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DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
The DebiaN900 project is a set of scripts to facilitate the installation of Debian GNU/Linux on the N900. This is still very much "work in progress". There are many things work and many things that don't but it's now at a stage where I am happy to release it publicly.
This is the OS that I want to run on my N900 and I hope it will eventually become good enough to replace Maemo. Maemo was the first OS that showed me that you don't need to set any limits with mobile computing. What's wrong with Maemo then? Well it's incredibly out of date and there just aren't enough people contributing that are going to significantly change that. CSSU is great and I love what you guys are doing but to me it always looks like an uphill struggle. What about Mer and its derivatives? IMHO they aren't doing it right. When I say that, what I really mean is they don't meet my requirements. Large parts are developed behind closed doors. Mer suffers from being business focused and therefore they choose to use outdated/unmaintained GPLv2 packages (possibly with security vulnerabilities) so that OS derivatives can be Tivoised. Mer has a bespoke, limited set of core packages. Want another package? You have to port it yourself. Why reinvent the wheel when you can build on top of an existing product that doesn't suffer from these problems? The answer to that question probably relates to the need to sell it to hardware vendors, thus the Tivoisation agenda. I've read many arguments describing why it's a bad idea to run a desktop/server OS on mobile but I'm still not convinced that it's impossible to make Debian mobile friendly. I believe that it can be done with additional packages and patches, some of which I hope will be accepted upstream. I hope that this project will eventually satisfy the needs of those of us who want to run a full, up-to-date desktop/server Linux on their mobile phones. I would like to see this project evolve to become a complete alternative to Maemo ready for everyday use. It should be easy to install providing the best out-of-the-box experience possible whilst also being fully customisable and power efficient. I encourage you all to try it out, make suggestions, fork it on GitHub, fix bugs, make improvements, etc. Why Debian?
Why don't you just build and distribute a disk image?
How do I get started? Clone the Git repository (or download the zip) and read the README. Notes: Wi-Fi connectivity: The default configuration installs ConnMan for network connection management. The command-line utility that interfaces with ConnMan is connmanctl (a GTK GUI is also available). Running connmanctl with no parameters brings up a sub-shell. Here's a quick summary of the commands that are needed to get a protected Wi-Fi connection up and running: # connmanctl connmanctl> agent on connmanctl> enable wifi connmanctl> scan wifi connmanctl> services connmanctl> connect wifi_<string> The connmanctl shell interface supports tab completion (Shift + Space-bar with the installed keymap) which is handy when entering the connection string. See the ConnMan documentation for further information. For alternative methods of setting up WiFi, see here. Keyboard configuration: There are two key maps, one for the console and one for X11. These are based on the Arch Linux N900 key maps. The console key map is described here. The X11 key map is described in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/nokia_vndr/rx-51 Known issues:
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Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
Any progress with the modem compared to the elektranox status [1]?
What's the most useful (usability, stability...) UI Debian offers for the N900 in your opinion? [1] http://elektranox.org/n900/status/index.html |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
Is a interesting project :cool: ...will you provide screenshots of debian on N900?? What DE is running in debian for n900?
Thanks! |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
wicket: will those scripts install hardfp packages? any chance for softfp if that is the case?
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Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
There is a entry in config file specifying armhf. I imagine you just replace that with armel.
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Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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I've only really tried Enlightenment which has an option to optimise for mobile devices. It works quite well but has its quirks such as that it ignores all X11 keyboard settings that have been set up in /etc/default/keyboard, /etc/X11/xorg.conf and /etc/X11/xorg.conf/* so it can only really be configured via the command line or with a not so elegant hack. It's easy enough to install (apt-get install e17) but unfortunately the package maintainers are a bit behind. E19 has recently been released. I would like to build Plasma Active at some stage to see how that runs. There's also a package for Plasma Netbook available in Debian. Aapo is working on porting Hildon to GTK3 to run under Debian. Some prefer more basic window managers. There are a few options so I haven't yet decided on which UI would be best to install by default therefore my scripts don't install one yet. X11 is installed and configured for the keyboard, touch screen and I'll also configure it with the SGX drivers when I get that working. I welcome contributions of separate scripts to configure specific UIs. |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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I'm curious to know why you'd rather use softfp over hardfp... |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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2. Nokia PA plugins 3. there is a whole bunch of applications already available for Maemo, but you can't run them on hardfp OS |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
I've updated the Issue tracker with some of the main issues right now.
