maemo.org - Talk

maemo.org - Talk (https://talk.maemo.org/index.php)
-   Alternatives (https://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=36)
-   -   Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=34550)

sulu 2013-11-11 20:29

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Ok, my N900 didn't crash, but I have bad news.

Jessie's libc6 (the single most important package - even more important than the kernel) needs a kernel version >= 2.6.32. There is a check for the kernel version in the preinst script of the libc6 package. I adjusted that check to match Maemo's 2.6.28 but libc6 still insists on wanting at least kernel 2.6.32.

So I had a look at the libc6 sources and it seems that the package will depend at least on whatever kernel version was installed on the system it was compiled on. Since Squeeze had kernel 2.6.32 this kernel version as a libc6 dependency makes sense.

So in theory recompiling libc in a Wheezy ED image should fix this, but unfortunately Jessie's libc6 sources depend on a g++-4.7 version that is newer than the one in Wheezy and Jessie's g++-4.7 depends on a libc6 that is newer than the one in Wheezy.
So the vicious circle is complete.

I stil have hopes this dependency ring can be circumvented somehow, but as it stands now ED won't be dist-upgradeable beyond Wheezy.

Darkice 2013-11-22 20:14

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Hi. I have a few questions. My phone is N900. Kernel is the latest power kernel in extras.
1. Which release of ED have Iceweasel with working Flash?
2. Is there a command to see all mounted/ing points in the phone. Year ago I tried to install the ED, but on /dev/mmcblk0p4. It did not work, because I am not too familiar with the linux commands. There is dedicated partition I have made for it mmcblk0p4 with volume over 4,2G. Now I have come back to the idea to try and install it manually on /dev/mmcblk0p4, but first I would like to check what mountings I have done yaer ago. I can see the following existing folders, but are they mounted to something etc.
/home/user/EasyDeb
/media/ed
/mnt/debian
Please, help me to identify the mounting points first.
Then I will ask for guide how to install manually ED if the img (already unlzma-ed file) is placed in folder /home/user/MyDocs/tmp
Thank you

sulu 2013-11-22 20:57

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388290)
1. Which release of ED have Iceweasel with working Flash?

None.
Adobe's flash plugin is only available for x86_32 and x86_64 (standard PC architectures). The N900 has an ARM CPU and therefore the ED images use the armel architecture. There is no reasonable way to get any x86 software running on the N900 if it has the slightest performance requirements.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388290)
2. Is there a command to see all mounted/ing points in the phone.

The command is:
Code:

mount
Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388290)
I can see the following existing folders, but are they mounted to something etc.
/home/user/EasyDeb
/media/ed
/mnt/debian

These ARE the mount points. mount will tell you something like this:
Quote:

/dev/mmcblk0p2 on /home
Which means that the 2nd partition of your emmc device is mounted on /home.

If you want to see all the available storage devices even if they are not mounted you can run:
Code:

sudo fdisk -l

pichlo 2013-11-22 21:04

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Probably a silly question, but... Would installing the flash plugin that we know and love from Maemo work in Iceweasel if we installed it in ED? I suppose I could try but don't have ED installed right now, after yet another reflash.

Darkice 2013-11-22 21:48

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
First - Thank you for the help.
I have checked and no remaining mountings from the first attempt. I have used umount to undo what I have done year ago.
The reason I was asking for Firefox with flash is because I would like to install on it my personal bank certificates and to deal with my account. On first tought I decided the site is flash based, but maybe I am wrong.
Why I need this - because I have installed the certificates on Maemo. MicroB is able to start secured https. But once I need to make bank transfer and it has to be signed it should appear smaller window to ask me to enter the pass of the certificate. But the appearing window is partially seen and I am unable to do the operation. Therefore I am looking for alternative way to deal with this.
In any case I will try with ED to see if it will do the job. Just to ask if Iseweasel has the same ability as Firefox. I mean to put master password and to install certificates in it.
And why there is images with notes as "Browser with working flash ...etc". Seems I am asking quastions with unclear meaning. I was asking for such a image.
Now ... I have placed the ed-squeeze-final.ext3 in folder /home/user/MyDocs/tmp
I have created the following folder /mnt/debian to use it and to mount on it the 4G partition mmcblk0p4
The folder /media/ed is created to mount the image.
Then the sequence should be:
mount -o loop /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/ed-squeeze-final.ext3 /media/ed
mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/debian
cp -a /media/ed/* /mnt/debian/

