Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I've been asked to start a new Easy Debian thread because the old one is getting too long and hairy. So OK, here it is.

Here is the old thread for reference.

Here is info about my new versions, eventually going into the maemo.org extras free repository.

(original post)

I have uploaded new versions of easy-chroot and easy-deb-chroot to to the Diablo Extras-devel repository. Could I get a few beta-testers to try updating and report back here?

If I get no responses by the weekend, I will promote the packages to Extras and then I'll hear about the problems ;)

Changes:

• Added thp's patches to allow ssh-to-debian-shell.
• Using the autobuilder process: the packages are now in "free"!
• Now using separate dm-loop packages!

All of those changes are very geeky things to be excited about, I know.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2494/...5984d011_o.png

Look at those beautiful, wonderful dependencies. Sweet.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Qole,

Just did the install. It initially balked at the easy-chroot, but said it installed... I turned off my Extras-devel repository, reinstalled (as now it showed up as an upgradeable package) the install then completed (seemed like a repair, really). Then I turned the repository back on, installed the easy-deb-chroot with no issue.

I erased my old image, and downloaded a new one... everything seems to be going swimmingly. I am not a power user, but I do "play" with this from time to time.

No negative repercussions so far. Should I stumble across something I will let you know. I mean, even a blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while.

Thor

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

thorbo, thanks, I bet your double-install was required because my package went from having the dm-loop stuff embedded inside it to depending on external dm-loop packages. But if it works, that's great. I'll just warn people that it will take two runs at it to get it working.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Maybe some preinst magic in the dm-loop package can help ?

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

attila77: any magical ideas?

I think what's happening is that the dmsetup stuff is conflicting with my package because the same files are in both packages.

One ugly hack would be to have fake names for the binaries in the package, which you then move to the correct name in the postinst...? I don't know...

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I had the same issue, so thanks for the post Thor. apart from that, it's looking fine so far. Thanks again for this qole, it really does make my molbile life workable.

I'll be playing more with it tomolrrow and will get back with anything I find.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

hi qole ^·^ I was testing it and i'm satisfied from the use, i manly use ffice and gimp, without ussues (apart the slow start, but it's normal xD) there are sime prograns that i do not use: epiphany and firefox, i want ti uninstall t, what i have to wrute in the terminal? (i mean the name of the packages), and how to remove the dead icons from hildon menu? i tried to modify the menu.conf but the icons are only mived to extras... can you help me?

thx a lot ^·^

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

That in itself should not be a problem (it would be helpful if we knew the exact error message, like what apt-get prints) Are those files perhaps in use somehow ?

In that case I think it's better to put a 'rm' for the old stuff in preinst ? (if you rename it in postinst, then you also have to change postrm to delete whan you renamed, etc)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

It is as I thought:

The following NEW packages will be installed
dmsetup kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop libdevmapper1.02.1
The following packages will be upgraded:
easy-chroot
1 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 116 not upgraded.
Need to get 124kB/246kB of archives.
After unpacking 381kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
libdevmapper1.02.1 dmsetup kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop easy-chroot
Install these packages without verification [y/N]? y
Get: 1 http://repository.maemo.org diablo/free easy-chroot 0.2.2-1diablo1 [124kB]Fetched 124kB in 2s (53.2kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package libdevmapper1.02.1.
(Reading database ... 26889 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libdevmapper1.02.1 (from .../libdevmapper1.02.1_2%3a1.02.27-maemo1_armel.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libdevmapper1.02.1_2%3a1.02.27-maemo1_armel.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite `/lib/libdevmapper.so.1.02.1', which is also in package easy-chroot
Selecting previously deselected package dmsetup.
Unpacking dmsetup (from .../dmsetup_2%3a1.02.27-maemo1_armel.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/dmsetup_2%3a1.02.27-maemo1_armel.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite `/sbin/dmsetup', which is also in package easy-chroot
Selecting previously deselected package kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop.
Unpacking kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop (from .../kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop_2.6.21-200842maemo1.3_armel.deb) ...
Preparing to replace easy-chroot 0.1.9 (using .../easy-chroot_0.2.2-1diablo1_armel.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement easy-chroot ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/libdevmapper1.02.1_2%3a1.02.27-maemo1_armel.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/dmsetup_2%3a1.02.27-maemo1_armel.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I see. From my Debian packaging experience this suggests libdevmapper/dmsetup would have to have a "Replaces:" and/or "Conflicts:" in it's control file for the OLD easy-chroot package. Without it, the order of installs influences the outcome (if easy-chroot gets upgraded first, libdevmapper is OK, if libdevmapper comes first, it errors -> that's why it works out on the second try). Can you tell me the versions you used in easy-chroot (i.e. which is the last old-style package ver) ?

