Help with dual booting Mer
 

SO, i've been(trying to) following these instructions for dual booting.

http://mer-project.blogspot.com/2010...okia-n900.html

Part's I do not understand and i'm looking for some help as i'm a linux/n900b

Does this mean I need to have ubuntu dual booting on my vista machine? Or do I just need the .iso on a cd?

*I should use ssh and create a copy onto my pc?


I'm lost at this one. I do not know where to get it.

This should all be done on the phones terminal?

Thats all for now. I hope someone can help :)

Thanks!

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Answers in bold

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Thanks alot! I'm currently burning a live cd with ubuntu hope that works!

I'll post any more questions I have and I hope you can help :P

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

A live CD should work too, you don't have to install it, and assuming you have enough RAM it should be very quick to boot up and use (I have a live linux install on my USB drive so I can use all my apps on any PC that can boot from a USB, now if only there was a way to install the SDK on it...)

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

I'm not finding bootmenu in the extras devel. Is there a link to a .deb anywhere please?

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

My bad, it's in Qole's repository.
Catalogue Name: Qole
Web address: http://qole.org/repository
Distribution: maemo
Components: fremantle
Or just open this in the N900's browser http://qole.org/repository/pool/frem..._1.6_armel.deb
Short link: http://bit.ly/N900bootmenu

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Can someone provide assistance with the following steps please

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

* Partition your microSD to first partition being Linux and format it as ext3 using mkfs.ext3.
Assuming you're using Ubuntu, open terminal and type sudo gparted
Select your drive (top right corner drop down menu) and format it in ext3
Then exit gparted and in terminal type
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/mer
sudo mount /dev/sd<something>, depends on how and where it's connected> /mnt/mer
By /dev/sd(something) I mean use the one you see in gparted (drop down menu)

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Ok, done that. Now the next step

* tar --numeric-owner -pzxf /full/path/to/mer-armel-n900-rootfs-v0.17testing10.tar.gz

Contains a download link (mer.....testing.tar.gz) So I download that file and save it where/do what with it?

ONce again thanks and sorry for being such a noob and wasting your time

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

where = /full/path/to/ ( the place you have downloaded it)
do what = sudo tar --numeric-owner -pzxf /full/path/to/mer-armel-n900-rootfs-v0.17testing10.tar.gz

I think.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

so, if I have it on Desktop i'de do:

sudo tar --numeric-owner -pzxf /full/path/to/Desktop/mer-armel-n900-rootfs-v0.17testing10.tar.gz

??

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

I don't have a N900 but if you have downloaded the file to /Desktop then it must be:
sudo tar --numeric-owner -pzxf /Desktop/mer-armel-n900-rootfs-v0.17testing10.tar.gz

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

I'm doing it on ubuntu.
I gave up for the night, need a noobie friendly guide xD
I'll give it another shot tomorrow.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

If you have downloaded it on the ubuntu box; then you have to copy it to your newly created ext3 partition on the N900. The command is run on the N900 not on the ubuntu box.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Oh, that explains alot lol

Request: Newbie guide to dual booting Mer
 

Yesterday I made a thread looking for help on dual booting mer on the N900. Although the help was top class, I still find myself confused on how to do it since I completely lack any knowledge in linux past dpkg -i.

If anyone with knowledge on howto do it could go through
http://mer-project.blogspot.com/2010...okia-n900.html

and tell us(me) exactly how to do it with instructions like put blah/blah/blah into the terminal on your linux Pc.
Or, enter /blah/blah/ into the terminal on the N900.

Thanks in advance if anyone decides to help out.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

The thread "Request: Newbie guide to dual booting Mer" with one post has been merged into this thread.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

It can be run on both, but the instructions he pointed to state that it gets run on his ubuntu box

Desktop would be /home/<username in ubnutu, top right corner of screen>/Desktop

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Why would you merge it?

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

You asked for more detailed instructions for working through the same issue, only a day later. There was no need for a new thread.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

It was a request for a complete guide on how to do it rather than someone having to navigate through pages trying to find a semi-completed guide.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

I'll attempt to install Mer tomorrow and while I'm at it I'll write a tutorial, if I succeed, instructions look easy, very easy.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Yea, easy for someone who knows there way about linux.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Not so true andrew. I successfully completed these steps yesterday (after bout 6 hours) and I just installed linux for my first time last month when I got my N900. I wrote down some steps to try and help you through but I have never written a tutorial so It may seem sketchy. Give me a lil time and I will post it up here for you. A lot of these answers (like how to format a drive in ext3) are common procedures and you can find help with them elsewhere on the internet. So basically I found answers for every little step along the way and put it all together. The one problem with this though is that the standard 0.17v11 version of MER does not include the 3D acceleration so it runs slooooooooooooooooooooower than my dead gradma's dead turtle.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

I also tried many times.. No success. I think I'm doing something wrong with partitioning. I've tried with mkfs.ext3, gparted, parted and many other ways :P

Still, no luck. Bookmarking the thread btw :)

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Well same here, it just keeps shutting down when booting up, checked the .item file, enabled R&D mdoe, disabled the watchdog etc.. but it's still shutting down!

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

I just made it :P

I formatted microSD with gparted (msdos partition table and a partition as ext3). Make sure you close the back cover, N900 wont recognise the card if it's open.. :P

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

whats the advantage of this over the easy-debian package?

