Alternative desktop for N900
 

I want to keep Maemo 5 Fremantle as my operating system while changing the desktop environment.

Why?

I don't want to destroy everything by flashing another OS (flashing seems too radical for me),

and I don't like shiny interface of Hildon, along with transitions and blurs;
Hildon Application Manager is useless, I install almost everything from xterm;
File Manager is limited, so I currently use combination of Fennec for reading and xterm+vi for editing.

KDE and GNOME are too heavy; FVWM, LXDE, E17, Openbox or ICEWM could suit me. I don't know the differences amongst them; deep thanks for explanation.

I want the most light and configurable desktop environment, without losing functionality.
I prefer to have both real and virtual keyboard.
One desktop is enough, ten is too much.
Having two windows on one screen is a luxury; having only one window working at a time is a constraint (thus, multitasking is quite a necessity, though I could try to live without it).
Adobe Flash is not needed; Fennec is the best browser, in my humble opinion.

Having no shadows, no borders, no gradients in titlebars, statusbars, etc is fine.

Matchbox might be good; it's said to be minimal (very well!) window manager;

but currently Hildon has shiny, gradient buttons, backgrounds, transitions, sparks, blurs, etc, and I don't want them.

And I have no icons and no widgets on desktop.

Gestures support is also excessive. Tap, double tap and tap-hold are quite enough. Drag-and-drop seems to be unnecessary, too.



I have no memory card, just usual specifications of N900.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Why not go all out:

http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

might look at something like this.

Nokia

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Thanks for reply!

I downloaded 1.4.5 tar.gz, but how do I install it?

It's not a deb, I mean. Please, explain how to install tar.gz, or where to download deb for Maemo.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Uhhh...that was a joke...did you really check out the website? Look closer. Anyway, sorry if it went by you. It's not really installable on the N900.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Why not?

The tar.gz is source package, but it's structure isn't suitable for dpkg-buildpackage. So building ratpoison on maemo cannot be done by a newbie, but in principle, there should be a way to do it.
But I don't really need ratpoison; it would most likely have no touchscreen support, as it has no mouse support (source: Wikipedia).

So what about FVWM, LXDE, E17, Openbox, ICEWM, etc? What are the differences amongst them? What are working, light, fast, simple alternative desktop environments working on Maemo 5?

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

It's probably INSTALLABLE (if built for ARM), but it's not designed for N900. You wouldn't be able to access SMS, Phone, GPS, Camera... Anything useful.

Why not try install Android as a main OS and change the UI of android.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

That's why I do not insist on ratpoison. I want something workable.

I want alternative desktop environment, not alternative OS.

Android would be difficult to install (like any alternative OS, if not more), slow to run (Java Virtual Machine), and it would be difficult to get apps for it (and to gain root).

It's a separate topic. I have already read enough about "Android isn't Linux", "Android is slow", "Android is nonstandard" to be glad that I have Maemo, not Android.




About changing user interface: I'm working on theme for Hildon which would expose Matchbox as it is, instead of using images here and there. But I would really prefer alternative desktop environment, which would have no fancy styling. Matchbox is good; GTK+ seems to be bad, at least theme-ing part.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Easy debian seems to be the ideal solution for you, it comes with LXDE and all the things you asked for. Have you tried it?

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Wow! Man you're my exact opposite! Well if it is indeed yes! I suggest LXDE a total crap DU for me since it's way totally very simple and old school. Guess you would like it. Hehehe

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Android installs easily and runs fast as on ANY phone!
Android on N900 is running great, just needs more work.

why not try get the older maemo UI to run? I remember seeing that maemol 4 (N8x0) had kde running on it.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

LXDE via Easy Debian's actually pretty usable.

Maybe you can get other DEs installed via Synaptic, but I haven't tried.

As per the previous post, penguinbait has ported several DEs to Diablo, not sure how they would work on Fremantle. Unfortunately, penguinbait has said he is no longer active on these forums.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Easy Debian... It's for running OpenOffice.org and Firefox and other large applications... No, it doesn't interest me now, though it's curious concept.

Well... You both advise LXDE. So, where can I get it?

P.S. Hildon uses Matchbox; LXDE uses Openbox. LXDE is said to be faster than Hildon; Matchbox is said to be faster than Openbox. Who can explain this paradox?

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

I don't want to argue about alternative OS here; I would like alternative desktop environment.

Search for "Android isn't Linux", and you might find some criticism of Android on Maemo.org.

Older maemo OS... First, it requires flashing. Second, it might be buggy or incompatible with N900 hardware.