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

The last old-style easy-chroot package is version 0.1.9

The first new-style package (that actually built ;) ) is 0.2.1-1diablo3

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

@qole
Okay, I updated to devmapper 1.02.27-maemo2, if you have a 0.1.9 lying around you can try and see whether this helps

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I wanted to quickly share how your Easy Debian application really helped me.

One day I began to experience difficulties in downloading files. The problem got much worse, until I couldn't use this very important functionality at all. And nothing I could try worked! Since I use my N810 to download work docs from Exchange, I was in trouble and ready to reformat my entire device.

Fragos and silvermountain suggested that I delete the .swap file. I looked around, read up on how to find and delete it (file manager wouldn't help), then instantly thought of your Easy Debian package's Lightweight Desktop Environment.

I went in, figured out how to "see" hidden files (much like Windows, which helped) and zeroed in on .swap. After it was gone, my downloads worked again!

Thanks again for your Easy Debian package. You've added true desktop functionality to an (unfortunately) aging device.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

attila77: well, the errors are different now. The bold part is the heart of the problem (emphasis mine).

The following NEW packages will be installed
dmsetup kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop libdevmapper1.02.1
The following packages will be upgraded:
easy-chroot
1 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 116 not upgraded.
Need to get 89.0kB/246kB of archives.
After unpacking 381kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
libdevmapper1.02.1 dmsetup kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop easy-chroot
Install these packages without verification [y/N]? y
Get: 1 http://repository.maemo.org diablo/free libdevmapper1.02.1 2:1.02.27-maemo2 [52.0kB]
Get: 2 http://repository.maemo.org diablo/free dmsetup 2:1.02.27-maemo2 [37.0kB]
Fetched 89.0kB in 1s (85.5kB/s)
(Reading database ... 26889 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libdevmapper1.02.1 (from .../libdevmapper1.02.1_2%3a1.02.27-maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Replacing files in old package easy-chroot ...
Unpacking dmsetup (from .../dmsetup_2%3a1.02.27-maemo2_armel.deb) ...
Replacing files in old package easy-chroot ...
Selecting previously deselected package kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop.
Unpacking kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop (from .../kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop_2.6.21-200842maemo1.3_armel.deb) ...
Preparing to replace easy-chroot 0.1.9 (using .../easy-chroot_0.2.2-1diablo1_armel.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement easy-chroot ...
Setting up libdevmapper1.02.1 (2:1.02.27-maemo2) ...
ldconfig: /usr/lib/libgailutil.so.18 is not a symbolic link

Setting up dmsetup (2:1.02.27-maemo2) ...
ln: /etc/udev/rules.d/65_dmsetup.rules: File exists
dpkg: error processing dmsetup (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up kernel-diablo-modules-dmloop (2.6.21-200842maemo1.3) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of easy-chroot:
easy-chroot depends on dmsetup; however:
Package dmsetup is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing easy-chroot (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
dmsetup
easy-chroot
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

If you want to roll back to the old version of easy-chroot, so you can test installing everything again, a simple

apt-get install easy-chroot=0.1.9

should do the trick.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Stand by, this might be a completely unrelated error, sounds more like the rules file being created in a postinst or other script and not removed in a postrm, and then you removing the package and installing it again. You can confirm this by deleting the file in question manually and then (re)trying to install.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

after a couple of days of use, i wanted to let you know that this has been working well. oo seems to boot faster, but opening docs takes just as long. iceweasel seems to be incredibly speedy (using that right now). so far, only java seems to crash this browser. nice job and thank you!