I'd like to draw your attention in particular to this issue before you go off and install ALSA or similar and blow up your speakers. |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
yeah, exactly my point about Nokia PA modules
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Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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I was able to make some progress with LXDE but I can only either create a UI that works without a stylus or that leaves enough room for application windows, not both at the same time. Xfce was even worse. btw. do you know the "bodhi-close" gadget created by Jeff Hoogland [1]? It essentially creates an [X] icon in the shelf (upper panel). I've found the source code here [2], but didn't compile it myself. In the VM I was able to use the Bodhi package in Debian. In combination with a taskbar-like gadget like iTask [3] (not an official part of E17) the "illume-softkey" module (lower panel) becomes totally dispensable, which in turn frees up some precious pixels for applications. Here's a screenshot of Bodhi running in a 800x480px VM with an E17 setup that I think might work well on the N900 screen [4]. It turned out whenever I tried to put something together in Debian that might work it ended up looking like Bodhi. So @Jeff, in case you read this: Thank you! What's your preferred web browser in Debian on the N900? I believe iceweasel is too heavy and it seems some potential alternatives (midori, xxxterm) aren't actually maintained. So far I'm leaning towards qupzilla and netsurf. Quote:
As a very simple "solution", wouldn't it be sufficient to mute ALSA's lower-frequency equalizer controls? (of course that means crippling the sound even via the audio jack) What's the critical frequency? I think I remember having read something about 125Hz, but that might be totally wrong. [1] http://talk.maemo.org/member.php?u=27934 [2] http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp...nt.devel/34506 [3] http://code.google.com/p/itask-module/ [4] https://wiki.debianforum.de/Datei:E17-bodhi.png |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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For Easy Debian, I found such setup most lightweight and convenient, at the same time. I see no reason why it would work differently in native Debian. BTW, it's worth to configure Openbox to start some programs without "decorations" - especially the ones that have own way of closing, minimizing, etc. Saves another bit of screen estate. /Estel *Works properly only with lxpanel from Jessie - earlier, some bug allowed certain applications to ignore "always on top" settings of auto-hiding panel, and, for example, Chromium was always on top. **The -1 pixel comes from the fact, that you need to leave hidden panel size of 1 pixel (before Jessie, min was 2 pixels, now it is 0), or Panel won't come up after restart. It's a bug - it should still appear, even when 0-sized when hidden. If it's ever get fixed, we can use full 800x480 pixels for programs. // Edit How about power-saving? I would expect that without Maemo's hack, it will use much more power (current) when totally idle and screen is disabled,as compared to Maemo/Hildon? |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
Hé hé hé :D something is cooking around! It smells goooooood :D!!!
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Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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I have tried out few browsers. I installed Iceweasel and as you might expect it ate a lot of the memory but other than that there were no real issues and I was able to install some of my favourite add-ons. It's actually quite responsive for single tab/window browsing if you don't have a lot of other stuff running. It runs much better than it does in Maemo under Easy Debian (from what I remember). Your right about Midori being a poor choice. It was recently removed from the repositories. It's back in there at the moment but it's scheduled to be auto removed again as there's a serious bug that needs fixing and no one's maintaining it. I ran into another bug when I tried it in that there was nowhere to enter a URL! If you want a really lightweight browser then I recommend links2. It does display graphics, just don't expect anything fancy like JavaScript. This might also be a good option. Quote:
There are also the Nokia PA plugins as suggested by freemangordon which would work in the short term. I say short term as I would prefer universal solution that also works with hardfp and is open source. Hopefully the Neo900 will have protection at hardware level. |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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In the meantime, you can run pm-suspend to completely suspend the device, just don't do it with the 3.16-rc1 kernel as the device will hang. |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
A word of warning to E17 users using 3.16-rc1. The E17 power saving that kicks in when idle for a few minutes also triggers the hang (it looks like it's doing a full suspend).