KDE is a heavy desktop environment, just the opposite of what I look for.

LXDE via Easy Debian: I'm afraid that the heaviness of Easy Debian will offset the advantages of LXDE lightness. Try to forget for one minute that N900 is powerful enough to run even OpenOffice.org; I want a light desktop environment for Maemo 5.

Sorry to hear that... Maybe, he left a note on how he ported the DEs to Diablo, so that it would be possible to similarly make a port to Fremantle?

Or just give a link to the DEs so that I could test them on Fremantle :-/. If it isn't too dangerous.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

After digging through penguinbait's blog, I found this.

Again, probably not what you're looking for, but it's a start.

Although I can't find anything on his download page other than KDE 3.5.8.

EDIT: Here's XFCE. Not quite LXDE, but it looks fine.

EDIT 2: Here's OpenBox + ROX.

EDIT 3: Here's KDE 4.

Just remember that all of the above (with the exception of penguinbait's own experiment in the first link) are designed for pre-Fremantle releases of Maemo.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Read here

http://matchbox-project.org/overview.html

I have libmatchbox1, matchbox-window-manager, libglib, pango, png.

I want: matchbox-common, matchbox-desktop, matchbox-panel.
What's the way to build them for Fremantle?

And how to disable hildon-desktop, hildon-status-bar, etc. without crashing everything?

It's a possibility of replacing Hildon DE with Matchbox DE. What do you think about it?

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Is it true that the only way hildon is started at startup is through /etc/init.d/hildon-desktop? Will editing the file allow to startup another elf instead of hildon-desktop (for instance, matchbox-desktop, if and when it will be compiled)? Is there a way to say in this file that it asks me whether I want to start hildon or matchbox, I make the choice, and it goes on accordingly?

I'm trying to compile libmatchbox (it's required before anything else). What does "Required X11 headers and libraries not found" mean? What package I need to install to get it working?

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Hi,
You can change the windowing system. Don't use synaptic.
Use Easy Deb CHroot and just use apt-get install..

apt-get install jwm (tiny, tiny window manager)
apt-get instal xfce4
kde, gwm.... blah blah blah.. :)

It's hard to get them to work sometimes.
I was using xnest to get them to work, but found out (qole) that we should be using xypher (same scratchbox n900 emulator).

There is a problem though, when you install XFCE4 (maybe it has been fixed?), you loose the blue function button in LXDE (normal easy debain).

Instructions:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=50874

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Well... I don't want to install Easy Debian on top of Hildon and then xfce4 on top of Easy Debian.

I just want to replace Hildon with something which wouldn't have too much black color, transitions, blur, shadows, png decorations, etc.

And as any desktop environment for Fremantle has to be compiled, I think about matchbox-desktop: matchbox-window-manager already works on Fremantle.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Wikiwide - I was not replying to your message.
Please look again.
It was to xomm.
It was nothing about Hildon.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Silver spoon much good sir?

What you will not find is a simple drop in .deb file. You want this, you're going to have to do a lot of the work on your own because 1990 is not calling out to any of us - nobody beyond an exceedingly small number of people want something so minimalistic.

If you don't want any gradients, patterns, or eyecandy, then just delete the transitions and uninstall all your themes, that way you'll be left with bog standard ugly GTK in all its light boring goodness.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Yes, I understand. I'm ready to do a lot of work - I don't know how. I'm not desperate enough to try to install Minix dual-boot with Maemo :-/. I'm not ready to crash N900 yet.

And I have neither time nor knowledge for writing an operating system, based on Gecko (where all applications would be written on XML and HTML and JavaScript; no ELF's, no binaries; drivers would be handled in a manner similar to plug-ins in Firefox; and still, I would then like to simplify Gecko, to make it smaller and smaller).

How do you imagine that? Do you know a way to uninstall all GTK themes without losing key bindings? Besides, GTK will still remain a large complex object, looking around for themes and transitions. I would like something which cannot even think about transitions or themes.

I would like something with black-and-white interface. Maybe, even without multitasking. Just nothing fancy.

One example: right now Ovi Maps take a long time to load. Why? I suppose, having everything black-and-white, including maps, would speed them up a bit (and don't show this progress bar! It's not pleasant to look at it whilst I cannot even switch to another window or desktop while these maps load themselves).

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Wikiwide, you have my sympathy. I also wish I could find something more useful than hildon and friends (and it could well be less pretty).

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

@OP I'm not sure exactly how to accomplish what you're looking for, but you definitely bought the right phone!