After that I have to edit .chroot directing to /dev/mmcblk0p4
Am I on the right way?

P.S. After some reading here http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...postcount=2821 I have decided to use debian-wheezy-sulu-Sci.img.ext2 image. Then I just need to change the names of the above written command lines and that is all.
Please, take a look to the 3 lines and if they are correct I will execute them to implement ED.

Darkice 2013-11-22 22:20

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388325)
mount -o loop /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/ed-squeeze-final.ext3 /media/ed

It says "mounting /dev/loop0 on /media/ed failed: Invalid argument

pichlo 2013-11-22 22:49

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Do you have the /media/ed directory? I know you said you do but please check for spelling and permissions (is the owner root?).

I would personally not mount anything under /media manually myself, that's udev's domain. I would mount it under /mnt or even /tmp. But that's just my paranoia, I have no real arguments why that should not work.

Otherwise your method looks OK (read: exactly what I would have done). But you may expereince the device rebooting halfway through the copying due to cp taking too much CPU time and the watchdog kicking in (trust me, it has happened to me). You can eliminate that by reducing the cp priority with nice.

sulu 2013-11-22 23:18

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by pichlo (Post 1388308)
Probably a silly question, but... Would installing the flash plugin that we know and love from Maemo work in Iceweasel if we installed it in ED?

Afaik Maemo's flash relies on GPU acceleration. At least that's the only way I can imagine how it's able to play videos.
GPU acceleration is not available in ED, and never will be unless we get a Free (as in speech) PowerVR driver, which I expect to happen the day after hell has frozen over.


Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388325)
The reason I was asking for Firefox with flash is because I would like to install on it my personal bank certificates and to deal with my account. On first tought I decided the site is flash based, but maybe I am wrong.

If you don't want flash to watch videos then performance might not be that important.
In that case you could try the Debian package browser-plugin-gnash [1]. I guess that's what's installed in ED images that claim to have Flash working. It might or might not work for your task.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388325)
Just to ask if Iseweasel has the same ability as Firefox. I mean to put master password and to install certificates in it.

Basically yes, Iceweasel has the same functionality as the corresponding Firefox version.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388325)
Now ... I have placed the ed-squeeze-final.ext3 in folder /home/user/MyDocs/tmp
I have created the following folder /mnt/debian to use it and to mount on it the 4G partition mmcblk0p4
The folder /media/ed is created to mount the image.
Then the sequence should be:
mount -o loop /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/ed-squeeze-final.ext3 /media/ed
mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/debian
cp -a /media/ed/* /mnt/debian/

Up to this point it looks right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388325)
After that I have to edit .chroot directing to /dev/mmcblk0p4
Am I on the right way?

I've never actually used ED from a partition, only from image files. But I think you have to specify the mount point, not the device name. If I'm right it should be /mnt/debian instead of /dev/mmcblk0p4.
edit: Nope, I think /dev/mmcblk0p4 is correct because when you use image files you also specify the image file name, not its mount point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388325)
P.S. After some reading here http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...postcount=2821 I have decided to use debian-wheezy-sulu-Sci.img.ext2 image. Then I just need to change the names of the above written command lines and that is all.

Yes, changing the image name is the only thing that has to be done.
btw: Please note that although this image is based on one of my images, it was not created by me, and I never had a look at it. So I won't be able to answer any image-specific questions.


