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hlub is offline hlub
2012-08-26 , 11:46
Posts: 9 | Thanked: 11 times | Joined on Apr 2009
#1
Just to say that it is entirely unproblematic to run Gentoo in a chroot jail on the N900 as per these instructions

pro:
  • (for me) a well-known distribution
  • newest software, same as on my big machine
  • no version-skew problems, except possibly the ancient kernel, no problems so far though
  • N900 system untouched, all the new stuff runs in the chroot jail
  • communication with N900's own software via dbus
  • X works, using N900's own window manager.
  • backup is easy (just tar-gzip the jail)

con:
  • builds are slow, distcc is a must
  • Programs can look funny (no Hildon)

If anyone is interested I can post some more details.
Last edited by hlub; 2012-08-26 at 17:29. Reason: clarify that it's only a chroot installation
 

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HolgerN is offline HolgerN
2012-08-26 , 13:06
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#2
This sounds very interesting to me. Can you provide more information? Thank you very much.

At the moment i have a 6GB partition with debian chroot.
 
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electroaudio is offline electroaudio
2012-08-26 , 13:39
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#3
Originally Posted by hlub View Post
Programs can look funny (no Hildon)

If anyone is interested I can post some more details.
Could you please provide screenshot of this?
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jormartr is offline jormartr
2012-08-26 , 13:50
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#4
I have a debian chroot, doing things not posible on main Maemo.

My main distro is gentoo, on my machines, and so, I tried to move that chroot to gentoo, but that compile times were a no go.

I would like to read what and how did you do it, also, some insight on setting a distcc would be helpfull, I never managed to get it working :/
 
hlub is offline hlub
2012-08-26 , 14:21
Posts: 9 | Thanked: 11 times | Joined on Apr 2009
#5
There really is not much to add to the instructions on the Linux Clues blog

  • The chroot needs to be somewhere on an ext3 partition, so you should have a large /home partition or an SSDcard with an ext3 partition
  • I started with the current-stage3-armv7a_hardfp tarball. Take care to preserve owners and permissions when unpacking (I forgot that the first time...)
  • I made a little script to mount essential directories like /dev /proc ... into the jail, entered the jail through the "front door" (sudo chroot $JAIL /bin/bash), downloaded the portage tree and started emerging
  • After setting up a few essential things (for me: zsh, emacs, perl) I made a startup script that starts the jail with only xinetd running.
  • Even sshd is run by xinetd, so that an uninhabited jail only has one small process running.
  • I inhabit the jail as an unprivileged user with the same UID and GID as 'user' on the N900. This makes sharing files and using dbus much easier.
  • Gentoo takes a lot more space than other distributions: now already 7 GB with only a few X applications built
  • Gentoo has a particularly easy way to setup cross-compilers (I just ran 'crossdev armv7a-hardfloat-linux-gnueabi' on my main machine). A cross-compiler is necessary to be able to speed up builds with distcc.

Because of the last point, I suspect it is more work, but still doable, for non-Gentoo users

I added a screenshot, not much to see there, really. X programs run full screen under the Hildon window manager, there are no fancy desktops. It shows my favourite system monitor, xosview. Because /sys and /proc are mounted under the jail it has access to all the info it needs.
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ZogG is offline ZogG
2012-08-26 , 15:23
Posts: 1,389 | Thanked: 1,857 times | Joined on Feb 2010 @ Israel
#6
http://wiki.maemo.org/Gentoo/N900
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hlub is offline hlub
2012-08-26 , 15:44
Posts: 9 | Thanked: 11 times | Joined on Apr 2009
#7
Originally Posted by ZogG View Post
http://wiki.maemo.org/Gentoo/N900
Nice and impressive - it describes booting into a complete autonomous Gentoo system, running instead of Maemo

However, I prefer to use gentoo alongside the original N900 software - much less ambitious, but, for me, more practical (like, say, actually being able to use the darn thing as a phone
Last edited by hlub; 2012-08-26 at 15:47.
 
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ZogG is offline ZogG
2012-08-26 , 15:53
Posts: 1,389 | Thanked: 1,857 times | Joined on Feb 2010 @ Israel
#8
Originally Posted by hlub View Post
Nice and impressive - it describes booting into a complete autonomous Gentoo system, running instead of Maemo

However, I prefer to use gentoo alongside the original N900 software - much less ambitious, but, for me, more practical (like, say, actually being able to use the darn thing as a phone
afaik you can send sms fron gentoo on n900 and calls is WIP.

But if you want chroot, t's not something new, it doesn't really matter if it's debian, ubuntu or gentoo.
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hlub is offline hlub
2012-08-26 , 16:17
Posts: 9 | Thanked: 11 times | Joined on Apr 2009
#9
Originally Posted by ZogG View Post
afaik you can send sms fron gentoo on n900 and calls is WIP.
It says : note the other end will probably get silence, and you won't hear them either., not exactly my idea of a usable phone. It still needs some tweaking to become one

But if you want chroot, t's not something new, it doesn't really matter if it's debian, ubuntu or gentoo.
You are absolutely right, and I didn't spend much time on it. And that is what really surprised me : how smoothly the whole thing works (until now, knock wood, I have had my N900 for only a week), and how easily the chroot installation works with the rest of the N900 (e.g dbus)
Last edited by hlub; 2012-08-26 at 16:22.
 
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ejasmudar is offline ejasmudar
2012-08-26 , 16:20
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#10
Calls working would make me such a happy guy!
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