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Hmm... Maemo5-lite.. Sounds good to me =)

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Wikiwide:

• Hit CTRL-backarrow to get out of Maps and back to the dashboard while the progress bar is showing.
• Try using transitioncontrol to set all of the transitions to their minimum values.
• I highly doubt a black-and-white interface / theme would make any difference to speed.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Hi.
This is my first post here. I too have an n900, and would prefer to run fluxbox instead of Hildon.

I feel that Hildon is part of what is keeping my n900 from running as a true computer. I have fluxbox running in the easy-debian chroot, but this seems redundant and needlessly resource intensive.

I suppose ideally, I would abandon Maemo altogether and simply run debian natively, with FSO as a means of accessing GSM telephony, and probably zhone as an interface as in the following link.

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Debian

However, this does not seem to be trivial to install at present, so I am stuck with Maemo.

However, I would like to at least abandon Hildon, and surprisingly this is the only thread that I've found so far. I would have thought that by now someone would have found a way to replace the default window manager.

I don't like Hildon because it forces every window to be maximized, which nullifies the concept of multitasking in many ways. I can't view two windows simultaneously, and I can't resize them or move them.

For me, open source is largely about the freedom of choice; choosing a window manager is kind of a big deal, and I've always sided with fluxbox for it's minimalism and flexibility. So where is the first step to take? There is no .xinitrc in Maemo, so what starts Xorg? I'm thinking it might be somewhere in /etc/init.d, but I would appreciate any advice.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

I would be glad, too : )

File manager is too limited, Sketch can neither resize nor zoom image, Photographs' editor saves edited png into jpg, etc... Too much eye-candy and not enough functionality. I use Fennec to see the files which aren't seen by File Manager, and vi to edit them if needed.

I'm of the same opinion. :-)

Yes, to run Debian natively you need:
1. to make a backup;
2. to find a Debian image for your type of hardware, or to make it yourself;
3. put this image onto a memory card or something like that and follow instructions from Debian repository;
4. If N900 doesn't work, reflash it and start again.

Penguinbait could, but he doesn't have N900.

http://tablethacker.com/

It's due to window manager, Matchbox. It's mostly used for devices with such small screens that there is no point in having two windows opened simultaneously. However, N900 has quite large screen, so yes, for multitasking matchbox isn't the best choice.

Yes, I suppose that on start-up everything is called from /etc/init.d. At the same time, the scripts in /etc/init.d call out other scripts from /etc/osso-af-init and binaries from /usr/bin. Right now I suppose that Hildon is started in /etc/init.d/hildon-desktop. Before editing it, backup everything from N900, so that you can re-flash it in case of problems.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

You might want to edit the transitions.ini file to disable those.

The app manager is for people who like a GUI better than a terminal.

There are other file managers in the repositories.

If you don't know about them, how can you tell that they are what you want?

You might consider downloading a theme which does exactly this.

Hildon already uses Matchbox.

Alhough I don't understand what your problem is with these, you can disable them.
transitions.ini + a minimalistic theme can do the job.

Well then, disable the panoramic feature.

This is fairly weird to me, but don't let me stop you!

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

I have already.

I like GUI better than a command-line, but the Hildon App Manager is just too limited.

Maybe, I'll get one of them. But how do I uninstall the default one?


I have read in Wikipedia that they are all light-weight. The question is, which of them is the most minimalistic and touch-friendly?

Theme doesn't change the fact that the desktop environment is overly complex. And well, I have tried to make such a theme, but black color can hardly be removed. For instance, transparent titlebar becomes black.

That's one of the best things about Hildon.


Well, minimalistic theme is hardly possible. Menu still has black color around it; close button is taken from default theme; etc.

How?

:-)

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

I pretty much just use emacs and gimp1.2 for most everything that I want to do at present. This is dated, I know, but it's what I do. I don't like having to use the debian chroot if possible, but I'm not ready to go native yet. I've only had the device for a week, and AFAIK, the FSO software doesn't work with the n900 GSM hardware yet.

As far as the default maemo terminal goes, it would be nice to replace busybox. This is another reason I find myself opening the chroot.

(Back to the window maximization problem):

Ok. My ignorance is showing. (This is my second post to this forum).

I could have sworn that I used Matchbox on the Zaurus pdaXrom where windows were not forced to be full screen. Then again, that might have been openbox, not matchbox. It was a long time ago, and my memory is not so good.

If what you say is true, all the more reason that it should not be too difficult to replace matchbox with fluxbox. Or whatever-box. Even gnome or kde.