Quote:

Originally Posted by pichlo (Post 1388331)
But you may expereince the device rebooting halfway through the copying due to cp taking too much CPU time and the watchdog kicking in (trust me, it has happened to me). You can eliminate that by reducing the cp priority with nice.

That's a very good point! However, I found out that sometimes even nice -n 19 is not enough, because although the process that stresses the CPU is niced it may still create enough I/O to block the emmc/µSD in which case the watchdog might still kick in because some other process that is not niced stresses the CPU while desperately trying to read or write its data.
Therefore I usually use ionice as well, so that lots of my commands look like this:
Code:

nice -n 19  ionice -c 3 <command>

[1] http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/browser-plugin-gnash

peterleinchen 2013-11-22 23:18

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Your image is not a valid image file (maybe no file system or just some file).
Most probably corrupted download?

Darkice 2013-11-23 07:59

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Is it possible that /dev/mmcblk0p4 is not formatted properly as file system? I mean I have separated it as partition, but that is all. Is system by itself is doing the formatting when you make splitting. I have done the splitting via ubuntu Gpated. While I am waiting your opinion I will try to find md5 sums of the dowloaded archive to check if there is error.

sulu 2013-11-23 11:29

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
If you only created a new partition it will not be formatted automatically. You'll have to do that on your own. Gparted can do that. Just right-click the unformatted partition (or chose Partition->Format as from the menu), chose a file system (I'd recommend ext2/3/4) and click apply.

Darkice 2013-11-23 18:23

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Trying different folders but without success. I even created ed folder in /tmp/ (looks as /tmp/ed/). Still giving error. One question - what is the argument of the command mount? I mean "-o" given in the advices in the tread. Is it letter "o"? Small or capital one? Or it is "zero"? Probably I am doing something wrong. I switched the OS. I have win xp and ubuntu 12 on this laptop. I have downloaded again the file debian-m5-v3e-Sci-2GB.img.ext2.lzma and un-lzma-ded it in the linux. Put it also in /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/
Renamed the img file to be shorter to ed1.img.ext2
went to the console of N900
and
sudo gainroot
then
mount -o loop /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/ed1.img.ext2 /tmp/ed/
it gives again error about the argument.
What I am doing wrong?

pichlo 2013-11-23 18:30

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1388460)
One question - what is the argument of the command mount?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=mount+linux

Try skipping -o loop or replacing it with -t ext2. At least that's what I did the last time, IIRC.

Darkice 2013-11-23 20:21

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by pichlo (Post 1388464)
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=mount+linux

Try skipping -o loop or replacing it with -t ext2. At least that's what I did the last time, IIRC.

It did the job. I used the following:
mount -t ext2 /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/ed1.img.ext2 /tmp/ed
and it has been mounted
after that
mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/debian
cp -a /tmp/ed/* /mnt/debian/
and all was copied to the mmcblk0p4
What next?
Do I need to remove the mounting of the img file?
I mean to do:
umount /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/ed1.img.ext2 /tmp/ed

And someone was explaining need to be edited .chroot somehow

pichlo 2013-11-23 21:07

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Yes, unmount both mount points, then edit /home/user/.chroot.
There are comments in .chroot, they should explain what to do.

The unmount command takes only one argument, e.g.
umount /tmp/ed
umount /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/blabla.img.ext2

Sorry I can't give you more guidance right now as I don't have ED installed and my phone has a (temporarily) broken WiFi so I can't even install it.

Darkice 2013-11-23 21:32

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Hmmmm. This
cp -a /tmp/ed/* /mnt/debian/
takes a bit longer then I expected
Since now hour and 10 min and the phone is still on 100% loaded
Is it normal that? The "cp" has to copy 2,1G data from the img file to the new mmcblk0p4 partition. How much time it has to do it?

pichlo 2013-11-23 21:38

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Over an hour is not unusual.

You can check the progress by running df -h in another terminal window. As a user is fine. Check out the line referring to the destination of your cp command.

