[Debian] Gnome for Debian beta4

[b-man]

GNOME
Who says you can't get full-blown gnome onto your internet tablet! :D


Firstly, i would like to thank fatalsaint and Stskeeps for helping, thank you. :)

Currently their are two ways to install Gnome Option 1 is to install Gnome thrue Stskeeps installer (currently nit-env-gnome-basic is available) and Option2, thrue theas instructions. (If you want to install full blown Gnome, follow theas instructions, I am currently busy with nit-env-gnome-full and will update this post when it is complete.)

Also, two screenshots are provided at the bottom of this post with the last one being my costom desktop with the marrine gtk theme engine. :D


What works~
*Power management- even login/logout in gdm
*wierless- in Debian beta4
*the powermenu will launch with the power button!
*sound ~ (unconfermed for me)
*Basicly allmost everything :D:D:D
what needs work: Gnome splash screen manager ~ (Refuses to install other splash themes.)


How to:

Minimum requirments:

*At least a 4gig memory card
*Debian beta4 (for less memory consumion i'd use "nit-evn-x")
*Extreme pashints (depending on your connection, this may take a verry long time (4-5 hours), i'd recomend to start this early in the morning because it may not be done until around noon.:p


installation:

Step1 Read the instructions on Stskeep's (http://trac.tspre.org/projects/nit-debian) website and download/run the Debian installer making shure that you have all dependincys installed.


Step2 If the install went well, run "chroot /mnt/nit-debian" If the install did not go well, run "chroot /mnt/nit-debian" before continuing and then run "apt-get -f install".


Step3 Now it's time to install gnome :D, if you wish to get gnome with a full blown office sute and media sute (gimp, openoffice, Abiword, Xournal, ect..) With everything installed, run "apt-get -f install gnome", this will take up about 1.5 gb of memory. However, if you just want a desktop environment, just run "apt-get -f install gnome-desktop-enviornment", this will take up about 700-900 mb of memory.


Step 4 Now we need to edit the /etc/gdm/gdm.conf file so we can use the desktop with the touch screen, just add theas to the file, also, the "AutomaticLogin=user" would be your user password:

[daemon]
# Automatic login, if true the first attached screen will automatically logged
# in as user as set with AutomaticLogin key.
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=user

[server-Standard]
name=Standard server
command=/usr/X11R6/bin/X -audit 0 -mouse tslib -nozap -dpi 96 -wr -nolisten tcp
flexible=true


Step 5 Now to install the matchbox-keyboard so we can type in gnome, Just run "apt-get -f install matchbox-keyboard"

Step6 run "exit" and "umount /mnt/nit-debian" and reboot.

[Underscore]

Awesome! How fast does it run?

[b-man]

It runs pritty well, infact it is just as fast as kde in maemo:D

[Underscore]

This is really awesome :)
Just wish I was smart enough to boot Debian.

[fatalsaint]

Haha...congrats b-man. Only thing i suggest is you dont actually need this:

#USERNAME=`cat /etc/tablet_user`
XSERVERARGS="-mouse tslib -nozap -dpi 96 -wr -nolisten tcp"
start_daemon $DAEMON $XSERVERARGS

change that to just

start_daemon $DAEMON

and it should work fine. Well done man.

[b-man]

Thanks!, i applyed the changes;).

[fatalsaint]

Noticed your sig.. rotation already should work.


#!/bin/sh

touch ~/.rotation
if [ $(cat ~/.rotation) -eq 1 ] ; then
xrandr -o normal
echo 0 > ~/.rotation
else
xrandr -o left
echo 1 > ~/.rotation
fi


I have that inside my ~/bin/ and made a toolbar applet for it. Works fine. I didn't write that... think i got it from qole's original debian...who in turn got it from someone else - so not sure who to thank for it :)

[fatalsaint]

b-man: Another thing to look at .. found this little gem:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=298835

A minimal Gnome... more lightweight and theoretically "snappier" if you just install:


apt-get install gnome-core gdm gnome-media gnome-system-monitor gnome-system-tools gnome-volume-manager gnome-utils gnome-app-install synaptic iceweasel

MAYBE adding

apt-get install evince file-roller gdebi alacarte totem sound-juicer

Not sure if it works the same/faster/better/whatever than the full blown Gnome.. I will try it tonight (I totally hosed my SD card today; re-installing from SVN through a tethered Phone :) ).

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=89491 has some suggestions on disabling startup options as well that I'll be going through. Being that Gnome ran decently (once I starting mounting my swap) as a full Desktop (slower than IceWM still though).. maybe with these enhancements you can get a Gnome desktop that moves almost as quickly as the "lightweight" XFCE-types.

[qole]

(substitute "iceweasel" for "firefox" of course! This is Debian, not Ubuntu ;) )

[fatalsaint]

(substitute "iceweasel" for "firefox" of course! This is Debian, not Ubuntu ;) )

Yeah.. noticed that last night when I ran it :D... Fixed in original post :).. thanks qole.

Also, since the reload.. Gnome looks nearly the same.. seems to be a few differences in the task bar area and of course a lot of the software isn't there (which was sort of the point).. but it's running great.. pretty nifty to see a "heavy" desktop run fairly well on the tablets... I kinda went overkill on my Swap though.. 600mb Swap with the 128mb internal memory. I'd say this isn't much slower than XFCE, speedwise, but definitely not as quick as IceWM.

