pipeline: I think we should work together to turn my chroot scripts in Easy Debian into a generic ext2 image chroot appliance launcher. You definitely want the latest version of my package, since it has that cool turbo loop stuff in it, and I definitely want to move towards your isorun / ext2run system. I'm thinking of trying out qwerty12's recent zenity package as the GUI frontend.

AHA. I have the solution. I should break apart my Easy Debian package into an easy-chroot package and easy-debian package. The easy-chroot package has a very generic chroot script that is designed to be wrapped by other scripts, and the easy-debian package has the Debian chroot-specific stuff in it, including the Debian image downloader, LXDE window manager, and all of that stuff. Then you (and others) can depend on the easy-chroot package and wrap it in your own scripts... Sounds like a plan?

EDIT: So I figure it would work to issue a command like "sudo ezchroot filename.ext2 (or /dev/partition) /mountpoint command param param param" to run as root (replacing the "debian" command), or "ezchroot-user ..." to run as user (replacing the "debbie" command). Then the debian and debbie commands could simply wrap these commands and add some debian-specific tweaks. That would allow me to make new packages like Easy Ubuntu and you could use easy-chroot as a dependency to do the heavy lifting for ext2 chroot running.

lol. This sounds interesting. I've been trying to come up with a way to use grub to mount and boot isos from a pendrive to save me on having to burn every iso I get when testing Linux distros, so this is somewhat similar.

Yea definately... i had thought about using zenity within the appliances but you're thinking of using it as frontend for managing the chroot? That sounds interesting too.

Basically i have my 'ext2run' command which calls :
- ext2mount
- ext2chroot /autorun.sh $2 $3 $4 $5 $6
- ext2drop (unmount.. important for reuse of mountpoint)

additionally i added an 'alternate' mountpoint for simple side-by-side mount for copying between (useful when authoring the ext2 images)... those are ext2bmount and ext2bdrop

With 'most' of my appliances, a 1-at-a-time restriction for 'running' them is tolerable, but long term it might be neat to have up to... say 4... mountpoints and a rollover capability in script. Chroot apps dont know the difference, but would make for a tricky mount script.


hmm would you be able to replace my package entirely? if so i wouldn't need to add as a dependency at all I do kind of need the independent mount/run/drop commands and at least 2 mountpoints in order to create the images i make though... after all how i can i rip off more of your debian apps if i cant access the destination ext!

Any thoughts on how easy that would be to integrate into your scripts?

I updated my isomount package with a minor enhancement to symlink /var/tmp and /var/lib/dbus.

This is mostly so that the ext2 abiword appliance can be used for opening email attachments or web links (of document files).

The /var/lib/dbus directory was needed for accessing machine-id file from leafpad within an appliance (my mono dev appliance).

I have updated my isomount package to version 1.05 with alot of features, most of which add 'potential' for creating much more powerful/useful appliances but i have not yet created any significant appliances which use the new capabilities.

Full description of the overhaul i made is in first post, along with download link.

So for end users, the main addition is the addition of container mode, where if you do an ext2run or isorun from file manager (using dbus-switchboard), on a filesystem with no autorun scripts embedded, then it will mount as a container, showing a python window/notice which you leave running until your done accessing the files, then you close the notice window to unmount. Container files are also symlinked to be accessible from file manager's Documents/iso and Documents/ext folder. Currently i have a starter 10meg ext2 container which can be download from first post.

I have made a new appliance which is pretty cool, so i thought i'd post here.

Its a simple appliance, a graphic novel / comic called Out of the Box ( http://brendancahill.com )

Its wonderfully flash animated, and uses widescreen format. The resolution is 640x360 but i have reworked it to scale perfectly.

You can download the 32meg appliance here (its not compressed) and it consists of 14 chapters :
http://wardenclyffetower.com/MaemoFi...vel-32meg.ext2

It requires the latest 1.05 version of isomount and it just launches an index webpage in a browser linking to swf files.

Hey pipeline thanks for the appliance browser in version 1.06. It makes downloading and running these appliances so much easier. Also thanks for adding the graphic novel too. Very nice stuff indeed!

Thanks, the app browser will download a new appliance list, so if i add an appliance you will see it listed when you next run it.

The graphic novel was pretty cool, the author is really talented artist and made good use of flash animation. i only wish i had a whole library of those animated flash graphic novels to choose from... really suits the tablet.

pipeline:

We need an appliance that packages up Bundyo's Biggest Document Viewer app and lets you keep it on your SD card.

Please! We really need a way to see MS Office documents on the tablet. In something other than plain text.

If you don't do it, I will!

well i trid making a quick appliance out of it but the user interface seems slow and unstable when i run the office. As soon as I start typing in a new document, it crashes and then detects it own crash and tries to backup the sample file.

Since all im doing is mounting the fs, and symlinking the usr/lib/openoffice branch im guessing thats just how it runs within maemo os?

Is there another bin to try to use as the default? (couldn't find your treb command) Or maybe i can just try to use its convert to pdf functionality like i do antiword? I'll try that convert to pdf later.

This could either be :
- debian minimal chroot (debian libs)
- maemo minimal chroot (maemo libs)
- something like what i did (for simplicity), a graft (my term) where the filesystem is mounted and you symlink any directories which need to be in particular places. My latest isomount supports this and i build symlink in the init.sh and teardown in the shutdown.sh (both run as root), and run the modified owo.sh in autorun-user.sh which runs as user