Darkice 2013-11-24 09:16

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Somehow when I put the following
mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/debian
the phone starts to load the cpu 75-100%
I attached the phone as USB storage to Ubuntu and formatted the mmcblk0p4 as ext2. It was ext3
rebooted and again
mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/debian
seems it is a bit better.
after that again "cp"
and following your advice in new terminal I entered "df -h"
.... useful
Now the problem I see is that the "cp" is doing too slow the things. It was copied just 40-45 Mb in about 7-9 minutes. Wow! It is too slow.
Then I get another idea.
Is it possible to mount the img file in Ubuntu? Then to mount with BootMenu the whole phone part (all its pertitions) to Ubuntu and to to this "cp" probably quicker than now.

P.S. CP process started at 10:25. Now 11:18 the mmcblk0p4 is with 347,8M of data. To get all 2,1G I will need to wait almost 5 hours. Woww

pichlo 2013-11-24 09:31

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
That seems way too slow, I agree. Not sure what the problem is. BTW ext3 is a bit safer than ext2, but also a bit slower. Not that slow though.

Yes, you can do the whole process on a host PC. It might be faster. Use the same commands, only adapt the paths accordingly.

Edit: You may not need to copy full 2 GB. The image is 2 GB. Think of it as an external hard disk. It is not entirely full, you will only have to copy the data.

Darkice 2013-11-24 11:30

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Could you help me find out why BackupMenu does not mount the partitions of the phone as r/w. They are just readable. Is there specific keys/commands to enter in case to make it?

Edit 1 (few hour later)
Finally I did it. Now there is 4th partition mmcblk0p4 (ext3 type) over 4G. All files from the image debian-m5-v3e-Sci-2GB.img.ext2 are copied. All made trough Ubuntu
... And after restart the phone is still working :D
But the partition mmcblk0p4 is not permanent mounted. After the reboot it is missing. Probably I need to add permanent mount.
Then will read further how to edit the .chroot and to bring the icons up in the menu.

Darkice 2013-11-24 16:55

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
I hope ... it is the last question from me. Do I need to edit etc/fstab to add permanent root about that "mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/debian" or there is better method? What options/argumennt other that "/dev/mmcblk0p4" and "/mnt/debian" I need to put?

Add1: Seems I have bigger problem. When I try to mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 to /mnt/debian my phone starts loading the CPU at 100%. This does not allow me even to try the ED on the phone.
Sure I will try to serch the tread and the forum, but if you already have the idea what is causing this, please help.

pichlo 2013-11-25 08:24

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Editing fstab is pointless since the file is rebuilt on boot. You can figure out how to permanently mount things by following the comments at the top of /etc/fstab, it tells you which scripts build it. I can't give you a definite answer since that depends on what flavour of Maemo you have installed (stock, CSSU, testing, Thumb...). Editing those scripts is not for the faint-hearted and I would not recommend it if you are not familiar with Linux.

On the positive side, you don't have to do any of that. Just edit your /hone/user/.chroot accordingly to run ED from a partition rather than image (let the comments in the file guide you). That way you won't mount your extra partition on boot but ED will mount it on start and unmount it on close.

Sohil876 2013-11-25 09:59

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Btw what happend to the folder based chroot? I thought someone was going to push a new update to easy chroot including the new goodies.

Estel 2013-11-25 13:05

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
I guess that "someone" was me? ;) Well, directory based chroot works nice here, and should do for anyone who is willing to follow steps described "few" pages ago (required to modify some chroot automagic scripts).

Of course, it would be much better to upload a fixed version to repos. The problem is, that my chroot setup is so much modified - sometimes in ugly way - that it no longer looks like what easy-chroot installs by default, at all.

Properly integrating those changes/fixes/improvements into more general-purpose package that would be at quality level in-pair with currently packaged chroot would require quite some time, and sadly, I don't have that free time ATM. I'm not sure when I'll have few spare days to clear this mess.

