[Debian] ANNOUNCE: Easy Debian For Everyone! OpenOffice, Firefox 3, Java, AbiWord, IceWM, etc - Page 13 - maemo.org

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fatalsaint	2008-07-14 , 17:48
Posts: 3,428 \| Thanked: 2,856 times \| Joined on Jul 2008	#121

Originally Posted by qole

Also, if you are planning to boot to Debian, don't use my chroot as the basis for your install, use Johnx's bootable Debian.

Besides the over-written passwd file and resolv.conf files... whats the difference? You used his as a basis for your chroot in your initial how-to's and wiki correct?? So I imagine you used his as the basis for your .img???

Did you strip the kernel and stuff from your image? (haven't checked)

I also noticed that your icewm menu looked a lot cleaner than mine from when I did it manually via your wiki on downloading his .tar.gz, unzip it to a partion, create the scripts manually, etc.. I ran an apt-get install icewm and booted it and it was nice.. but the menu system was cluttered.. was a mess of stuff in there that I had to find.. etc.

Your menu looked cleaner - not sure if that was just software I had loaded or you actually modified it from the original menu.. Looks like you may have added a theme or two as well??

The only projects I really have remaining is getting the Bluetooth pairing to work (i've gotten probably half way).. as well as getting a good WPA front-end and getting wireless stuff to work easily like in Maemo.. after that - debian will be pretty much as functional; with more power; than the Maemo base, IMHO.

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geneven	2008-07-14 , 18:16
Posts: 5,795 \| Thanked: 3,151 times \| Joined on Feb 2007 @ Agoura Hills Calif	#122

Ok, so I haven't read all thirteen pages of comments; I hope this doesn't duplicate them. I installed and everything worked pretty good. I installed WindowMaker and even getting a terminal to come up was way slow. I installed Foxmarks in Gran Paradiso (why not FF 3.0?) and installation was way slow. In fact, everything was way slow.

I know, you say in the beginning that we need to adjust our expectations. Well, I enjoyed a really good circus trick, running Debian on my N800!

Now that the fun is over, though, I don't see this as being a usable alternative environment.

Is anyone out there going to always run this now? I have the impression that some people run PB's kde environment all the time...

But isn't the only reason to run this in preference to the usual Nokia tablet environment to run programs that haven't yet been ported?

Or have I just not optimized my Debian environment yet? (btw, my desktop computer already runs Sidux, one of the cooler versions of Debian).

fatalsaint	2008-07-14 , 18:27
Posts: 3,428 \| Thanked: 2,856 times \| Joined on Jul 2008	#123

Originally Posted by geneven

Ok, so I haven't read all thirteen pages of comments; I hope this doesn't duplicate them. I installed and everything worked pretty good. I installed WindowMaker and even getting a terminal to come up was way slow. I installed Foxmarks in Gran Paradiso (why not FF 3.0?) and installation was way slow. In fact, everything was way slow.

How are you launching WindowMaker?? I installed WM when I did the manual chroot installation and had little-no problem with it.. i configured the whole menu system and made the quick launch boxes just like the guy in the Video that used it. Using a terminal was relatively fast..

This debian I have used icewm (the one qole provides).. apt-get can sometimes take a while to get past the initial point.. then runs fine. Synaptic runs extremely slow for me. Firefox runs manageable.. a very long startup time; but once it's up - with the exception of 2 posts today; the rest of my relatively few posts came from within IceWeasel in IceWM. It all appears manageable to me.. This is running XChat and Pidgin from within IceWM as well.. (Why?? Because I don't like switching >.<).

Somewhere around these forums some dude posted a bunch of services you can stop to make android run faster.. I went and played with that (running it all causes IceWM to die because of how qole has integrated it with OS2008.) Shutting down most of those services causes IceWM to seriously increase on speed .. so I imagine if you do a full boot to debian it'll fly at least as fast as maemo.

Right now you need to keep the expectation that you have a 400mhz processor with 128mb ram .. and running debian within a chroot is almost like running a virtual machine with debian on it. Not quite the overhead.. but comparable IMHO. It'll always run a little slow.

	qole	2008-07-14 , 19:10
	Moderator \| Posts: 7,109 \| Thanked: 8,820 times \| Joined on Oct 2007 @ Vancouver, BC, Canada	#124

Originally Posted by fatalsaint

Besides the over-written passwd file and resolv.conf files... whats the difference? You used his as a basis for your chroot in your initial how-to's and wiki correct?? So I imagine you used his as the basis for your .img???

No. I used a clean root filesystem. See the Debian chroot thread for more technical info, or for posting questions about how to do it yourself.

Originally Posted by fatalsaint

I also noticed that your icewm menu looked a lot cleaner than mine from when I did it manually via your wiki on downloading his .tar.gz, unzip it to a partion, create the scripts manually, etc.. I ran an apt-get install icewm and booted it and it was nice.. but the menu system was cluttered.. was a mess of stuff in there that I had to find.. etc.