Total for my system is 1.8GB on the card... including Xchat, Pidgin, Kazehakase, mpd, gmpc, and a few other apps. Not too bad - but seems to be equivalent to the "gnome-desktop-environment".. maybe a little smaller.

Edit: OK.. to install "Gnome-Desktop-Environment" over my current setup would take an additional 98 packages @ 364MB of additional space on the drive. So I guess it is a bit smaller.

[DeeJay_XB]

Can you please make a tutorial on how to boot debian with gnome on nokia n800 / nokia n810?

[fatalsaint]

You can't out of box.. this tutorial is one of 2 pieces.. originally linked in the topic is Stskeeps website which has the step by step on how to install NIT-Debian (although right this second it isn't step by step, as of last night there were installer bugs).. after NIT-Debian is installed you follow the steps in the OP to provide yourself with Gnome.

There's not a "Debian with Gnome" pre-package built yet.. you can use Debian Beta3 as a base if you want it now.. but beta3 is missing some important stuff; IE xmodmap for the N810 for the function keys; older wireless driver, no dimming/blanking of the screen.. but overall beta3 was a good starting point.

However you get a bootable debian on your tablet the OP tells you how to put gnome onto it..

[fatalsaint]

b-man - You can remove step 4 entirely.. Twice now I have left the default gdm init.d script and it runs fine - we made changes in there to try and fix the X touchscreen; which we ended up fixing in the conf file instead.. so no changes need to be made to /etc/init.d/gdm...

Also.. check your installation... /etc/gdm/gdm.conf exists; but is mostly empty and referrs to /usr/share/gdm/defaults.conf. That is where you should make the server-Standard changes to get X to work and Autologin setup correctly.

[b-man]

b-man - You can remove step 4 entirely.. Twice now I have left the default gdm init.d script and it runs fine - we made changes in there to try and fix the X touchscreen; which we ended up fixing in the conf file instead.. so no changes need to be made to /etc/init.d/gdm...

Also.. check your installation... /etc/gdm/gdm.conf exists; but is mostly empty and referrs to /usr/share/gdm/defaults.conf. That is where you should make the server-Standard changes to get X to work and Autologin setup correctly.

Ok, i'll remove step 4:)

Also, the reason whi gdm.conf is mostly empty is because you are suppose to add your own changes and defults.conf reads that file that you've added to and applys changes to it's self when you boot up debian.
The reason that it asks you to refer to defults.config is so, if you are making changes manualy, you can have a idia for how you want it to de set up. Also, if you read closly in the defults.config file it says that this file shuld not be edited manualy and that it is best to apply changes in the gdm.config file so that it can properly and safely apply changes to the configuration of the gdm daemon. In simpler terms, gdm.conf is like a "remote" for defults.conf so you can safely apply independent changes to how gdm is set up.
Basicly, If yo decid to manualy apply changes to defults.conf, you have a grait risk of messing things up.
Kinda like the equivalent of trying to manualy edit your sudoers file.:)

[fatalsaint]

Ahhh... Ok. I just went to the source... good point. To me this new setup for the tablet is the "default".. not a user change :).. since it flat out doesn't work without it.

[qole]

I'm trying a minimal-minimal install to see if I can get anything like a useful Gnome running in a chroot :D

I am installing:


apt-get install gnome-core gdm gnome-media gnome-system-monitor gnome-system-tools gnome-volume-manager gnome-utils gnome-app-install


Note, no GDM -- I don't know why we'd need a login manager on the tablet, since we only have one user?

In theory, I should be able to start a fairly stripped-down Gnome environment in the Xephyr server....

It's installing the totem package. :mad: It's also installing "python-sexy". :confused: :rolleyes: That's funny...

Will edit this post as I find out how stuff works...

EDIT: Need to get 1922kB/119MB of archives. After this operation, 345MB of additional disk space will be used.

[fatalsaint]

cool dude! Anxious to see how it goes!

[qole]

Works fine, nice and snappy (in my chroot partition, probably not so fast from the image file), does tap-and-hold right-click, and very gnome-looking :)

All I needed to do was make a new copy of /usr/share/applications/hildon/debwm.desktop (I called it gnome.desktop), change the appropriate lines in my new file, and, in my chroot, copy xpice to xpgnome, then change IceWM to Gnome and icewm-session to gnome-session, and it just worked.

I had to hack hal to get it to install (put "exit 0" as the first line of /var/lib/dpkg/info/hal.preinst and /var/lib/dpkg/info/hal.postinst then run "apt-get -f install" to finish getting everything installed), and there was some sort of error about a daemon not being started when I first ran gnome-session, but it started up and seemed to be fine after that.

My biggest complaint so far is that all the settings dialogs are huge, they go way off the bottom of the screen, and I can't move the window up past the top of the screen to read the bottom of the dialog!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3244/2737242519_0da2f29933_o.png (http://www.flickr.com/photos/qole2/2737242519/)

[fatalsaint]

Sweet!..and yeah i have that same problem... rotation FTW :)...thats all Ive needed rotation for so far.

REALLY wish I could get sound and video working in this..