/Estel

Sohil876 2013-11-25 14:49

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1388807)
I guess that "someone" was me? ;) Well, directory based chroot works nice here, and should do for anyone who is willing to follow steps described "few" pages ago (required to modify some chroot automagic scripts).

Of course, it would be much better to upload a fixed version to repos. The problem is, that my chroot setup is so much modified - sometimes in ugly way - that it no longer looks like what easy-chroot installs by default, at all.

Properly integrating those changes/fixes/improvements into more general-purpose package that would be at quality level in-pair with currently packaged chroot would require quite some time, and sadly, I don't have that free time ATM. I'm not sure when I'll have few spare days to clear this mess.

/Estel

Actually i wasnt pointing out anyone specific, i just thought somone might have created a package or script so i just asked. Thanks, ill read the pages and try to create a stable script. Btw which one is most recent and stable squeeze image? The ones on qoles site are of year 2009, so can you post a link or pm me link of a squeeze image? And is wheezy stable? I do remembe it having problem with some apps, i dont use chromium but i do use gimp. Thanks.

Estel 2013-11-25 20:00

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
I don't consider wheezy stable for ED, as it:
a) requires chromium from squeeze, as wheezy one segfaults on armel
b) have problems with glibc. So far, it manifested itself only by crashing gparted, but have potential for other problems
c) GIMP from Wheezy crashes on ED, when trying to change font settings, while using "insert text" tool. Reasons are unknown, no one tested if it is ED problem, or related to whole armel, like chromium problem.

As for "which squeeze image is most recent", I have no idea. I'm using my one (squeeze-img-estel, or something like that), upgraded to latest.

/Estel

Darkice 2013-11-26 08:17

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Hello again. Seems that the mounting exist without doing anything by me. If I click icon from ED image and it starts even after reboot. Now all generally is working. Just I have met one problem - when wifi is on (in my case) and I start LXDE the left and up-left part of the screen (with taskbars etc.) flickers and I can not do anything. Tried to search the tread with "LXDE+flickers" and similar words, but found things not explaining my problem and it's solution. Have anyone met the same problem?
Otherwise it is very good thing, but unfortunately it did not make what I wanted. Iceweasel was able to install the bank certificates. Establishes the https connection. Since here all fine. But when I decide to sign a transaction the bank site opens second windo to choose the certificate to sign and to enter the master pass of the browser. And here is the problem. The second window is with fixed dimensions which are out of the LXDE dimensions. Then I can't see if the cursor is on the place to enter the master pass and then to push the button "OK" at the bottom of this screen. If there is a way to zoom the whole LXDE probably it will work. I tried ctrl+- but it does not work on this second window. On the main it is working.
Have a nice day

sulu 2013-11-28 23:51

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1389055)
when wifi is on (in my case) and I start LXDE the left and up-left part of the screen (with taskbars etc.) flickers and I can not do anything.

I've never seen this.
It sounds like like Maemo/Hildon/whatever challenges the claim of the ED window to be on top of everything else.

shot in the dark:
Does the flickering go away if you unmaximize the ED window by pressing Ctrl+Backspace and the return to it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkice (Post 1389055)
If there is a way to zoom the whole LXDE probably it will work.

None that I know of.
Theoretically you should be able to create a virtual desktop within ED that is bigger than the N900's screen. I never tried that with xephyr and a touch screen, so I don't know if it actually works or if the result would be useable.

What should work is to move the window by selecting the "move" option from the window menu and then dragging the window to a position where you can reach the input field and button.
This will at least work once but might not work a second time if you have to move the window to a place where you can't reach the window menu again. In that case you migt want to have a look at wmctrl. It's a cli tool which (among other things) allows you to move windows, so you could call it from a terminal to move the brower window to the right position. In connection with xbindkeys you could even bind that window move to a keyboard shortcut.