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

This may be an obvious question but can Easy Debian be installed on Nokia N900 (Maemo 5)? I don't see it in the Fremantle repos and I'm not sure if I should/can use repos from older Maemo versions.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

ppawel: I see you found the right thread already.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

The latest upgrade of easy-chroot failed with this error:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
easy-chroot: Depends: dmsetup but it is not installed

This was not fixable by:

Nokia-N810-36-5:~# apt-get -f install dmsetup
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
dmsetup
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
3 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/37.1kB of archives.
After unpacking 119kB of additional disk space will be used.
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
dmsetup
Install these packages without verification [y/N]? y
(Reading database ... 22780 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking dmsetup (from .../dmsetup_2%3a1.02.27-maemo3_armel.deb) ...
rm: cannot remove '/etc/udev/rules.d/65_dmsetup.rules': No such file or directory
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/dmsetup_2%3a1.02.27-maemo3_armel.deb (--unpack):
subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/dmsetup_2%3a1.02.27-maemo3_armel.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)


A workaround (thanks to cehteh in #maemo on irc.freenode.net) to this problem is:

Nokia-N810-36-5:~# touch /etc/udev/rules.d/65_dmsetup.rules

Then try apt-get install dmsetup and then apt-get install easy-deb-chroot as seen below:

Preparing to replace easy-deb-chroot 0.9.25 (using .../easy-deb-chroot_0.9.30-1diablo2_armel.deb)

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Attila:

Help! I was right. Your package is busted!

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Duh ! The we do the full kernel dance tonight ! dmsetup, dm_loop for Fremantle, JOYDEV. Paaaarty !

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

So... is it any good now ? The Fremantle kernel is still causing me grief (scratchbox segfaults on me) so that's on hold, I'll try and download a vmware image and try there but that's going to take some time.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

looks great! this is exactly the kind of fun stuff i bought the n900 to play with :)

is there any reason why the image is limited to 1.3Gb? I would like to dedicate at least 4Gb when the performance is maximized.

thanks again for your work.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

attila77: nothing has changed, if that's what you're asking...

But I can work around the problem by manually deleting the offending file (/etc/udev/rules.d/65_dmsetup.rules) and installing again.

The fix is to check for the file's existence before trying to install the package, and making sure it gets deleted on removal.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Hey qole, I've been using easy Debian for a while in my never ending quest to use my N800 as a full desktop and I've always wanted to express my gratitude: thank you!

Quick question, though. While using OpenOffice on Diablo, sometimes (most of the time) after I open a document it will only open it read only. Permissions are set, I deleted the lock files, etc. etc. I'm not sure if it's an issue with OpenOffice or something else. Has anyone else had this problem?

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I was also wondering why Easy Debian blocks increasing the image any larger than 1.3 GB? I assume this might be some sort of ext2 limitation? Because Easy Debian was programmed with a mounted loop, changing the image to 4 GB is virtually impossible.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Ok, please note this is the thread for N8x0 devices, but this applies to all devices.

I suggest making a bigger image file (using the dd command as I explain in this old post):

(you need to be root for all of this, sudo su - is my preferred method)

What's that 2097152? That should give us a gigabyte. Seems that you calculate size like this: <bytes> / 512 = <dd-count>. So three gigabytes would be 6291456 and four would be 8388608.

Then make an ext2 file system in it (using mkfs.ext2) as explained in the same old post:

Then you copy the data from the old image to the new image using the instructions from this old post.

First mount both image files on different directories (using qmount from my easy-chroot package):


Then copy the data over:
Then unmount everything:
If you haven't made any changes, it might be better to start with one of my rootfs tarballs from qole.org/files rather than an image file. Make the new image file with dd and mkfs, mount it, cd into it, then untar the rootfs into it.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Qole, thank you for your post. This issue still remains.

I noticed that:
dd if=/dev/zero of=debian.img.ext2 count=6291456
will not allow a 3 GB partition. 2 GB is the largest it can be. I am assuming this is still an EXT2 issue. I double checked my 4 GB mini-SD to ensure this was not a space issue and your math -- both were correct. Would formatting the mini-SD to EXT3 fix this issue?

I was trying to fix this, but I cannot get gparted to pull using ssh -Y or ssh -X flags. I'll have to try gparted on the n810.

Thanks for your instructions and any thoughts to fix this issue for all would be appreciated.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

I think the 2GB filesize limitation is a problem with FAT32, not ext2.

If you've got a microSD card, repartiton it with GParted, leaving only 256MB as the first FAT partiton, and format the rest as ext2. Then you can use that partiton instead of an image file.