Oh and now that u are branching desktops :)..really think u might try some of those mods i did to xpice to make a dynamic "one size fits all" script...then no need tp copy debwm.app or xpice to new files...just make one in personal men and use the same script...it's quite handy... pretty fun to open a menu and see "XFCE WindowMaker OpenBox Gnome IceWM" and just pick a desktop...

[b-man]

Sweet! I'm glad that people are interested in this :D... Also just to let you know, I finally have a fully functional Debian install that's "lenny" based so i shuld not run into enny more problems. As well, now that i'm not busy trying to install enything that is soo, soo time consuming, i am available for help and suggestions :).

fatalsaint: could you share how you got swap set up and working? I have never set up swap manualy before and really need it because i'm starting to have some lock-up truble my self and wanted to know if you could help.

[fatalsaint]

Well.. u have to make a new partition for the swap you are going to use.. it can be on either card; it doesn't matter which..

So you need to either dabble in resizing your current partition if you only have One on your SD card.. or reformat and start over. I tried the resize approach here at work and FUBAR'd the whole card and had to start over :D.. it's a risk you take. I did it off memory though.. using this as a guideline may have helped (I didn't take off journaling first).. http://www.howtoforge.com/linux_resizing_ext3_partitions

Anyway.. once you decide how you want your card lined up.. Say your first partition is Swap, and the rest is / all you have to do is:

mkswap /dev/mmcblk1p1

Which prepares it for swap use.. and then to manually add it

swapon /dev/mmcblk1p1

Or .. to load it at boot (recommended).. you have to modify your /etc/fstab and append the line

/dev/mmcblk1p1 swap swap defaults 0 0

Then it will start at boot.. or to start it without rebooting is just swapon -a. You can have as many swap paritions as you want.. The Clone to SD deb I loaded created a 128MB swap on my internal 2G card, and I created a 512 swap on my external card.. so I added two lines to my /etc/fstab; one for each device.

To check how much swap you have, and how much is being used (including memory)

free -m

My output (while it's totally idle):


total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 123 112 11 0 12 40
Swap: 608 92 515

[fatalsaint]

BTW: Your sig says you've 'installed' adobe flash player.. well so have I .. but does it actually run for you?? Anytime I try to view ANY page with flash in it - My entire tablet crawls to a screeching halt for hours.. It's impossible.. I literally have to remove the battery to reboot and make a mental note to never hit that site again.

Happens to me all the time if I forget to add /forums/ to the itT website and hit the main page.. if it loads a flash advertisement.. I'm screwed.

[qole]

I was kinda hoping someone would figure out how to get the tablet's libflashplayer.so running under Debian, maybe in Iceweasel or Kazehakase....

[qole]

Sweet!..and yeah i have that same problem... rotation FTW :)...thats all Ive needed rotation for so far.

Rotation is fine if you are running Gnome as your primary desktop, which of course is the name of this thread, and so you are perfectly right in suggesting it. However, If you are using a nested X server like me, Mr. Thread Hijacker over here, it gets more complicated. Sure, I can rotate the Gnome desktop, but it doesn't rotate the stylus clicks, so suddenly I can't tap on anything on the screen... :(

If I try to rotate the OS2008 screen and then go back to my alternate desktop, the desktop has the right rotation, but it only fills the top half of the screen, and it goes off to the right somewhere. In other words, it changes orientation, but not dimensions. I think there is no fix for this, unfortunately.

The guy who wrote Xephyr, Matthew Allum, will be at the Maemo Summit in September. I want to get a "posse" to go and beg him to add some tablet-specific stuff to the server, like pressure sensitivity and scrollbars.

[fatalsaint]

Actually Yeah... I had tried the rotation in Chroot and noticed those same symptoms... sorry about that.. wasn't thinking for a minute.

For those I know of no way .. but luckily most of the Gnome dialogues do not have an "apply"... just a close.. so selecting your changes, and just clicking the "X" will still save them in my experience.. but some settings may not be accessible due to the size.. which sucks.

[Stskeeps]

I was kinda hoping someone would figure out how to get the tablet's libflashplayer.so running under Debian, maybe in Iceweasel or Kazehakase....

http://trac.tspre.org/projects/nit-debian/browser/trunk/nit-base-packages/debian-flashplayer , http://trac.tspre.org/projects/nit-debian/browser/trunk/nit-base-packages/xulrunner-plugin-debian-flashplayer :)

For the others, it's a matter of making a link to the /usr/lib/browser/plugins/libdebianflashplayer.so. It is the tablet's libflashplayer.so, with a support library that fake some unused hildon methods - not Gnash or Swfdec etc, it's adobe flashplayer.

[fatalsaint]

http://trac.tspre.org/projects/nit-debian/browser/trunk/nit-base-packages/debian-flashplayer , http://trac.tspre.org/projects/nit-debian/browser/trunk/nit-base-packages/xulrunner-plugin-debian-flashplayer :)

For the others, it's a matter of making a link to the /usr/lib/browser/plugins/libdebianflashplayer.so. It is the tablet's libflashplayer.so, with a support library that fake some unused hildon methods - not Gnash or Swfdec etc, it's adobe flashplayer.

And they WORK?? Holy ... I shall try these ASAP.