However, I haven't really looked into the startup scripts closely, and I don't really know what starts the window manager. I will be trying to figure this out in my spare time, but hopefully someone could lend some pointers in the meantime.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Some more hints:

while hildon-desktop is started from /etc/init.d/hildon-desktop,

matchbox is started from /etc/X11/Xsession.d/04b_start_matchbox

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

So, is the solution to my problem of all windows being maximized as simple as building the fluxbox sources and replacing the call to matchbox with a call to fluxbox?

I guess I need to setup a scratchbox SDK and find out.

I still find it hard to believe that we're the only few who didn't care for hildon-desktop though.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

you want a simple (shittty) phone...... why the F*** did you buy the N900 then?

you sir, are an odd one!

hmmmmmmmmmm.. this lambo is nice, but i think i can make it faster by ripping its insides out and putting in a 6 cylinder engine !!

u want simple? buy simple!

XD

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

I realize you are probably just flaming or trolling for some unknown reason, but this is a very unfriendly and unhelpful attitude imo.

I don't think anyone here wants a simple phone. Personally I want a more standardized interface to Xorg in which windows can be resized. I'm sorry that offends you.

Are you aware of any phoneOS in the market today that allows one to resize windows? If so I'm all ears.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

This is not just me bumping this thread. I think I might be getting closer to replacing Hildon without breaking the system, and wanted to share.

I finally setup my scratchbox SDK/emulator, but I haven't built an alternate window manager yet, nor tried to install a prebuilt package.

This might be unnecessary, since I also found the repository that contains some prebuilt window managers.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=43188

(However none of the desktop environments seem to have dependencies satisfied. This goes for gnome, KDE xfce4 and LXDE.

Fluxbox is not installable either, but I did manage to install the blackbox window manager. I still don't know how to run it.)

Lastly, here is a way of installing fluxbox on the n810 running mer:
http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Documentation/Fluxbox

however, this does not apply to maemo/n900, since the startup scripts are quite different. For example, /etc/alternatives/x-session-manager does not exist.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

My thoughts about startup scripts:
hildon-desktop is started in /etc/init.d/hildon-desktop
and matchbox-window-manager is started in /etc/X11/Xsession.d/04b_start_matchbox

I managed to install JWM, but it cannot run at all because it doesn't find fonts. It wants courier, preferably as core X11 font, and cannot find it.

Now I will try installing blackbox, possibly.

I don't have emulator, so I would be glad if you tried to change these startup scripts; I don't dare.

> I still don't know how to run it.)
Maybe, /usr/local/bin/blackbox? During "make install" it might say where it put it.

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

The only documentation I've been able to find so far on hacking maemo init scripts is
http://wiki.maemo.org/Advanced_booting#Initfs_hacking
and this does not pertain to n900.

I've never been very good at debugging init scripts, but hildon-desktop is not just started in the file

/etc/init.d/hildon-desktop

I replaced all occurrences of matchbox-window-manager and hildon-desktop with /usr/bin/blackbox in the files

/etc/init.d/hildon-desktop
/etc/X11/Xsession.d/04b_start_matchbox

This causes blackbox to startup on reboot; (much faster) but then something else comes along and kills the blackbox process and the hildon-desktop process starts up somehow.

Also, there are no occurrences of either "matchbox" or "blackbox" running in the shell command

ps -Af

which is confusing and leads me to believe that hildon does not use matchbox at all. There are also two occurrences of the hildon-desktop process running for some reason.

so I'm at a loss currently as to how to prevent hildon from running. I'm thinking that something in /etc/init.d causes this, and it might be one of

/etc/init.d/af-base-services
/etc/init.d/af-services
/etc/init.d/af-startup

which all interact with the directory

/etc/osso-af-init/

I'm going to try just moving these files out of /etc/init.d and see if blackbox can survive.

I don't think the SDK installation procedure here
http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...l_Installation
runs a complete emulator, and that it would be better to run the image in QEMU or something similar.
http://maemovmware.garage.maemo.org/2nd_edition/

However, I'm just editing /etc/init.d directly on the n900 for now, (which is a little scary)

Re: Alternative desktop for N900
 

Two hildon-desktop s: if one has problems, the second restarts it; just protecting each other.

/etc/X11/Xsession.post
has 20hildon-desktop and 21hildon-desktop-wait

20... maybe, launches second hildon-desktop and 21... just says to the OS whether desktop is started and ready

Please, don't delete
/etc/init.d/af-base-apps
/etc/init.d/af-services
/etc/init.d/af-startup

The last starts WiFi and bluetooth, if I understand right.

None of them launches Hildon.

If you have already deleted them, I hope N900 isn't broken completely, but you need either to reflash or to return the files back (if you have backup).