The only real advantage to the image file is that it is extremely portable. You drop it anywhere and it will work.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Qole, I have formated twice into ext2, not fat32, and am still getting errors not allowing the file to be more than 2 GB. I tried setting it your 3 GB and 2.7 GB, and both failed to get the file larger than 2 GB. This is definitely not a fat32 issue since the image is on the ext2.

I can tell you by setting the first partition to fat32 256 MB, it cleared issues with the file manager detecting the microSD card. I might try the dd thing on another computer and transfer the blank image to the microSD card - that might work.

If I extract the debian-squeeze-rootfs.tar.bz2 to the ext2 partition instead of the image on the ext2, will that cause easy debian not to work? That would clarify all issues with this image file - which is becoming more of a hassle than a blessing.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Qole, I have formated twice into ext2, not fat32, and am still getting errors not allowing the file to be more than 2 GB. I tried setting it your 3 GB and 2.7 GB, and both failed to get the file larger than 2 GB. This is definitely not a fat32 issue since the image is on the ext2.

I can tell you by setting the first partition to fat32 256 MB, it cleared issues with the file manager detecting the microSD card. I might try the dd thing on another computer and transfer the blank image to the microSD card - that might work.

If I extract the debian-squeeze-rootfs.tar.bz2 to the ext2 partition instead of the image on the ext2, will that cause easy debian not to work? That would clarify all issues with this image file - which is becoming more of a hassle than a blessing.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

johndoe:

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear in my last post; if you are going to the trouble of repartitoning your SD card, you should definitely use the dedicated partiton for the rootfs rather than the image file. The image file is only for convenience.

To use your new partiton, edit the ~/.chroot file to say:

IMGFILE=/dev/mmcblk1p2

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Heya qole!

Pop quiz.

If I have easy debian installed, will all of these following armel .deb files then be installable on the tablet?

http://dir.filewatcher.com/d/Debian/armel.0.0.htm

There's an amazing selection of junk on that site and it would be awesome if at least some of them I could download and install.

Thanks.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Addison: Probably. You'd go into the Easy Debian root terminal and then use dpkg -i to install the .deb packages...

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Sweet!

I've install easy debian before but was much too stupid to know what could be done with it back then.

I'll definitely give this another go.

Thanks!

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Qole,

If I have extracted either the debian*root-fs.tar.bz2 or the minimal*debian*.tar.bz2 to the ext2 or ext3 partition on my /dev/mmc1 memory card (where the debian install looks like "/" on debian), what do I change in .chroot to allow it not to look for a .ext2 file, but rather the files residing on an ext2 or ext3 partition?

My .chroot reads:
IMGFILE=/dev/mmcblk1p2 (the ext2 or ext3 partition)
CHROOT=/media/mmc1/debian/debian (where the "/" files are for debian)

Running debbie as user yields:
...Everything set up, running chroot...
chroot: cannot execut su: No such file or directory

A cd /media/mmc1/debian/debian && ls shows:
bin, boot, dev, etc, home, lib, lost+found, media, mnt, opt, etc...

Extracting the *.bz2s with xarchiver yielded no errors.

How do I get CHROOT to detect these extracted files?

Thanks,
John

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Did you extract preserving permissions (typically -p option with tar)??? Your applications under /media/mmc1/debian/debian/{bin,sbin,usr/bin,usr/sbin} are probably not executable.

Debian usually puts it in bin/su, so ls -l /media/mmc1/debian/debian/bin/su and see if it has -rwxr-xr-x or similar. It may be -rwsr-xr-x if it has set uid enabled.

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

Actually, the bin folder is empty. So is the boot. The other folders are not. I am guessing xarchiver cannot preserve permissions upon extract, so I'll retry extract with tar -xvfp *.tar.bz2

Re: Easy Debian Diablo Beta Testing
 

johndoe:

I suggest not changing the CHROOT line in your .chroot file. That is the location where your partition will be mounted, and leaving it as /debian is the best idea, unless you've got some specific reason why you would change that.

Also, make sure that your first partition on the SD card is a small FAT partition (256 MB), because Maemo will try to mount it, and you don't want Maemo mounting your Debian partition.

Also, try extracting with gnutar xjvf for best results :)