Darkice 2013-12-04 11:02

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sulu (Post 1390429)
I've never seen this.
It sounds like like Maemo/Hildon/whatever challenges the claim of the ED window to be on top of everything else.

shot in the dark:
Does the flickering go away if you unmaximize the ED window by pressing Ctrl+Backspace and the return to it?

The minimizing with Ctrl+Backsp and then maximizin does not work. If I minimize, switch-off the wifi and then maximize back it it is OK. I mean even if it flickers because wifi is ON if I turn it OFF flickering disappear and the task bars are accessible.
The other thing with the movement of the window will try these days.

sulu 2013-12-15 15:43

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
I may have made some progress towards a Jessie dist-upgrade. At least I managed to dist-upgrade my basic ED image.

What I did is basically going through the source code of Debian's eglibc package and change every relevant kernel version check from 2.6.32 to 2.6.28, which would be these files:
Code:

debian/sysdeps/linux.mk:MIN_KERNEL_SUPPORTED := 2.6.32
debian/debhelper.in/libc.preinst:        if linux_compare_versions "$kernel_ver" lt 2.6.32
ports/sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/tile/configure.in:arch_minimum_kernel=2.6.32
ports/sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/tile/configure:arch_minimum_kernel=2.6.32

Unfortunately while the libraries still build some eglibc testsuite checks will fail, causing Debian's debuild not to build packages from them. So I had to make sure the testsuite results would be ignored, which can be done by making sure the compare script always exits with error code 0, which can be done by simply uncommenting the penultimate line in this file:
Code:

debian/testsuite-checking/compare.sh:#exit 0
debuild will then build a whole bunch of custom packages from the eglibc source code, but as far as I can tell, only libc6 and libc-bin will actually be needed. You'll find those two packages in the link [1] (which should work for at least 30 days). The rest can be taken from the debian repository.

Using custom packages for a dist-upgrade is a bit tricky, especially when these packages are the very core of a Debian installation. I tried to install the modified libc6 and libc-bin packages via dpkg prior to the dist-upgrade, but got an error because the packages locales and locales-all could not be deconfigured.
My quick&dirty solution was to simply uninstall them (warning: this temporarilly broke my keyboard support, xvkbd's on-screen keyboard still worked, but only partially - letters and cursors worked, numbers and special characters didn't) and reinstall them after I upgraded libc6.

Then I set my libc6 and libc-bin on hold to make sure they won't be replaced by packages from the Debian repository and ran the dist-upgrade.
edit: For some reason I had to reinstall lsb-release afterwards.


The tricky thing of the whole process is that you'll need a working Jessie/armel installation to build these packages in the first place. So it's some kind of a vicious circle. I managed to break it by using a Jessie/armel chroot on my Cubieboard2, which took about 8 hours to build the packages. In parallel I started the same task in a qemu-arm machine on my Desktop PC (i7-2700k) which is running for almost 48 hours now and I expect it to run at least another 24 hours.
Cross-compiling for armel on an x86 machine should be the fastest (from previous experiments with compiling eglibc in amd64 I'd expect it to take an hour on my Desktop-PC) if you know how too do that. I don't.
However, once you have a working Jessie installation on your N900 theoretically you should be able to build newer versions of eglibc on your own in maybe a day or so. I haven't tried though and of course there's always the watchdog.

As some kind of a disclaimer, I honestly have no idea what results will come from my changes. There may be no regressions compared to Wheezy at all but it may also eat your children.
I think I read either in the libc6 or udev changelog that it will break udev, but I haven't tried and at least from my point of view there's little use for udev in ED in the first place.
One thing I have noticed is that LXDE's cpu monitor doesn't work properly anymore. It shows single peaks every few milliseconds no matter if the device is idle or under full usage. Also Jessie seems to be quite a bit slower than Wheezy. I have no idea if these problems are due to my changes or due to the ever-growing age difference (and therefore potential incompatibility) between Maemo and Debian and a general tendency of software to bloat as time (and versions) go by.

