Also is there any way I can expand the ext2 img file? I can't do much on a 1gb

You could create a partition on your sd card, then copy the image file onto it, then you just need to make sure everything points to the partition rather than the image file. I think this method still works.

Hi Empire and D'ohboy:

Here is a new step-by-step, using the new scripts that I've written since that old how-to. These steps replace #2 to #5.

1. Gain root.
2. Mount your image file on /floppy (put the name of your image file in the command, if it is different than the one I use):
3. Mount your empty partition on /opt (use the correct partition here):
4. Copy all the files from your image file to the partition:
5. Unmount everything:
You don't need to reboot anymore.
You still have to point your .chroot file to the new partition as in the howto above.

(EDIT: I'm just doing this procedure in reverse right now, for my new Easy Mer. I've set everything up in a partition, now I'm copying it all into an image file for distribution.)

Greetings:
Whilst I did not wade through all 69 pages of material here, I did read over half of them (1-17ish and 52-). Good stuff in general, but some of it appears to be outdated a bit (not surprising given the original dates on the thread).

Thought I would provide some updates from the perspective of a new installer of EasyDebian.

First, nice job with the install procedure. The simple straight-forward instructions on page 1 work as advertised. Looks like qole has been keeping that one up to date!

Second, for other newbies, there are two ways to expand the EasyDeb filesystem size. Method A involves creating a dedicated ext2 partition on your card (internal or external) and copying the EasyDeb stuff to that partition. How to do that is well documented about 6 posts above this one.

Method B involves resizing the EasyDeb image file itself. The only post I could find on that one is no longer correct (it suggested just copying resize2fs from the debian partition to the OS2008 one... That no longer works, as that program now has deps). However, you _CAN_ still do it provided that you have access to a computer running a reasonably recent version of Linux (download a LiveCD if you need). Follow these steps:
0) Make sure you aren't running EasyDebian. For me, I physically removed the card and plugged it in to my Linux box. If you are using the USB cable, make absolutely sure that Nothing Debian is running on the machine. A power cycle is suggested!
1) Make a copy of the Debian Image for safe-keeping in case something goes wrong.
2) Run e2fsck -f on the file image. Elsewhere in the thread, it is suggested to run this after, but resize warns you to run it first, do both!
3) Run resize2fs <imagefilename> 2G As pointed out somewhere above, if you are still doing this on a FAT partition (default for memory cards) you need to respect the 2G filesize limit.
4) Rerun e2fsck -f on the suddenly larger file. This is just to be safe!
5) Recopy/install your new larger file into same place as the original (depending on how you got it into the Linux system in the first place. I just had to re-install the card)
6) Enjoy more space to install stuff.

I haven't tried it, but using dd and mke2fs you can create a second 'disk' that you could mount similar to the easy debian main 'disk'. If I understand the commentary correctly, you should be able to just add some lines to the debain chroot script to mount the second 'disk'. Not quite as nice as a full 8 Gig partition, but may be a nice compromise for people.

Finally, in trying to run the apt-get upgrade which is almost always a good idea after installing from a static image. There are some errors. Seems that /usr/share/man has some missing subdirectories (man5 among others). This will cause libc6 to fail, and most of the rest of the upgrade as well. Just cd (from a Debian terminal window) to /usr/share/man, and mkdir man5 (and any of the other numbers that are missing).

I'm still waiting for the upgrade to finish, but the next item on the list will be gcc/g++. If I run into problems with it, I'll post. Maybe even solutions too. Please note: I am fully aware that apps compiled with Debian gcc may (probably) are not compatible with OS2008. One of the things I use my Nokia for is portable development. Prior to EasyDeb, I have had to wait to get back home or to the office to try out code changes. Annoying when I am on a longer trip. Now, thanks to EasyDeb, I will be able to squash bugs on the road. Then with subversion, upload tested code to the repository.

Thanks again qole for putting this together. For me, EasyDeb finally allows me to do all that I actually bought the Nokia to do. 256M really isn't enough to install the full C development chain. And whilst I could have done a boot-from-card approach, there are reasons why that did not appeal to me.

Just a couple of notes:

'sudo closechroot' will make sure there is nothing Easy Debian related running and it is completely unmounted. You should do this before pulling the card that has your ED image / partition.

I'm really not a fan of the image resize option. Make a new partition. Really. It is better in the long run.

The most recent Debian image file has had the man pages stripped out with 'docpurge' to save some space.

Easy Debian isn't really designed for an apt-get upgrade. But, if you may run into elschemm's problems installing other software. So those tips about the man directories are quite useful.

As of last week, this error still occurs. It doesn't seem to cause a problem, but it pops here and there. (Ex. Step 3 for copying the image file to a partition 'qmount /dev/mmcblk1p2 /opt').

I tried a simple apt-get install libuuid, but it doesn't know libuuid. Anybody know what package to install to fix this small annoyance?

Could you please try:
Yes, I don't know why it isn't installed for everyone... It should have installed automatically...

UPDATE:
Yikes, maybe the fact that I'm using the newer version in my repository rather than the broken version in the diablo repository (conflicts with e2fsprogs) is the problem...

UPDATE2:
Where the heck is e2fsprogs for Diablo?

Ah! An interesting question. I couldn't find it either. That's why I suggested pulling the card and using a Linux distro to bump the size on the file.

BTW, you were right. Looks like a separate partition will probably work best in the long run; for me anyway. I hate having to guess on the split size for the FAT/ext partitions though. I wish Sandisk would hurry up on the Class6 16GB cards!

(I still need the FAT for some limited WIndows use.)

I'll let you know if your apt-get suggestion works in a bit. The tar/copy is still in progress and has the CPU pegged.

OK. I didn't notice that it is libuuid1 (one), so after failing on libuuidl (ell), I thought I'd try something odd:
And.... It worked (also grabbed libuuid1). Started Debian chroot, no more error. E2fsprogs does _not_ show up under application manager for installable progs though! (And of course, since I did it with apt-get it doesn't show up in currently installed packages either)

elschemm: What repositories do you have enabled?

As far as I can see, e2fsprogs is not available for Diablo, so you either have Chinook repositories enabled, my repository, or the debfarm repository.