[Stskeeps]

And they WORK?? Holy ... I shall try these ASAP.

I thought you people said you installed that? I tested this under epiphany, xulrunner (gtkmozembed), atleast. They're automatically built as base packages in NIT-Debian (or Deblet as it may be called).

Or is it swfdec/gnash plugins you installed?

[b-man]

Mr. Thread Hijacker over here

You may jack it, just don't rule it! :D

[fatalsaint]

I thought you people said you installed that? I tested this under epiphany, xulrunner (gtkmozembed), atleast. They're automatically built as base packages in NIT-Debian (or Deblet as it may be called).

Or is it swfdec/gnash plugins you installed?

Well my install broke half-way through remember so I may not have gotten them all.. and I had tried adobe-flashplayer (which I notice now is a dependency of those two you linked).. and I swear i was still freezing when watching flash.. but I will try again.

Right now working on doing DUN through my Phone through Debian...

ETA: Granted I may have been trying Galeon, Kazeha-whatever that browser is, Firefox, and other browsers.. not necessarily epiphany..

[qole]

Wow; I can really watch youtube videos in IceWeasel now! Thanks for that cool hack!

This is the watershed moment; I'm going to have to figure out how to get your repository into the chroot project so we can all install your flash player from Synaptic. :D

EDIT: A screenshot of me watching a YouTube video (debernardis' demo of OpenOffice on the tablet) in IceWeasel. Normally I would watch it fullscreen, but then you can't see that it's running in Diablo...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3172/2738586951_cdea407f27_o.png (http://www.flickr.com/photos/qole2/2738586951/)

[b-man]

EDIT: qole beet me to answering your question but:

BTW: Your sig says you've 'installed' adobe flash player.. well so have I .. but does it actually run for you?? Anytime I try to view ANY page with flash in it - My entire tablet crawls to a screeching halt for hours.. It's impossible.. I literally have to remove the battery to reboot and make a mental note to never hit that site again.

Happens to me all the time if I forget to add /forums/ to the itT website and hit the main page.. if it loads a flash advertisement.. I'm screwed.

Well, I haven't tested it yet because my first install broke before i could test it...
However, i am going to test it in epnanthy and iceweasel..

Btw, Thanks for the info for swap, allmost all of my applications work including iceweasel... Also, gnome is pritty responsive and i can have 3 or 4 apps, if not more, open at a time :D

[b-man]

I decked-out my debian install :p

I've ben able to get 9+ applications running at once and so far, no lock-ups) thanks to my swap partition in my internal memory card :D:

[fatalsaint]

well i got flash working with skeeps binaries... i had to:

ln -s /usr/lib/browser/plugins/* /usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins/

I also had to install libosso1 but that is likely due to my incomplete install.

My desktop:

[b-man]

Wow, thats a verry cool theme :eek: could you provide me some info on how you got that?, Thats really cool! :D

[fatalsaint]

http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/BlackFate?content=84344

http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/LinuxAnarchy?content=67836

it gets rough on the eyes after a while

[dan]

Guys I want to add Debian 4. :) This thread is way over my level of experience in Debian(on week), but that has never stopped me from going for it. I have Easy Debian already. I also did Penguinbait's Dual boot with swap partition about a month ago and I have not had any apps freeze, stall, crash, burn or ruin my hair since. What is the difference with your swap partition?? I hope the full Debian and KDE in the future can be setup to sit and run the way Easy Debian does in Hildon. Is there a way to add Debian 4 to my partition setup or do I have to start from scratch??? If I do I will need to figure out how to save all my apps, files, preferences, etc... in Emelfm2. Any guidance or encouragement would be appreciated. TIA

[b-man]

I created my swap partition on the first partition on my internal memory card, so i have a 200+ swap size. the "boot from sd deb" creates a 128md swap partition. Also, you may need to re-format your memory card using "mkfs.ext2 /dev/your partition" or "mkfs.ext3 /dev/your partition" and re-install debian using Stskeeps Deblet-installer because your current install, easy debian, is not sutable for a bootable environment because it is missing a lot of components nessasary for a bootable os. Also, you will not be able to save your applications if you do this, unless you install dpkg-repack of corce ;), But if you chose to run gnome, I'm shure that most of your apps will be replaced because gnome installs a **** load of applications :).

[fatalsaint]

Your best bet is to start over.. you could theoretically resize your existing partitions; make a new partition for debian 4; and install it there.. which you would then have the Chroot debian in an .img file on one partition.. and the full debian 4 on a separate partition that you would need to boot into...

This is a little complicated though; requires a lot of space; and just wouldn't be worth it.

I'd recommend saving your apps/settings on the debian side only... blowing away that partition/card.. and start the install of Debian 4 at STSKeeps website. Once that is completed and you are booting into Debian.. get with me and I'll help you get the chroot setup (quite easy with the latest scripts Qole/Benson put together).