Of course since Jessie is still testing this workaround may not work anymore when Jessie is released. In fact the very next update to eglibc or any package that depends on it (which is virtually the whole distribution) may break it.

Oh, and before you ask: Jessie will neither fix the gparted, nor the gimp problem encountered in Wheezy. I checked both. At least for gimp I suspect some underlying outdated Maemo libraries to be the real reason, not ED itself. But unfortunately I can't remember where I got that idea from. I may try to verify this by running an ED image on my Cubieboard2 (where both programs work fine natively) but I'm not sure yet since answering this question seems completely academic to me.


[1] http://netload.in/dateikeNBnk8xOg/eg...ulu.tar.gz.htm

mailcomx 2013-12-27 19:33

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
PLease I need install easy debian, can you say the best version for N900?

Estel 2013-12-28 00:29

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Define best. Squeeze is most tested and everything(tm) seems to be working as advertised. Unless it's too outdated to work for your needs, that is. Wheezy is most up-to-date with some irritating (albeit, limited to only few programs, namely GIMP, chromium, and gparted, as discovered to date) problems.

While I really, really appreciate sulu's heroic attempts to get Jessie working, even via his own words it sounds like "avoid touching with a long stick" - it doesn't fix any of Wheezy problems, and have probability of creating new ones, not to mention being royal pita to update. Sounds like an option only, if you're really desperate for some Jessie-dependant version/program.

/Estel

pichlo 2013-12-28 01:09

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
I think he means which image to download. I suggest Estel's. It contains a lot of stuff I don't use (on the N900, that is - e.g. GIMP), but it is nicely polished and removing stuff is easy.

mailcomx 2013-12-28 03:23

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Thanks!! I'll install Estel Version. :) I remember I installed this version with good experience last year.

sulu 2013-12-30 19:09

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1401310)
While I really, really appreciate sulu's heroic attempts to get Jessie working,

Well, I guess one man's desperation is another man's heroism. ;)

I was able to track down the performance issues I had in Jessie. For some reason xbindkeys, although having no configuration, caused periodic CPU usage spikes that were that short that they rarely even showed up in top. Since I don't ned xbindkeys in the image I just uninstalled it and everything was back to normal.
I didn't check if a non-empty configuration has the same effect.

Estel 2013-12-31 17:26

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Easy Debian's xbindkeys "always" had habit of waking CPU unnecessary, even with proper config file. I discovered it hard way, long time ago, while "hunting" with Maemo's powertop for a elusive beast that was consuming my battery power.

Maemo's xbindkeys doesn't have such issues. No idea what's the reason for oddity in ED's, but I just switched to using one from Maemo's repos.

/Estel

sulu 2014-01-02 17:36

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
2 Attachment(s)
I tried to set up a new Wheezy/armhf image from scratch and I have good and bad news.

the good:
Gimp works without crashing when using the text tool.

the bad:
For some reason I'm unable to get keyboard support in lxde (via debbie it works fine in roxterm and gimp).
Just for reference, I also created an armel image and I have the same problems there, so I'm pretty sure it's not architecture-specific, but I'm missing some "magic".

what I did in detail:
1. I created a 1GB image on my Cubieboard2, formatted it with ext2 and installed Wheezy via debootstrap.
2. Once chrooted into the image I told apt not to install recommended and suggested packages by default. Maybe that's part of the problem, but if it is i'd like to know what I'm missing.
3. I installed these packages:
Code:

roxterm-gtk2
lxde-core
dbus-x11
xserver-xephyr

4. I copied these scripts and binaries from my working Wheezy/armel image to the corresponding location in the new image:
Code:

/sbin/qobi-wmhint-fix
/usr/bin/set-focus
/usr/bin/startlxde1
/usr/bin/xephfocus
/usr/bin/xephwm
/usr/bin/xephwm5
/usr/bin/xkbset
/usr/bin/xkbset-gui

5. I copied the image to my N900.
6. /var/lock and /var/run/dbus were regular files, not a directory. I tried both leaving them this way as well as replacing them with directories for bind-mountpoints.
7. I ran debian-lxde, the gui came up and the mouse cursor works fine. However, the HW keyboard doesn't work at all.

