Notices

It would really be best if the N900 used a version of Busybox that supported /etc/shadow passwords. That way you could run server apps straight on Maemo without resorting to Easy Debian. Without shadow passwords, multiple users on a server can easily read /etc/passwd hashes and break into users' accounts. Unfortunately, this bug is considered WONTFIX for Fremantle, and unless someone else wants to implement Maemo shadow passwords, an Easy Debian Server Edition is the next best bet.

If you don't feel like waiting for said server, you might try finding someone's preferred server "dpkg -l" list online, or see what Debian packages tasksel installs for the most minimal setup. Armed with this, you could remove any packages from Easy Debian that aren't in this minimal package list.

There is a way to install ubuntu 9.1 on the n900. This is a "normal linux" and "nearer" on linux than easy debian. Linux IS a server os AND a Desktop OS. It makes no sense to differ this. With a apt-get install apache2 you will habe a Apache Web-Server, with apt-get install xyz you can install some server services you want. But you then have to configure this services. To learn linux, the n900 is a smart way.

I dont want to have to boot into ubuntu loosing my phone. as for it is a server and a desktop

a) I already have a desktop optimized for tiny touch screen, why would I want another which hogs battery and is barely usable.

b) I doubt most production servers have much (if any) desktop functionality. Just because you can run something doesn't mean you should. Especially on a 31/2 inch screen with 256m ram and questional battery life.

You can create your own debian system from scratch and chroot into it. I did this myself to run a fresh Lenny install. I then use VNCServer to log in. I was able to compile wxPython and get Taskcoach to work. I think the same approach would work for you.

You can install easy-chroot and easy-debian without downloading the image file and use the scripts in those packages to get to a custom install.

fresh lenny, is that a new rock band?

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/

Ok I suppose I start here? but which of the many do I download?

If you need more space in your Debian image for serverish stuff, just take the Easy Debian image and uninstall the apps you don't want... Use synaptic or sudo apt-get remove, whatever you want.

But have you just tried installing all the things you want into Easy Debian? The LAMP stack should fit easily without even uninstalling anything, and I know several people have used Easy Debian for Samba (file sharing), Cups (printing), Apache (web server), PHP, MySQL, etc, and I myself have installed the full toolchain for compiling Debian apps from source packages.

All this, with just the standard Easy Debian...

If you insist on building your very own image from scratch, you can go to this page and follow the very brief instructions under "Creating a EABI chroot using debootstrap".

hi quole, first off hope things are better on the job front...the reason I did not want to just take the default is because I want to be able to quickly knock down and reinstall. If I have to uncompress to a 2gb version which takes some time, and then go and uninstall tons of stuff, it would in that case just make sense to use the bigger version. I actually was going to use the bigger version, but I wanted to be able to apt get upgrade and twice it failed after about 2 hours, both times with a reboot of my device. If you recall I am the pain in the *** who wanted to use fedora to learn all the services but it turned out that was not really a ready for prime time arm port. so I am now thinking that debian would be fine, but I don't need any of the multimedia (which I think is what breaks the apt-get upgrade. Anyway if there will be no official quole easy debian I will take a look at the page you linked to. Again thanks for all the great work you have provided for the maemo community.