how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

I have been lurking (with an occasional post) for a few weeks since this phone came on my radar. I moved from win xp to ubuntu on both my desktop and laptop and love it.

Now I know the obvious answer to my title. It is full linux. But so is my wireless home linksys router once I reflashed it with with an image from dd-wrt.com. But apart from running some basic commands from the router via ssh, I am not going to learn linux on the router...

And that is really my goal. Not to have a great geek factor phone/tablet, but instead to keep (what little) skills I have developed over the last year fresh when not in front of my computer or laptop. Linux to me has come to mean linux and certain (mostly networking related) apps such as samba, apache, dns, etc. I am just wondering if I get this phone how much of that stuff I can twiddle with or if I will just have the basic functionality that I have on my wireless router.

Finally please clarify the easy-debian package for me. I have read up on it but as a guy trying to become a linux geek and not a geek yet I am having some issues understanding it....Do I have this basically correct?

1) It is an actual install of a full debian to the "hard drive" of the n900 and can run any app that debian on my desktop could (though some horribly slowly)--???

2) chroot means the host maemo kernel is totally in control of running all the debian linux commands as opposed to debian's kernel--???

3) The debian instance is run such that when started it appears to be running on the root of the device, but actually this is a fake root, totally isolated from the important system files in the maemo real file system--???

4) Once the easy-debian program is started, (if above is correct) there should be no boot time for the debian as it is actually being run off the maemo kernel--???

5) The debian kernel is actually not installed as part of the easy-debian/debian chroot program as it is not needed--???

6) Easy debian would then share the host ip information--??? or would it get its own ip address....

7) I could (or could not) have the debian up as a server and use the maemo command line as a client--??? in other words, lets say I set up samba on the debian...can I use from the maemo terminal the samba client commands? or could I setup apache on debian and from the maemo browser actually browse to a webpage created on debian's apache server?

thanks for listening, please newbie down your responses, you linux guru guys (and gals).

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

:( were my questions too dumb to warrant a response? :(

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

No, but I have a feeling this has been addressed somewhere on the forums...

I'm sort of a long-term linux noob, dabbling in it for some years, but in no way an expert like some others around here, but will take a stab at your questions best I can...and maybe some others will chime in...

Sort of....it is a real debian install, but it is compiled for ARMEL cpu not the x86 PC cpu, so, think you can only install apps that have been compiled for the ARMEL cpu....and there's repository for those....so, if an app is there you can install it...otherwise, someone would need to recompile it I think....

Not sure that I know the correct answer on this one...but somehow I'd almost think of this like a VM sort of situation???

Not sure that I know the correct answer on this one...but as I understand it, not totally, but could be mistaken...

All I know is that it boots up pretty quickly on my N900, installed to internal storage...

Not sure that I know the correct answer on this one...

Not sure that I know the correct answer on this one...but, I assume that's what happens....I do know that apt-get worked OK for me...

I don't know the correct answer on this one...


Well, sorry, that I can't be of more help....but hopefully, this at least gives you a little bit of info, until some others chime in on this...

:)

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

The N900 in a terminal will look identical to a Desktop based on Debian. The commands such as apt, dpkg, and such all exist on the N900 and it uses the same type of repositories as the Desktop Debian would.

The normal commands such as ls, cp, mv, etc are actually from something called "BusyBox" which gives you a "mostly" similar command to the desktop however it may be missing some switches. I haven't messed with dd-wrt, but if it's linux like Android is Linux (just the Kernel, none of the GNU userspace items or SysV boot process) - then the N900 will be more like "linux" (GNU/Linux) than the dd-wrt.

For the most part yes. Some may segfault, or just crash, but all the ARM ported software will at least attempt to run.

No, chroot just changes your "root" shell to be inside the jail that you specify. So the kernel of Maemo is controlling all the hardware, but the commands themselves are being run from Debian. You are not actually "booting" debian at all, simply running it's binaries to execute commands. (and in turn linking against the debian libraries).