[dan]

Here is my current setup.
MMC1 has Easy Debian. I did this so I could easily back it up to my computer in case of corruption of Easy Debian(which happens regularly when installing unknown apps from Synaptic manager). MMC2 has dual boot with a large swap partition and KDE v4. it also holds all my Hildon apps. Now fatalsaint you are saying leave MMC2 alone and go and repartition MMC1 with full Debian gnome. Would I be able to keep and move Easy Debian to MMC2 and put Gnome Debian in MMC1? The reason I would like to keep Easy Debian is because it is such a beautifully simple setup which allows me to switch between my Hildon and Debain at same time and I can then boot into KDE from Extra menu.
My dream is to have full Gnome Debian, full KDE(without booting into it) and Hildon all working through Extra menu and that I could easily switch between all three environments like I do now with Easy Debian and Hildon. TIA

[fatalsaint]

Here is my current setup.
MMC1 has Easy Debian. I did this so I could easily back it up to my computer in case of corruption of Easy Debian(which happens regularly when installing unknown apps from Synaptic manager). MMC2 has dual boot with a large swap partition and KDE v4. it also holds all my Hildon apps. Now fatalsaint you are saying leave MMC2 alone and go and repartition MMC1 with full Debian gnome. Would I be able to keep and move Easy Debian to MMC2 and put Gnome Debian in MMC1? The reason I would like to keep Easy Debian is because it is such a beautifully simple setup which allows me to switch between my Hildon and Debain at same time and I can then boot into KDE from Extra menu.
My dream is to have full Gnome Debian, full KDE(without booting into it) and Hildon all working through Extra menu and that I could easily switch between all three environments like I do now with Easy Debian and Hildon. TIA

Correct.. if you are using the easy debian .img file then all you need to do is move that file from MMC1 to MMC2; (may require changing your /home/user/.chroot file to point to new location); and your chrooted debian should still work.

Then totally kill MMC1 and go through the Deblet installation instructions (U will want to modify config.py to only load nit-env-x; not nit-env-stskeeps which will give you XFCE4).. once you get all the way done with that; before you reboot; you'll want to go through B-man's gnome steps at the start of this thread; apt-get install gnome; and edit the varying config files.. When you are all done (whew!) you may want to (if you haven't already/partition scheme hasn't changed):

Reboot Tablet into Flash
Remove Penguinbait's Installtools if you have it installed
Install Penguinbait's Bootloader (identifies all ext3 partitions and allows you to boot to them)

When done.. reboot and boot into MMC1.. you should get all the way into Gnome on Deblet.

Now for the chroot; if you want to run 2 chroot's simultaneously you will have to create two /home/user/.chroot scripts; one for each environment.. then part of your script start, say, gnome will have to include something along the lines of:


mv /home/user/.chroot /home/user/.chroot-kde
mv /home/user/.chroot-gnome /home/user/.chroot
sudo debian xpice


That probably isn't exact.. but gives you an idea of what it'll take. You'll also to fix your original scripts to mv the chroot-kde file back to chroot, and the chroot to chroot-gnome..

Not very elegant.. but I am not sure how else you'll use the chroot scripts for two environments.

ETA: And if you plan to use Deblet in a chroot you need to create the xpice script from scratch.. which Qole has already pasted it in his other thread that we can go find if you need it/get this far :D

[dan]

I think it would be easier for me reprogram the entire NASA, NSA, CIA, IRS, Chinese, Russian and UK defense computer systems simultenously while being submersed in a tank of molten lava. I'll give it a try. Thanks :) LOL, Dan

[qole]

I think it would be easier for me reprogram the entire NASA, NSA, CIA, IRS, Chinese, Russian and UK defense computer systems simultenously while being submersed in a tank of molten lava. I'll give it a try. Thanks :) LOL, Dan

If you accomplish this, please post a how-to and some screen shots. I'm especially interested in seeing what you have to do for the UK defense computer.

[b-man]

I think it would be easier for me reprogram the entire NASA, NSA, CIA, IRS, Chinese, Russian and UK defense computer systems simultenously while being submersed in a tank of molten lava. I'll give it a try. Thanks :) LOL, Dan

I'd like to see the molten lava part :p

[qole]

Molten lava? That'd be the CIA for you.

[dan]

No molten lava yet. I haven't started. I did manage to get a rare unpublished shot of the head of ITT for MI6. :)

[dan]

http://trac.tspre.org/projects/nit-debian/browser/trunk/nit-base-packages/debian-flashplayer , http://trac.tspre.org/projects/nit-debian/browser/trunk/nit-base-packages/xulrunner-plugin-debian-flashplayer :)

For the others, it's a matter of making a link to the /usr/lib/browser/plugins/libdebianflashplayer.so. It is the tablet's libflashplayer.so, with a support library that fake some unused hildon methods - not Gnash or Swfdec etc, it's adobe flashplayer.

OK! I really, really want this in my Easy Debian Ice Weasel Browser like Qole did. How do you I go about doing it ? TIA

[qole]

You wait for me to make a package :-)

[dan]

I'm waiting... enough already! :)
Your Easy Debian is my favorite environment.

Is it possible to put KDE into it without it going nuts? Heck I'm waiting for you to port the entire Debian environment with all 20,000 + apps. Gimp is so much fun.

I might have one bug to report. Ever since I installed Easy Debian my old light and sound icons at top come back and knockout my advanced light/sound icons. I don't know if Debian caused it but I haven't added any apps other than Debian since it started happening. Has anyone reported this other than me?

Keep up the great work!

