b-rootfs.tar.bz2 into your new partiton.

The v3c image file is 1.9 GB, you need at least 2 GB free in your FAT partiton if you're going to go that route. But if you have the dedicated partition, use that instead.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Wonderful stuff! I really like it. I have a few questions.
1. Can I install Python and Octave in it? How?
2. How to install other softwares? Are they installed on externa card?
3. I tried to install Abiword from synaptic package manager, but I was told that some packages cannot be retrieved.How to resolve that?

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

That previous screen I showed where you said it looked good, I went ahead and clicked on apply and watched Gparted do it's thing.

I dropped that debian file on mmc1 through a USB cable in Windows XP but I didn't see anything different with the card.

The card was blank so I assumed the partitions were invisible.

Is there a command in Xterm to see if in fact I partitioned it correctly?

Thanks chief!

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Hi Addison,

Perhaps the best thing for you to do is to download and put the file I linked to above (debian-m5-v3b-rootfs.tar.bz2) onto your external card. Delete everything else off of the card for now.

Then, from the N810 command prompt, do the following:

Make sure your /home/user/.chroot file has a line (with no # in front):
IMGFILE=/dev/mmcblk1p2

Then things should "just work" from your new partition.

If for some reason things do not work, try /dev/mmcblk0p2 instead of /dev/mmcblk1p2

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Sorry for being so late to the party on this. :)

Hey, I know I could probably find the answer after searchiing the forums for 17 heptendecillion hours, but real quick, it's asking for
password:

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison: where is it asking for the password? It shouldn't be asking for the password anywhere in my instructions, if you have Easy Debian installed...

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I have yet to install easy chroot (sp?) yet.

Still trying to bang out a way for your image to decompress on the card.

I just now checked my memory card using GParted again and this is what I'm seeing on my end.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/6817/shotb.jpg

Is this because I'm coming up just a titch short on the ext2 partition?

I waited for you to say that everything looked good first before I clicked on the apply tab to create it........ (I'm projecting blame *lol*)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Install easy-chroot and that will pull in the required apps for decompressing the rootfs, like gtar and bzip2.

The "unallocated" space suggests that you left "round to cylinders" checked. It's probably safe to leave the card partitioned as-is, or you could resize one of the partitions to get rid of that space.

You don't have enough space on your card anymore for the image file. Don't even try it. You have to dump the rootfs into your new partition now.

Install easy-deb-chroot, then follow my instructions for putting Debian on the ext2 partition.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Sorry to bug, but I need help expanding the img file into a partition. :) I repartitioned my card so that I now have a 2GB ext2 partition and have labeled it "debian". However, the new partition is not showing up in my file manager.

So, I specifically need help with the following:
* How do I get my new partition to show up in file manager?
* What is the command to mount the .img.ext2 file?
* After I mount to a particular location, it's just a matter of copying over the file contents, right? Then, from there, change the path in .chroot?

BTW, I asked Addison, but it stumped him too. I also tried to mount the partition block to /media/debian, but the debian label didn't show up. In fact the partition 2 label showed up twice.

Thanks in advance!

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Yep, with the help of Hordeman I finally got it working!

Witness?!!! :D

But still, I'm not getting it. *lol*

So in the end, I have a fully FAT32 card that I put the debian-n8x0-v3c.img.ext2 file on which was 1.79 GB.

So yeah, it works and all, but I thought it was supposed to go on the EXT2 partition which, as of now, I have none.

My biggest problem is that I don't know how to drop a file in there (EXT2) using Windows XP.

When I had my card partitioned in halfsies, FAT32 and EXT2, whatever I dropped on the card would go directly to FAT32. In fact, EXT2 doesn't show up anywhere. The only thing the computer shows in that there's a reduced overall size on my Sandisk Card.

Anyway, I'm happy and all, but really would like to do what Hordeman is trying to do and see if it boosts the speed up just a titch. :)

I've done the whole dropping ext2 on memory card help how to wtf partition dear god no! Google search and most of the links just point to file recovery programs. :(

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Guys, could you try the instructions in my post 140 above?

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

So you want us to go back to the vb3 image and not use the newer vc3 image?

Also, you want the entire card reformatted to fat32 first?

Lastly, you want that old vb3 image zipped and uncompressed on the card?

It would be so much easier if you just made a video of this featuring cartoon drawings and shadow finger puppet props on how to install your wonderful junk correctly. :)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison, the v3b rootfs (NOT the image file) is close enough for your purposes. You need to mount your new partition and then use gtar to dump the entire Debian system into the partiton. The image file should be left out of the discussion entirely; it only complicates things.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Ok. So, noooooow I understand. I really wasn't getting that I couldn't extract the img contents, but instead I had to use the rootfs file. That's why I originally didn't follow post 140; I thought it was to uncompress the file into an image.

So, I did follow it afterwards with rootfs file you described, and while it did take about 45mins to extract, the solution worked in the end. Bootup for OO went from 3.5 mins to 2!

Thanks!

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Poopers! Looks like I have to reflash and start all over again.

I have chortles! *lol*



So I put debian-m5-v3b-rootfs.tar on mmc1 right after a fat32 format of the entire card.

I then edited /home/user/.chroot file and changed the one part you mentioned to
IMGFILE=/dev/mmcblk1p2

Finally, I copied and pasted this in Xterm.

It began extracting all of its nonsense so I walked away for a titch.

Turns out it was extracted the entire mess to my internal flash.

I now have no memory left and my tablet is goosed.

Then depression sets in.........

Hey horde, would you mind writing out exactly what you did?

For some reason, I tend to follow your directions a little easier.