You could try 3.14-rc3 instead. My biggest problem with that kernel is I get frequent network errors causing SSH connections to drop and package downloads to fail. |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
with regards to the pulseaudio issue, wouldn't the meego version have the required protection we could use for armhf?
edit: it appears they might, settings refer to it https://github.com/nemomobile/pulsea...lgs/xprot/set2 |
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Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
whoops. xprot settings appear missing in n900 repo, however they are present in var/lib/pulse-nokia/ihf.parametres on our device for left/right. they are not in all of our settings, haven't checked them all.
could be usable IF xprot module is compatible. |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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There is some info that I always want to see (time, battery status) . And my screen edges all behave differently, i.e. the pressure point where lxpanel shows up is not the same for all four edges which irritates me. I also tried to create a centered static panel on top where windows don't dock. The idea was to have this panel cover most of the window decoration but grant access to the window control buttons. But this setup was kind of buggy (not always on top, windows sometimes docked, some weird lxmenu behavior). Quote:
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Also I'm used to having multiple tabs opened (4-10). Quote:
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On another note, I really like the UI of Ubuntu's webbrowser-app [1]. The two problems I see are the modified libqt5 dependencies that may make it hard to port it to Debian and the fact that you need multi-touch for some functionality (e.g. resizing contents). Quote:
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[1] http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/webbrowser-app |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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/Estel |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
Jessie is scheduled to freeze on 5th of november, so the weekend after that I'll try to upgrade ED and then I'll try again.
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Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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I played a bit with a Jessie VM and E17/LXDE.
In E17 I thought autohiding the shelf of the mobile theme might be useful to gain some additional space. But this shelf can't be hidden since it's no regular shelf. Instead it's a special module called "illume-home". So I disabled the illume-home module alltogether and created a regular shelf that autohides in its place. Surely no revolutionary change, but maybe a nice side note. btw: Does someone know how to configure which icons should be shown on the E17 desktop (other than wreaking havoc in /usr/share/applications)? As for LXDE I tried Estel's suggestions and found my first result quite pleasing (for someone who often earned facepalms from his art teacher). - screenshot attached The top panel is autohiding, so is the (currently invisible) bottom panel that contains a task bar. The ugly [X] in the upper right corner is a starter wmctrl to close the currently active window (yes, heavily "inspired" by bodhi-close), making the window's title bar pretty much useless. The browser is qupzilla with the window bar disabled while the url and menu bars are temporarilly hidden underneath the lxpanel. @Estel (or someone else who knows): Is there a way in openbox to undecorate (disable title bar) all windows by default and permanently? This is the wmctrl starter (I simply copied and adapted the leafpad file, which explains the quite pointless "Categories" line): Code:
# cat /usr/share/applications/wmctrl_close.desktop |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
Not sure this is the correct thread, but anyway:
If someone takes the job of helping me a bit (not sure what kind of help I'll need :), but I know nothing about PA) with the stuff on https://gitorious.org/maemo-multimed...f262a7ebe413c: I will (try to) RE the missing parts (xprot, xprot-ambient-temp and eq) |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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<application name="*" class="*"> Going back to your question, the relevant part of said comment-manual: Code:
# the name or the class can be set, or both. this is used to match I would say "go for LXDE", for the performance and flexibility reasons. Not to mention that many things from other good desktop environments (MATE) works out of the box with LXDE components (or require just editing out the godamned line "OnlyShownIn" from their .desktop files). /Estel |
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This gives me what I was looking for: Code:
<application name="*" class="*"> |
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i was expecting to find xprot settings string in strings section of disassembly for use with string comparison to identify sections within config file. so far no luck in -common or -music. |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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.rodata:000485A8 0000001B C x-maemo.xprot.displacement EDIT: sorry, it is in voice |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
I compiled and packaged Enlightement DR19 for armhf debian unstable. Compiled with systemd support.