[b-man]

Have some more cool screenshots:cool:
This is kinda like a mix of the vista theme and gnome :D:
(Without the lock-ups, crashes or, blue screen of corce :p)

[b-man]

I'm waiting... enough already! :)
Your Easy Debian is my favorite environment.

Is it possible to put KDE into it without it going nuts? Heck I'm waiting for you to port the entire Debian environment with all 20,000 + apps. Gimp is so much fun.

I might have one bug to report. Ever since I installed Easy Debian my old light and sound icons at top come back and knockout my advanced light/sound icons. I don't know if Debian caused it but I haven't added any apps other than Debian since it started happening. Has anyone reported this other than me?

Keep up the great work!


I'm shure that with a little hacking and some in-depth knowledge, you could do just about enything :D, Try "apt-get -f install kde", This might work, you may also need to run "apt-get -f install" if it runs into enny dependincy errors.

[fatalsaint]

I was going to do KDE.. It doesn't seem to find it in the repositories.. haven't dug deep into why yet.. (as far as Deblet)

[b-man]

Are you using "lenny" or "sid"?, lenny seems to have it in it's repository, maybe the "sid" distrobution doesn't have a complete port of kde yet?

[b-man]

UPDATE: Try this: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian lenny main

Put that into your /etc/apt/sorces.list and run "apt-get update".

[fatalsaint]

yeah I found them.. I had to modify the sources for sid:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian sid main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian experimental main

This will allow me to load the experimental 4.1 KDE :D.. I'll make a post when I get it up and running... I figured last night You did Gnome - SOMEONE ought to do KDE out of Respect :D

[b-man]

Thanks! you just saved me the truble of having to re-install Debian for testing KDE. :D
I really was thinking about doing it if someone ealse was not going to try it :). If you need enny help, let me know, good luck!

[qole]

I might have one bug to report. Ever since I installed Easy Debian my old light and sound icons at top come back and knockout my advanced light/sound icons. I don't know if Debian caused it but I haven't added any apps other than Debian since it started happening. Has anyone reported this other than me?

That sounds like your x-server is restarting. It shouldn't be caused by Debian, but maybe there's a specific Debian app you're running that causes the restart...?

Mine does that sometimes when connecting to my bluetooth keyboard. A reboot of the tablet fixes everything...

[b-man]

Does ennyone know ware to get python-gconf? I was trying to install Vistamenu (witch actually brings the Vista start menu to gnome Btw..) and i keep getting the following errors:

[root@Nit-Debian: /]dpkg --install /home/user/Vistamenu.deb
Selecting previously deselected package vistastartmenu.
(Reading database ... 89867 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking vistastartmenu (from /home/user/Vistamenu.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of vistastartmenu:
vistastartmenu depends on python-gconf; however:
Package python-gconf is not installed.
dpkg: error processing vistastartmenu (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
vistastartmenu
[root@Nit-Debian: /]

and when i try to correct those problems i get:

[root@Nit-Debian: /]apt-get -f install python-gconf
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package python-gconf is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package python-gconf has no installation candidate
[root@Nit-Debian: /]

Does ennyone know ware to get python-gconf? It appears that the only version that i could find was for Ubuntu and was not armel compatible :(.

[fatalsaint]

O.. M... G.... Why???

You could try compiling from source:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/python-gconf

on the right hand side it has the .tar.gz file you can download.

[b-man]

O.. M... G.... Why???

Why?, Because even thought i ABSOLUTELY HATE windows, i still can't help but to edmior the look of the desktop, that's whi :p.

[fatalsaint]

Man... I don't use windows look even in windows lol! The very first thing I do when I drop on an XP machine is switch the menu back to the original.

On vista well...

I just don't use vista. <insert puke smiley here>

[Maxoueb]

Works fine, nice and snappy (in my chroot partition, probably not so fast from the image file), does tap-and-hold right-click, and very gnome-looking :)

All I needed to do was make a new copy of /usr/share/applications/hildon/debwm.desktop (I called it gnome.desktop), change the appropriate lines in my new file, and, in my chroot, copy xpice to xpgnome, then change IceWM to Gnome and icewm-session to gnome-session, and it just worked.

I had to hack hal to get it to install (put "exit 0" as the first line of /var/lib/dpkg/info/hal.preinst and /var/lib/dpkg/info/hal.postinst then run "apt-get -f install" to finish getting everything installed), and there was some sort of error about a daemon not being started when I first ran gnome-session, but it started up and seemed to be fine after that.

My biggest complaint so far is that all the settings dialogs are huge, they go way off the bottom of the screen, and I can't move the window up past the top of the screen to read the bottom of the dialog!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3244/2737242519_0da2f29933_o.png (http://www.flickr.com/photos/qole2/2737242519/)


Hi Qole!
Would it be possible for you to make a (little bit more detailed) step-by-step guide for installing/running Gnome as you did? (ie. easy debian running from partition)

Thanks in advance!

Max

[b-man]

Have you tryed "apt-get -f install gnome"?, If so, what errors did you incounter? if you are having truble with dependincys, try "apt-get -f install", the installation proses shuld be similar to what it would be in a bootable Debian environment. (setting aside x-sessions and gdm).