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

I tried this also put the tutorial wasnt clear at all and i had to reflash my device, just waiting for someone that can put a real good tutorial.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

I'm missing why you would have to reflash. And it'll come... soon.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Well the tutorial wasnt clear and i did everything on my n900 which caused a big problem in the partitioning for the ext3 instead of doing it on the memory card, i did it on the phone memory which took alot of space for nothing and couldnt install or do anything with the phone so i had to reflash it.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Oh, that does suck

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Done all that before, and it shuts down.
Going to reattempt to do it

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Hey guys i finished this the other night, like i said its slow because the 3d accel support has not been released yet, only one mer master has it on his n900 at the moment.

Edit * The absolute easiest way to move this mer.item and the firmware files to and from your n900 would be to use a ssh enabled ftp program with ssh enabled on your N900. If that doesn't make sense, use the steps below*

Steps below


They are very easy actually. I did it earlier, here is how

Step 1 - Install bootmenu on your phone

Open up the browser on your N900 and type this into the address bar http://bit.ly/N900bootmenu It will ask if you want to download or use app manager to open, just select app manager. The app will successfully install and then you need to go to your list of icons and select the one that says install bootmenu. A white screen pops up saying it has gained root access and then will ask you if you want to install, yadda yadda, it exits. You then need to open a text editor on your computer and paste this text into a new file::

ITEM_NAME="Mer (external SD, partition 1)"
ITEM_ID="mer"
ITEM_DEVICE="${EXT_CARD}p1"
ITEM_MODULES="mbcache jbd ext3"
ITEM_FSTYPE="ext3"
ITEM_FSOPTIONS="noatime,ro"

save the file as mer.item. Find a way to get this file onto your phone. Best way would probably be to use another sd card. After you have this file on your N900 you want to copy it to /etc/bootmenu.d folder. This can be done many ways but easiest would be xterm. Open up xterm on your phone and change your current directory to the one that has your mer.item file in it. Most likely it would be your sd card. The steps for copying it from sd would be...
Open xterm:

type "cd /media/mmc1", hit enter
then type "ls", hit enter

you should now see a list of all files on the root of your sd card, one of which should say mer.item

type "sudo cp mer.item /etc/bootmenu.d", hit return

You have now successfully completed the bootmenu install

Now before we go and format the sd card, we need to get the firmware files from the N900

In Xterm Type "cd /lib/firmware", hit enter

Type "cp * /media/mmc1", hit enter

You have now copied the files to your sd card. Now move them onto your linux computer and off of the card so we can format and install mer on it

Step 2 - format sd card

Easiest way to do this formatting thing is to use gparted. If you do not have gparted installed in your ubuntu (you did say you have ubuntu on your comp right?) then you can open xterm on the computer and type "apt-get install gparted", hit return.

After a few moments you will have gparted installed and you should be able to go to system > administration in the upper left of your screen and open gparted. up at the top and towards the right you should see a selector for your disk, pick the sd card (should say something like /dev/sdb). Up at the top select partition then go down to unmount. Go back to partition again and select format to > ext3. Click the green checkmark to apply the changes to your card. Your drive is now formatted in ext3

Step 3 - Mount and copy files


Open xterm on your computer and type "umount /dev/sdb1", hit enter

Type "sudo mkdir -p /mnt/mer", hit enter

Now type "sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/mer", hit enter

Now type "cd /mnt/mer", hit enter

Your current working directory is now /mnt/mer, and your sd card is mounted to that location. Now you need to untar the file you downloaded to the sd card.

In same terminal window from before type "sudo tar --numeric-owner -pzxf /home/user/Desktop/mer-armel-n900-rootfs-v0.17testing10.tar.gz", hit enter. I did read somewhere that you said you saved it to your desktop. Replace the word user with your linux user name (shows in upper right hand corner). This step should take a while...do not do anything to your xterm window until it returns an input line. And be sure to type everything exactly as i typed it in the quotes, including uppercase if present.

Once your xterm returns an input line it has finished installing mer. Last step is to take those firmware files from the N900 and copy paste them into the folder "/mnt/mer/lib/firmware" on your computer using the file explorer window. To do this just open up the file explorer and navigate to /mnt/mer/lib/firmware and drag and drop the .bin files from your N900's /lib/firmware folder...voila.

Type "umount /mnt/mer"

Waaait for it.

Remove the memory card when xterm is done.Turn off your N900, put the memory card in.

Turn it back on with the keyboard slid open

Select the mer line and wait

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Many thanks Scott! I'll give this a go when I log onto main PC.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Just tried it, got the same result, when selected it thinks for about a minute then shuts down. Will re attempt when I get some more time.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

Is the untaring part supposed to take long cuz i been sitting here for about 30 minutes its still doing it.

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

permission not allowed to copy firmware files from n900 to /mnt/mer/lib/firmware, can someone help with this?

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

kingzeus, did you try it with sudo in front of the cp ?

Re: Help with dual booting Mer
 

@ Scottprotege I did everything mentioned in your tutorial and the other tutorial before, and it does the same, N900 shuts down.
Not sure if R&D mode has to be enabled with some flags set but I'm assuming that it's not needed since Mer should handle the watchdog.
Edit: one more thing, the pointer shows up then it shuts down.