From E19 version 0.19.0 alpha 1 mobile profile are deprecated. But default profile is usable. Trick to add Nokia N900 keyboard support in Enlightenment. After first run (after initial configs created), run in terminal (enlightenment session need to be stopped!): Code:
eet -d .e/e/config/standart/e.cfg config e.txt Find: Code:
group "E_Config_XKB_Layout" struct { Code:
group "E_Config_XKB_Layout" struct { Code:
eet -e .e/e/config/standart/e.cfg config e.txt 1 https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ql5b60dyd...w53vFds4a?dl=0 |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
RE: critical speaker frequency:
According to this [1] 480Hz is either the critical frequency or well on the safe side. (I'm no audio expert) So muting everything below that frequency in alsamixer should make audio safe. Who want's to play the guinea pig? ;) On another note, I finally got around to install Debian on real hardware, installed LXDE and it works mostly fine. I found some small issues: 1. After a reboot when I select Maemo (CSSU thumb kernel sitting on eMMC) the first attempt to boot will always fail at the 5 dots of dread, the second one will always be fine. No idea if it's a Debian, a u-boot or a CSSU thumb thing. 2. In LXDE tapping the screen will always trigger the right mouse button which makes it hard to control the desktop. I guess that's manageable via evdev. Reading man evdev also revealed that tap-hold for right click can be configured via evdev and therefore desktop-independent. 3. I noticed that the CLI and GUI keymaps differ (e.g. no Tab via Shift+Space in GUI). Where is the CLI keymap defined for comparison? 4. LXDE battery monitor may not work. I say "may" because I only tried with power cable connected. Other than that I'm quite impressed. btw. is there an easy way to overclock the CPU within Debian, probably the same way KP does it in Maemo? I didn't try phone functions so far, but I'll try soon. Unfortunately the fso-deviced package isn't installable on i386/amd64 atm. Not sure if it's any better on armhf. I guess it's due to changes in connection with systemd introduction (but right now it doesn't work with sysvinit either). [1] http://213.128.137.28/showthread.php?p=1160889 |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
I played a bit:
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I need to figure out which is the correct device. Usualy it's done like this (output from my PC): Code:
$ find /dev/input/by-id/ -name "*event-mouse" Code:
$ ls /dev/input/ Quote:
I had a look at the code long ago and I believe this is easily changed. But on the other hand I could have sworn there is a way to configure this without recompilation, which doesn't seem to be true - so no idea how accurate my memory is here. Quote:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugr...cgi?bug=766114 |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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I'd personally prefer a solution that works at driver level if possible. That way it would cover all possible audio configurations. Quote:
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oFono is also available for Debian if you want to try an alternative to FSO. |
Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
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I think the problem lies deeper since at least to my understanding /dev/input/by-id/ should be present regardless of xorg.conf. It should be there once xserver-xorg-input-evdev is installed. Quote:
I'll try if that works for DebiaN900 too. Quote:
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I guess in the long run there's no way around systemd in Debian because sysvinit compatibility just won't be maintained actively anymore and I don't believe that any of the recent attemts (new GRs) will really change that. Quote:
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Re: DebiaN900 - A set of scripts to facilitate the installation of native Debian (WIP)
I think I know why the battery monitor doesn't work.
For comparison my netbook: Code:
$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/uevent Code:
$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_now Code:
$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/bq27200-0/uevent Code:
$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/bq27200-0/charge_now |
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