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#151
Hi. I've dug my N900 back out because I'm interested in running a Pi-Hole household ad-blocker on it, as per this thread.

Pi-hole is meant for a Raspberry Pi, but will work on vanilla Debian - I currently have it running on an old Asus EeePC 701 running textmode Debian.

Consequently, I need Debian running on the N900. Importantly, I don't care about Maemo at all - I'll do a MMC backup for nostalgia's sake, but I don't actually need the device to perform as a smartphone anymore, so I can wipe its contents completely and repartition from scratch. All I need is for the operating system to run and connect to my wi-fi, then I can control it via ssh and download what I need from the Debian repos and pi-hole.

I have some relatively vague memories about tinkering on the N900, but it's been several years since I've done anything on it and I don't really remember the technicalities. Is a step-by-step guide to install DebiaN900 available? I've checked the readme but it assumes knowledge I don't really have; specifically, is there any way to avoid cross-compilation, perhaps using precompiled kernels?

And thanks for the efforts, I wasn't expecting to see the most recent update to be yesterday!

Last edited by Fallingwater; 2016-07-07 at 10:45.
 

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#152
Ok, I used the old version of DebiaN900 to setup Debian on my spare N900. There's one problem. U-Boot doesn't show the entries

I can choose between: attachboot, eMMC boot, SD boot, etc. I don't get the menu as on the photo here: http://i.imgur.com/5HKgggR.jpg

The generated configure-uboot.sh was:
http://paste.ubuntu.com/19067425/

I changed EXT_CARD to INT_CARD, but the problem persists.

The package is: u-boot-flasher
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#153
Originally Posted by Fallingwater View Post
Hi. I've dug my N900 back out because I'm interested in running a Pi-Hole household ad-blocker on it, as per this thread.

Pi-hole is meant for a Raspberry Pi, but will work on vanilla Debian - I currently have it running on an old Asus EeePC 701 running textmode Debian.

Consequently, I need Debian running on the N900. Importantly, I don't care about Maemo at all - I'll do a MMC backup for nostalgia's sake, but I don't actually need the device to perform as a smartphone anymore, so I can wipe its contents completely and repartition from scratch. All I need is for the operating system to run and connect to my wi-fi, then I can control it via ssh and download what I need from the Debian repos and pi-hole.

I have some relatively vague memories about tinkering on the N900, but it's been several years since I've done anything on it and I don't really remember the technicalities. Is a step-by-step guide to install DebiaN900 available? I've checked the readme but it assumes knowledge I don't really have; specifically, is there any way to avoid cross-compilation, perhaps using precompiled kernels?

And thanks for the efforts, I wasn't expecting to see the most recent update to be yesterday!
I'm not familiar with Pi-hole but I see no reason why it shouldn't work. As long as you are running a Debian based distro on your PC (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc.), it's fairly straight forward to set up. Not a lot of prior knowledge is required, you just need to make sure that all of the dependencies have been installed. If you still have problems, I could provide you with a precompiled kernel deb package.

Originally Posted by marmistrz View Post
Ok, I used the old version of DebiaN900 to setup Debian on my spare N900. There's one problem. U-Boot doesn't show the entries

I can choose between: attachboot, eMMC boot, SD boot, etc. I don't get the menu as on the photo here: http://i.imgur.com/5HKgggR.jpg

The generated configure-uboot.sh was:
http://paste.ubuntu.com/19067425/

I changed EXT_CARD to INT_CARD, but the problem persists.

The package is: u-boot-flasher
It looks like you are running some other bootloader there. Make sure that Pali's U-Boot has been installed from the Extras repository and that no other bootloaders are installed which may interfere with it.
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DebiaN900 - Native Debian on the N900. Deprecated in favour of Maemo Leste.

Maemo Leste for N950 and N9 (currently broken).
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Mobile devices with mainline Linux support - Help needed with documentation.

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#154
Originally Posted by wicket View Post
It looks like you are running some other bootloader there. Make sure that Pali's U-Boot has been installed from the Extras repository and that no other bootloaders are installed which may interfere with it.
Which package should that be?

As for the following error:
Code:
parsechangelog/debian: warning:     debian/changelog(l2): found eof where expected first heading parsechangelog/debian: error: fatal error occurred while parsing debian/changelog dpkg-gencontrol: error: changelog parser /usr/lib/dpkg/parsechangelog/debian gave error exit status 255 make[1]: *** [scripts/package/Makefile:94: deb-pkg] Error 255
a patch is awaiting in an upstream kernel (mailing list reference: today).
I'll make a workaround in debian900 anyway soon
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#155
I tried installing Gnome Shell just to see how fast/slow it's running. I get a black screen at the GDM launch.

Do you have an idea how to debug it?
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#156
I'd start by checking /var/log/Xorg.0.log for errors.
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DebiaN900 - Native Debian on the N900. Deprecated in favour of Maemo Leste.

Maemo Leste for N950 and N9 (currently broken).
Devuan for N950 and N9.

Mobile devices with mainline Linux support - Help needed with documentation.

"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." - Henry Spencer
 

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#157
Does gdm3 even run without hw acceleration?
I thought it doesn't. But even then, it should display its enormously helpful message: "Oh no! Something has gone wrong"
Maybe it needs a UHD screen to do that.
 

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#158
Originally Posted by wicket View Post
I'd start by checking /var/log/Xorg.0.log for errors.
I mean, how can I access the logs?

Originally Posted by sulu View Post
Does gdm3 even run without hw acceleration?
I thought it doesn't. But even then, it should display its enormously helpful message: "Oh no! Something has gone wrong"
Maybe it needs a UHD screen to do that.
I guess something happens at the stderr. But still I see no way to read it while I'm stuck at the black screen.
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#159
Originally Posted by marmistrz View Post
I mean, how can I access the logs?
I believe there is no way to change to a different tty due to the N900's limited keyboard. Afair the key combination to change ttys can be changed in the kernel config, which might be worth considering.

Anyway, if you have Maemo installed in parallel you can access the logs from there.
If you already have network up when the blackscreen appears, you can ssh into the N900.
If everything else fails, take the µSD card out of the device and check the logs on a different computer.
If you installed DebiaN900 on your internal emmc, install another instance of it on a µSD card (WITHOUT Gnome , Lxde with slim works fine), boot from there and check the logs on the emmc.
 

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#160
Originally Posted by sulu View Post
I believe there is no way to change to a different tty due to the N900's limited keyboard. Afair the key combination to change ttys can be changed in the kernel config, which might be worth considering.
The default keyboard configuration uses Fn+VolumeUp and Fn+VolumeDown to change pseudo TTYs.
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DebiaN900 - Native Debian on the N900. Deprecated in favour of Maemo Leste.

Maemo Leste for N950 and N9 (currently broken).
Devuan for N950 and N9.

Mobile devices with mainline Linux support - Help needed with documentation.

"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." - Henry Spencer
 

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