Yes, I did some manual clean-up to the IceWM menu and stuff. Again, see the Debian chroot thread (the last few pages) for the discussion on that, as I searched high and low for the right files to edit...

after that - debian will be pretty much as functional; with more power; than the Maemo base, IMHO.

Debian certainly has more power, however it is non-optimized for our tablets and so unmodified Debian apps tend to be slow and bloaty on the N8x0...

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geneven	2008-07-14 , 19:15
Posts: 5,795 \| Thanked: 3,151 times \| Joined on Feb 2007 @ Agoura Hills Calif	#125

I installed wmaker from synaptic in icewm. I'll try it from tthe chroot terminal, or maybe I'll try Fluxbox first.

	qole	2008-07-14 , 19:29
	Moderator \| Posts: 7,109 \| Thanked: 8,820 times \| Joined on Oct 2007 @ Vancouver, BC, Canada	#126

Originally Posted by geneven

Ok, so I haven't read all thirteen pages of comments; I hope this doesn't duplicate them. I installed and everything worked pretty good. I installed WindowMaker and even getting a terminal to come up was way slow. I installed Foxmarks in Gran Paradiso (why not FF 3.0?) and installation was way slow. In fact, everything was way slow... Is anyone out there going to always run this now? I have the impression that some people run PB's kde environment all the time...

Things are generally slower this way, for sure. Part of the problem is that, in order to keep things simple for newbies and to disturb as little as possible on the tablet, we're running Debian in (1) a "virtual" chroot filesystem that (2) lives in a mounted image file on a (3) flash memory card with fairly slow read/write speed. If you run an alternate window manager like IceWM, then you're also running (4) a nested X-Server (so, TWO X-Servers) and (5) TWO window managers.

The first thing that will really help your Debian speed is to use the alternate window manager only when you need it. Use the Debian chroot terminal and Synaptic from within OS2008.

There is a noticeable speed improvement if you set up your chroot in its own partition or a folder in your rootfs (if you have a big primary partition). There would probably be another big speed improvement if you were willing to shut down the OS2008 system like penguinbait does with KDE (or like fatalsaint suggests above). But one of the big plusses of this system is that you can keep OS2008 open and run another window manager at the same time, and you can switch back and forth.

I'm working on a new version that will help with this kind of disappointment. For example, my next version will run Kazehakase (or similar) as the default browser, rather than Firefox. Firefox is really just unacceptably slow, and I really shake my head when I think that the whole point of FF was to strip away all the bloat of Netscape / Mozilla. It has ended up being big and bloated again...

Originally Posted by geneven

Or have I just not optimized my Debian environment yet?

There are some optimization tips in the Debian chroot thread. More are always welcome.

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Last edited by qole; 2008-07-14 at 19:35.

fatalsaint	2008-07-14 , 19:33
Posts: 3,428 \| Thanked: 2,856 times \| Joined on Jul 2008	#127

I'd recommend not launching IceWM at all if you plan to use WMaker and instead modify/copy the debian /usr/bin/xpice script that qole has written.
Change this line:

Code:

su user -c 'export DISPLAY=:1; icewm-session'

To something like:

Code:

su user -c 'export DISPLAY=:1; wmaker'

And then from the normal Maemo terminal launch: debwm WindowMaker xpice (or whatever you called your copy.)

Or from a debian root shell I think you can just launch xpice... although this discussion probably ought to move to the "technical" one.. since qole is redirecting me there as well

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qole

	qole	2008-07-14 , 19:42
	Moderator \| Posts: 7,109 \| Thanked: 8,820 times \| Joined on Oct 2007 @ Vancouver, BC, Canada	#128

Originally Posted by fatalsaint

I'd recommend not launching IceWM at all if you plan to use WMaker and instead modify/copy the debian /usr/bin/xpice script that qole has written.

And then from the normal Maemo terminal launch: debwm WindowMaker xpice (or whatever you called your copy.)

Or from a debian root shell I think you can just launch xpice... although this discussion probably ought to move to the "technical" one.. since qole is redirecting me there as well

I would really recommend making a copy of xpice, call it xpwm or something, so you can run IceWM or WindowMaker as you wish.

Then you can make another menu item for WindowMaker.

But yes, please, further discussion at this level should be in the "techie" thread. I would love to discuss what WM to include in the next version over there, especially if you have strong emotions about why I should ditch IceWM in favour of another...

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danahyatt	2008-07-16 , 07:55
Posts: 20 \| Thanked: 2 times \| Joined on Jul 2008 @ Sac	#129

Thanks. I have wanted to install Debian since the first day I received my 810. However now I am hold off because I am more productive and depend on the tablet for many things, daily. Although using OpenOffice and FireFox 3 will be worth the load time. Thanks again.