Cheers, I guess. :)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Dude, why did you do that? :( You FINALLY had a perfectly running system after all that hard work. There was no need to put yourself into a position of having to do more work. In fact, I had been happily using an img (as well as the majority of people here) for who knows how long. The only reason I wanted to partition was because I was ready for that next step. You barely started walking and were attempting to run.

Patience, brother. Take a minute to appreciate it. :)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I hear you brother, but still, I just would like to get it right the first time.

Besides, I try to give it 100% effort on any goals I've set no matter how challenging they might be for me. :D

So here's the latest rundown.

Mounted partition 2 (ext2) on mmc1.
Tried to extract the rootfs from mmc2 to mounted partition using sudo.
Tried to extract the rootfs from mmc1, first partition (fat32), to mounted partition using sudo.
Tried to extract the rootfs from mmc1, second partition (ext2), to mounted partition using sudo.
Did all of these two times each, seemed to work, but every time, right there in the end, my memory card would disappear all together.

So here's the only way I've got the whole rootfs to completely unpack...

rootfs on mmc2

mounted partition 2 on mmc1

copied rootfs to mounted drive

cd to mounted drive

unpacked it as root.

So here's what I have.
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/9...0042423510.png

Is it not working because everything is set as root?

How can I change the permissions for the entire partition?

I feel like I'm so close! :D

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison, your screenshot suggests that you might not be following my instructions; the "/debian/" directory that you're showing there -- is that after you've run Easy Debian? Because if it isn't, the explanation is that you're dumping everything into a directory in your flash memory, instead of into the mounted ext2 partition.

The problem with that theory is that it looks like you've got the 280MB rootfs file in there too, which would be too big for your flash memory. Hmm. I'm not sure what that's a picture of.

Here are my instructions, expanded a bit.

First, put tar file (debian-m5-v3b-rootfs.tar.bz2) to the FAT32 partition (which should be mounted as /media/mmc1 I think? Or is it mmc2 on the N810?). It really doesn't matter which. You just need to know the correct path to the file. Let's assume, for the purpose of the instructions, that you've put it in /media/mmc1/

Next, open a terminal. Type the following.

The tablet should respond with the following (and only this). If it doesn't, stop and post what it actually says.

Now you have your new partition mounted as /floppy. I'm honestly curious at this point to know what's in there. I would love to see a copy-and-paste of the output of this command:

Anyway, the next thing you should do is enter the following two commands. This will change the directory to /floppy (where your new partition is mounted) and then dump all of the Debian filesystem into it.

Your prompt should change to contain "/floppy" after the first command, and then the second command should cause lots of scrolling stuff on the screen. It will eventually stop. When it does, type the following:

The tablet should respond with:

Then, to test out your new Debian partition, type the following:

You should get a response like:

If that's not what happens, please post the output of what actually does happen.

As for the rest of your message...

I'm not sure what you mean when you say, "my memory card would disappear all together". Does the /floppy directory appear completely empty? Or does something else disappear that was there before?

Maybe the weirdness with your N810 (the weirdness that made your card appear corrupted) is causing the problem again?

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

The rootfs is on mmc2 and the ext2, second partition is on mmc1 (that's the screenshot of the mounted drive I think).

It's only on mmc2 for stability since my removable memory card enjoys taking big, meaty dumps on me for some reason.

So what I'm doing is cp that rootfs from mmc2 to the 2nd partition on mmc1 first.

I've always had this same message no matter how many different angles I've tried.

I thought that was a normal error for some reason.

BTW, on my mmc1, fat32 is around 1.14 GB (?), the 2nd and only other partition for that card is ext2 at 2.51 GB.


Edit:
Sorry, here's a copy of ls /floppy -l

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Okay, the only real problem I'm having is that I can't visualize a single thing that's going on with all of this.

Apparently I was dropped on my head, burned in a bathtub and thrown out a car when I was a baby. :(

If you could, please post a simple screenshot of Gparted for your memory card.

Second, if you could, post a screenshot of either your external or internal memory card before you extracted the whole rootfs thingie, then I should be gold from there on out.

I've read through almost every debian post, but without a single picture of what you guys are doing, I'll probably remain a waddling nightmare of unhappiness.

Does that make any sense? :)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Using sudo and untarring the rootfs seems to work great for the first 20 minutes or so, then suddenly, errors aplenty begin to rifle off.

When looking at filemanager, it no longer shows my external memory card, it just disappeared.

Tried like 8 times or so.

I went ahead and used root instead of sudo and it unpacked the whole way through.

It looks like qmount isn't working correctly. What does that error message mean when attempting to mount /floppy?

So either I've formatted the card wrong, the card is indeed junk, or I'm missing a dependency for qmount to do its thing.

Thanks qole for exercising so much patience with me on this.

I'm sure I've been a struggle for you. :)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison,

That error, "blkid: error while loading shared libraries: libuuid.so.1: cannot open," is annoying but harmless. I'll try to figure out why that's happening for you and get it fixed, but it shouldn't stop this process from working.

Unfortunately, all of those "Input/Output error" lines mean that your card is screwed up (again). You're going to have to reformat before trying again...

WARNING: Formatting a partition is dangerous. If you format the wrong partition you could lose important data. You have been warned!

Open a terminal, and enter the following:

Now try the whole process (post 154) again.

By the way, you can either gain root at the beginning and do everything as root, or use sudo to do specific things as root. I prefer the latter, but the former has fewer keystrokes...

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Is the libuuid.so.1 error a common one?

If you are getting the error, could you please post the output of the following:

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Hiya qole!

and

I downloaded a Ubuntu live CD. When I get home I was going to burn the ISO and boot from that to see if I had any better luck.

I'll probably find it easier to partition the memory card and untar your rootfs file from a computer than using the tablet.

Besides, if I go that way, there's other whole communities that I can bug besides laying this all on you. :)