Alternative desktop for N900 - Page 4 - maemo.org

Wikiwide | # 31 | 2010-07-03, 01:15 | Report

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

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

I have already.

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

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

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

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

There are other file managers in the repositories.

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

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

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

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

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

You might consider downloading a theme which does exactly this.

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.

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

Hildon already uses Matchbox.

That's one of the best things about Hildon.

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

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

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

Well then, disable the panoramic feature.

How?

Originally Posted by Venemo View Post

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

:-)

radiochickenwax | # 32 | 2010-07-03, 04:36 | Report

Originally Posted by Wikiwide View Post

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 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):

Originally Posted by Wikiwide View Post

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.

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.

Wikiwide | # 33 | 2010-07-03, 04:50 | Report

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

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radiochickenwax | # 34 | 2010-07-03, 05:19 | Report

Originally Posted by Wikiwide View Post

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

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.

F2thaK | # 35 | 2010-07-03, 06:02 | Report

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

radiochickenwax | # 36 | 2010-07-03, 20:59 | Report

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

Originally Posted by f2thak View Post

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

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.

Originally Posted by f2thak View Post

u want simple? buy simple!
XD

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

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radiochickenwax | # 37 | 2010-07-05, 22:32 | Report

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.

Wikiwide | # 38 | 2010-07-05, 23:41 | Report

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.

radiochickenwax | # 39 | 2010-07-06, 00:06 | Report

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)

Last edited by radiochickenwax; 2010-07-06 at 00:13.

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Wikiwide | # 40 | 2010-07-06, 00:33 | Report

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).

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