[BrentDC]

Hi Qole!
Would it be possible for you to make a (little bit more detailed) step-by-step guide for installing/running Gnome as you did? (ie. easy debian running from partition)

Thanks in advance!

Max

This worked for me (just breaking down qole's instructions a bit)...

This assumes you have the easy-debian package installed and already have debian installed in an ext2/3 partition.


After you run 'sudo debian' in the terminal:


apt-get install gnome-core gdm gnome-media gnome-system-monitor gnome-system-tools gnome-volume-manager gnome-utils gnome-app-install


Then duplicate /debian/usr/bin/xpice and call it something like xpgnome. Change the 4th and 5th lines in that file to:


export WMNAME="GNOME"
export WMEXEC="gnome-session"


Then duplicate /usr/share/applications/hildon/debwm.desktop and call it gnome.desktop .

Change the Exec line in that file to:

Exec=/usr/bin/hostwin GNOME 'sudo debian xpgnome'


And you're good to go!

A few notes: You may need to 'hack hal' to get gnome to install (I did). Refer to qole's instructions on how... If you don't have debian on a ext partition yet, you can download: http://qole.maemobox.org/debian-chroot-apps-040608.tar.bz2 and untar it on your ext partition. Also, don't forget to change /home/user/.chroot to point to your new ext partition.

[Maxoueb]

This worked for me (just breaking down qole's instructions a bit)...

This assumes you have the easy-debian package installed and already have debian installed in an ext2/3 partition.


After you run 'sudo debian' in the terminal:


apt-get install gnome-core gdm gnome-media gnome-system-monitor gnome-system-tools gnome-volume-manager gnome-utils gnome-app-install


Then duplicate /debian/usr/bin/xpice and call it something like xpgnome. Change the 4th and 5th lines in that file to:


export WMNAME="GNOME"
export WMEXEC="gnome-session"


Then duplicate /usr/share/applications/hildon/debwm.desktop and call it gnome.desktop .

Change the Exec line in that file to:

Exec=/usr/bin/hostwin GNOME 'sudo debian xpgnome'


And you're good to go!

A few notes: You may need to 'hack hal' to get gnome to install (I did). Refer to qole's instructions on how... If you don't have debian on a ext partition yet, you can download: http://qole.maemobox.org/debian-chroot-apps-040608.tar.bz2 and untar it on your ext partition. Also, don't forget to change /hom/user/.chroot to point to your new ext partition.


Wonderful! Thanks a lot BrentDC!
I'll try this ASAP!

Cheers,
Max

I love the Maemo community!

[Steus]

thank you BrentDC

got gnome using your instructions, lovely!

now usual question - does anybody know how to enable Fn key and have numbers and symbols in gnome?

regards,

[fatalsaint]

Use the xmodmap in my sig... but it surprises me if you have Qole's Easy Debian scripts that it doesn't work already... he implemented my Xmodmap a while ago...

[Steus]

it doesn't work for me :(
i configured keyboard input to swich between lang using gnome setting but can't get Fn working :(

[fatalsaint]

Do you have a non-english keyboard layout??? Did you try the other xmodmap's by people in my thread?? one for azerty and one for italian I think.. Maybe that gnome settings messes with something... run xev and see if anything is registered when you press the function key..

[qole]

I just came across something very interesting that might be related. I just tried to set up a vnc server that I could access from a browser on my new Ubuntu computer, and I was having no end of problems with the keyboard. I found this bug report (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vnc/+bug/112309) and the solution at the bottom fixed my keyboard.

I wonder if gnome-session somehow hammers the keyboard map in this situation, too?

Any N810 owners running Gnome with xmodmap? Can you confirm or deny?

[fatalsaint]

I been running Gnome for a couple days and have no problems. I still prefer my xmodmap to the one that is built-in to Deblet because I know how to make a ESC, |, Tab, etc...

[qole]

Hey I just had a thought. Steus is probably not running xmodmap at any point. The Easy Debian install put xmodmap into the icewm startup script, but if you are running Gnome, you'll have to put xmodmap into your xpgnome script or something (somewhere before running gnome-session).

[fatalsaint]

The problem with xmodmap is it needs access to display :0 or :1.. so would it work before gnome-session runs.. or would you have to do it after??

Now.. when I booted into Gnome the first time with the FULL gnome (apt-get install gnome) it actually automatically found my .Xmodmap in my home and it PROMPTED me if I wanted to load that file on login...

Just an odd note..

[qole]

The problem with xmodmap is it needs access to display :0 or :1.. so would it work before gnome-session runs.. or would you have to do it after??

You would have to run it after xephyr but before gnome-session. So that would mean using two commands, or maybe making a script that starts it before gnome and then running the script instead of gnome-session instead... Maybe a script like this:


xmodmap /home/user/.Xmodmap-debian
gnome-wm &
gnome-panel &
nautilus --no-default-window &
gnome-cups-icon &
gnome-volume-manager &




Now.. when I booted into Gnome the first time with the FULL gnome (apt-get install gnome) it actually automatically found my .Xmodmap in my home and it PROMPTED me if I wanted to load that file on login...

It would be nice to know what (missing) piece does that.

[BrentDC]

Now.. when I booted into Gnome the first time with the FULL gnome (apt-get install gnome) it actually automatically found my .Xmodmap in my home and it PROMPTED me if I wanted to load that file on login...