It's a real "root" in that it's mostly a full debian root installation, but it's not the active nor running/booted "root". It's what they call a "sandbox" or "jail" - everything within the chroot sees "/" as the "chrooted directory", not the real /, and it runs all commands from that area.

This is actually kind of hard for me to explain, hope I didn't confuse you further.

Correct. Debian is not actually booting, Maemo is handling all access to the hardware, sound, devices, etc. The software is running from within debian.

Correct. The kernel is only used for booting and running the system, easy debian is not meant for that. Deblet (then Mer) for the N8x0 was meant for that and included the debian kernels.

It would share the IP of the host. This isn't a full virtual machine because debian is not really "running".

Yes but it would look like localhost, or exactly the same as if you setup samba or apache on Maemo.

HTH.

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

Actually, Maemo IS Debian.

This means that it is built on top of Debian.

Of course, Easy Debian runs fine, but it will only run programs compiled for the ARM architecture.

About the server question, I'm not sure.

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

Yes but the libraries and paths are different in some cases. Which is why just taking a straight ARMEL debian .deb file and installing it on Maemo (while possible, and may work) - is not recommended by any means.

And many times will fail for the sole reason that the "Dependency" naming convention (and versions) could be different.

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

I don't know very much about easy debian, other users, correct me if I am wrong.
1) It's not virtual machine or emulation, it's an ARMel Debian distro that run natively like any other application, so you can't run x86 binary like on desktop but you can use adapted applications like GIMP,OpenOffice.org, via LXDE or hildon window (GIMP works only via LXDE)

2)???

3)The Debian rootfs is in /.debian/ and can't access to Maemo rootfs (but can acces to /home/ and MyDocs

4)Start and stop LXDE session is very fast on my device, /.debian is still mounted after exiting but this don't affect performances.

5)You just need to install Easy Debian(who also install Easy Chroot and application shortcuts) and the ext3 image( via a very user-friendly programm)

6) It use the same ip adress as Maemo, nothing to configure, I can access to the network without problems

7)Yes, use the Debian-Chroot shortcut for acceding to the Debian command line

Edit: wow, I think that I am the only for who Maemo.org was down :(

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

Thanks for a great thread - I learnt much reading through the responses, and it made a real difference not to have to wade through criticisms of Nokia, Apple, launch of PR 1.2, etc.

When I purchased my N900, this site was the most important resource in helping me understand how to use Maemo appropriately. Hoping that there are more threads of this nature. Thanks for helping a noob out.

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

basically yes. but the last information i found, was that updating and installing of new packages is currently not recommended.

as for "any app that debian on my desktop could": armel for armv7 is one of the officially supported platforms of debian (which makes nokia's crippling of debian, making packages incompatible and calling that sad thing maemo so nonsensical).
thus almost all debian packages would be installable, once easy debian is ready. almost, because there are some packages requiring an x86 cpu ...

define "debian linux commands". linux as such is only the kernel, around that is the shell, which runs commands, both command line and graphic.
there are built-in commands (eg the for loop) and externaly, eg ls.
debian itself has some commands related to system and package management, maemo as debian derivate uses a subset of them.

mameo comes by default with something horrible, called busybox. it replaces a full shell like bash and emulates a lot of usually external commands (like ls). the idea of busybox was, to cater for very limited devices -- both in power and in space. the n900 does ion no way qualify, since it has more than enough power to run a full shell and set of commands -- and given that useless localization packages take up about 100mb, it is pretty ironic that actually useful functionality was sacrified instead.

debian's kernel comes, unlikely other distributions, with rather little modifications, and anyway, it had to be compiled for the n900 specifically in ayn case to support all the hardware.

yes.

booting is more than just the kernel. several scripts and stuff have to be run, too. i don't know, though, how fast it would be. i aborted all attempts to install it when i read that i should refrain from installing of additional packages and updating.

correct.

could be both ways, but i guess the developers chose sharing.

technically yes. it's multitasking, remember?

Re: how linux is the n900 and some easy debian questions
 

I am distressed if I can install debian but should refrain from installing new packages or updating...:(