I'm planning to create a new image once Jessie is frozen (5th of November).
To do that I need my Cubieboard2 (mainly for recompiling glibc [1]) back which I have lent at the moment. So I can't run any real tests right now.

Since I've never been much into artwork I have no real interest in providing images with my favourite software selection or desktop configuration. I only really care that my images work as a minimal Debian desktop in a way that less experienced Debian users can handle.
My idea with the Wheezy images was that others who have more fun in polishing things have an easy base to begin with. This is why I seldomly release images because once it runs as best as I can make it run I consider my work done.


[1] http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...postcount=3030

I'm experimenting at the moment, qole. Figuring out what works well, etc. I've been thinking about creating a build using fluxbox as the default window manager, though. Is that acceptable? I've noticed all available builds cuirrently using lxde (which is great, by the way).

I saw someone using blackbox, so I assume it's workable without too much trouble.

I modified pdaXii13 on the Zaurus by building (compiled on the device itself actually) and heavily customizing Fluxbox 1.0 for it a few years back, so the idea of doing something similar in Easy Debian is attractive.

Thank you for this great project. It is greatly appreciated!

Why not?
I've built images with jwm and e17 just for testing, so that's not much of a problem.

Thank you, sulu. I was wondering if using lxde was some kind of unifying guideline to give the project some uniformity, but I think having different choices might bring some value as well.

I think the only guideline is to share what you think is worth sharing.

In my opinion lxde is the best compromise between performance, ease of use and easy configurability.
Afaik fluxbox heavily relies on using the right mouse button which is sort of a pain in Easy Debian. And it has quite tiny desktop elements by default which might be hard to decipher on the N900 if you're over 40.
But I'd be happy to be proven wrong and see some well-done fluxbox implementation in ED.

One of the nice things about fluxbox is that you can configure almost everything. Usability will be one of my main concerns, definitely.

A quick tip for new users (probably most of you already know).

If you install large packages, the Maemo watchdog has the bad habit of kicking in due to install processes taking too much of the N900's resources and making it unresponsive. This will reboot the N900, interrupting the package installation, and most likely breaking the EasyDebian image.

1. It's always a good idea to backup your working EasyDebian image.
2. When you install software from the repos, use apt-get install and not synaptic.
3. Prior to installing, remove any external USB storage, and unmount the microSD card manually. For the latter, as root do:
umount /media/mmc1/
4. Use the following command from Debian Chroot:
nice -n 19 ionice -c 3 apt-get install --no-install-recommends <package name>

A little explanation:
Unmounting external storage is to prevent a potential issue with dpkg (used in the backend by apt-get install) which seems to have caused reboots for some.

The nice and ionice commands are to avoid the install processes from taking too many resources, making the N900 unresponsive, and causing the watchdog to reboot.

Also, the --no-install-recommends flag for apt-get install is necessaty in squeeze and later because otherwise it will consider recommended packages as dependencies, causing a lot of space from our limited Easy Debian images to be wasted.

Finally, to remark that if you want to be extra cautious you can additionally install only a limited number of packages at a time to minimize even further the chances for a reboot.

This last strategy is implemented by first finding out every package that will be installed (including dependencies) without actually installing it, for example by using the -s flag of apt-get install, as in:
apt-get install -s <package name>

Then, just install a subset of the packages set at a time.

Thanks to leetnoob, sulu, qole, and others for the original tips. Just condensing some of what I've recently learned by going through the thread.

Very good summary!

As a remark:
You can make --no-install-recommends a default behavior by adding this line to /etc/apt/apt.conf:The same works for suggested packages:is equivalent to the switch --no-install-suggests

My images have both lines in apt.conf by default. If you temporarily want to tell apt to install suggested or recommended packages, just add the switches --install-suggests and --install-recommends

To change this permanently just replace the "0" with a "1" or delete the line altogether. apt's default behavior is to install suggested and recommended packages.

Thank you, sulu. That will come in very handy!

BTW, I just installed Okular for testing, figuring it wouldn't work, but it works just fine, even on stock (not overclocked) N900. That's quite impressive.

Does anybody use an external keyboard with EasyDebian?

I'm wondering if support for a bluetooth keyboard with integrated mousepad would be better than in Maemo? In Maemo, as far as I can tell you have to go through the extmou and extkb setup, and support for specific devices is not guaranteed.

Freemangordon's extkbd works best for most keyboards and ED's programs started inside Maemo, but completely fails inside any desktop environment run via ED.

Qole's bt--hd-scripts (or how was it called) works less reliably that extkbd, but works fine inside ED's desktop environments.

extkbd and bt-hd-scripts conflicts with each other (you have seen that one coming, haven't you?...)

/Estel