Just an odd note..

JFYI, I also received that prompt, but witth qole's minimal Gnome install.

[fatalsaint]

I installed Leopard on my Tablet!!!! :eek:

Ok.. Ok... Kidding. This is for you mac lovers out there (I personally don't like MAC lol.)

[b-man]

OMG!!!!!!!!, How did you manage to get that mac4lin software working!?!?!?!?!? I spent days trying to get that to all work in my deblet install but had no luck. Could you share how you got that awsome desktop look working??? I really want to try that out. :D

[fatalsaint]

Actually was pretty straight forward... your problem was probably getting the dock... well.. I added SimDock to my repository :)..

apt-get install SimDock and you're good to go.. just download the 3 tarballs, untar the step 1 and step 3.. leave the icon tarball intact.

Then just install the theme's one by one like you are supposed to.. and fire off SimDock and modify to your convenience.

[Stskeeps]

http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/nit-debian/nit-env-gnome-basic.png :)

I've added nit-env-gnome-basic which uses gnome-core as base package. b-man: you're marked as maintainer of this as you found the needed packages, and you're welcome to build nit-env-gnome-full packages or -more-full or something if you so like (just indicate Depends: nit-env-gnome-basic) and I'll gladly commit then.

If you people run Deblet, to get this environment you can run upgrade_deblet from a root shell, apt-get dist-upgrade, apt-get install nit-env-gnome-basic

You may have to use update-alternatives --config x-session-manager to select GNOME :) - and reboot for the session to start up.

[b-man]

Sweet, I'll make a post for nit-env-gnome-full to see what people want by default. Also i might need a little help from fatalsaint with building the actuall package. (I'm not really good at making packages :p)

Also, sorry about not responding, I was having technical problems with internet yesterday :(.

[zuachs]

http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/nit-debian/nit-env-gnome-basic.png :)

I've added nit-env-gnome-basic which uses gnome-core as base package. b-man: you're marked as maintainer of this as you found the needed packages, and you're welcome to build nit-env-gnome-full packages or -more-full or something if you so like (just indicate Depends: nit-env-gnome-basic) and I'll gladly commit then.

If you people run Deblet, to get this environment you can run upgrade_deblet from a root shell, apt-get dist-upgrade, apt-get install nit-env-gnome-basic

You may have to use update-alternatives --config x-session-manager to select GNOME :) - and reboot for the session to start up.
Stskeeps,

I've installed deblet with xfce4. And now, I'm installing Gnome (apt-get install gnome-desktop-environment), so I'll have both. I hope this time the sound work.

Yesterday I did the same but with KDE 3.5.9 too. The sound didn't worked for me in Gnome and KDE (Gnome says something about gstreamer plugin, it appears just like your screenshot), but in Xfce4 I was able to play a mp3 file with alsaplayer, the sound quality was low (it was playing kind of slow). Is it my installation or this is the way it works at the moment?
Also, the time is no the same, seems it's not being updated :S

Any suggestions/help?

Thanks!

EDIT: Ahh, I forgot to ask: just to confirm if it's possible to run the script used to update the repository using a chroot?

[fatalsaint]

Yes to the chroot question..

KDE and Gnome both have sound.. the default Gnome Sound Mixer does not work but using alsaplayer, GMPC, or Mpd will still produce sound.. at least for me. I get that same error in Gnome's mixer I just remove it - it's useless till I can figure out how to get it to talk to the esd/sound devices. But just because the mixer doesn't work doesn't mean sound doesn't work.. you just have to use the applications that do work with what sound we have available.

Also the System Sounds are disabled by default in Gnome.. you have to go into the properties and manually select "ALSA" as the input type and click on "Test".. you should hear sound.. however I never really got a gnome window to produce a "system" sound. But music worked.

So far, and by far, the best is MPD.

[zuachs]

Oook, thank you. I'm now waiting for it to configure the packages. I'll make the changes to have sound :)

[da_nao_yan]

I have installed debian by option ''nit-evn-x'' and successfully booted, how can I get connected to the wireless lan so that I can download the gnome and setup, very very thanks, I'm a newer.

[b-man]

Have you tryed wifi-radar? - i use it all the time ;)

Btw, i'd suggest installing gnome from a chroot in maemo, it makes the prosess a lot easer and safer.

[mankir]

The Link of step 1 from the first post is broken! I am using 0.17testing11, anyone suggestions what puzzlepiece is missing? i am able to use netbeans in easy debian, but LXDE or XFCE is not working the way i try.

[wolfs are great!!!]

stskeeps, what hapened to your website!!!

[AlMehdi]

I would love to try this but Stskeeps website seams to be down.. :(

[fabbro]

I would love to try this but Stskeeps website seams to be down.. :(

On my opinion you should give easy-debian a try.
It's much easyer (!) to install and manage, since it allows you to use both environments, starting the new desktop manager as a maemo app. Moreover, if you want to free as much ram as possible (which is a good idea) you can install a script called "switch to LXDE" (or something like that) which shuts down the maemo desktop and some uneeded processes (am I right?) before running LXDE.
And yes, it's LXDE and not GNOME but trust me: it's more healthy for your tablet...