In addition to the packages I installed right from the start I also tried with these packages installed, but without any change:
Code:

locales
locales-all
hal
wmctrl
xserver-xorg-input-keyboard

Input via xvkbd (onscreen keyboard) works partially. Letters work, digits and most special characters (/-) don't, just like during the jessie dist-upgrade in my working image [1]. libc6 and libc-bin are installed and after seeing this behavior I installed locales and locales-all.
I also tried the following which came from an early post of qole [2] in this thread, but I have the feeling (not more) that my problem is not actually/not only the keyboard focus:
Code:

sudo closechroot
touch ~/.synchroot
debbie test


When I start debian-lxde from xterm I get the messages in the textfile attached to this post.
For reference I also attached the output of my working armel image.

In the not_working output there is this line:
Code:

mount: mounting /var/run/dbus on /.debian/var/run/dbus failed: No such file or directory
If the latter is a directory in the image it really isn't there once the chroot is running when it is a directory. But when it's a file it doesn't make any difference, except that the line wil read like this instead:
Code:

mount: mounting /var/run/dbus on /.debian/var/run/dbus failed: Not a directory

A 2nd difference is this line in the not_working output:
Code:

chroot: can't execute '/sbin/qobi-wmhint-fix': No such file or directory
However, the file is there:
Code:

~# ls /.debian/sbin/qobi-wmhint-fix
/.debian/sbin/qobi-wmhint-fix

But if I call it from within the lxde-desktop I get this error:
Code:

# pwd
/sbin
# qobi-wmhint-fix
sh: 18: qobi-wmhint-fix: not found

Now, I know this isn't supposed to work, but I would have expected some other error message.
I guess this is the most likely candidate for the problem's reason, but I don't know how to fix it.


Then there's the last line which is only in the not_working output:
Code:

** (roxterm:7392): WARNING **: Failed to connect to session manager: SESSION_MANAGER environment variable not defined
Where is that variable supposed to come from, and is it essential for the keyboard to work?

I'm running out of ideas. Can somebody give me a hint please?


btw: a halfway recent kernel power (>v49) will be necessary for armhf to run stable, I guess due to the Thumb errata fixes missing in previous versions.

[1] http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...postcount=3030
[2] http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=75

marmistrz 2014-01-02 18:08

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
About mount errors: just create the directories in the chrooted filesystem.
Chroot into debian, mkdir the directory, exit chroot, chroot again.
Maybe it'll be a fix...

sulu 2014-01-02 18:14

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by marmistrz (Post 1403119)
About mount errors: just create the directories in the chrooted filesystem.

I already tried that.

elros34 2014-01-02 18:37

Re: Easy Debian Fremantle Beta Testing
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sulu (Post 1403104)
A 2nd difference is this line in the not_working output:
Code:

chroot: can't execute '/sbin/qobi-wmhint-fix': No such file or directory
However, the file is there:
Code:

~# ls /.debian/sbin/qobi-wmhint-fix
/.debian/sbin/qobi-wmhint-fix

But if I call it from within the lxde-desktop I get this error:
Code:

# pwd
/sbin
# qobi-wmhint-fix
sh: 18: qobi-wmhint-fix: not found

Now, I know this isn't supposed to work, but I would have expected some other error message.
I guess this is the most likely candidate for the problem's reason, but I don't know how to fix it.

You should recompile qobi-wmhint-fix for armhf or eventually try to symlink: ln -s /lib/ld-linux-armhf.so.3 /lib/ld-linux.so.3


All times are GMT. The time now is 23:20.

vBulletin® Version 3.8.8