Debian On An Sd Card

[xopher]

Hi Stuckie et al....I tried the latest. This is great! I went ahead and installed XFCE for fun and the menus populated with PNDs in the correct categories in the menu but none of the icons show up on the Desktop, I can live w/o this but sir magician Stuckie, how did you get the icons to appear on the d-top in LXDE?

Thanks!

EDIT: hmmm....they show up on the d-top for user pandora but not my new user xopher....maybe a reboot resolves this....noppers.....have to see what is missing between user pandora and xopher.

 

[peelie]

thanks stuckie lastest image is the best

edit/

i think you should remove support for pnds; the preferences menu disappears if i put in my sdcard with pnds.

annoying if you want to fiddle about with debian system

 

[xopher]

thanks stuckie lastest image is the best

edit/

i think you should remove support for pnds; the preferences menu disappears if i put in my sdcard with pnds.

annoying if you want to fiddle about with debian system

Was wondering where prefs went....thanks!!! if you install XFCE you can see prefs with the card installed. XFCE is also running faster than it does on the stock firmware image.

 

[Stuckie]

EDIT: hmmm....they show up on the d-top for user pandora but not my new user xopher....maybe a reboot resolves this....noppers.....have to see what is missing between user pandora and xopher.

Try doing "killall -1 pndnotifyd" in a Terminal.. I forgot to add this to the xsession when it seemed to work... it might be it's looking at the wrong user.

i think you should remove support for pnds; the preferences menu disappears if i put in my sdcard with pnds.

annoying if you want to fiddle about with debian system

Some of the config stuff is wrapped in PNDs so that's mostly why it's there, and I didn't want to start splitting the user base with Debian and Angstrom... granted I haven't added the "PND Compatibility Libraries" yet, but shh

I also didn't catch the preference menu disappearing though, that's an odd one.. I can't seem to recreate it here though.. this in the default pandora user effectively fresh from the tarball?

Taken me a while to get this bugger stable! Looks like I've got a good base to work on for 1.1

 

[peelie]

I also didn't catch the preference menu disappearing though, that's an odd one.. I can't seem to recreate it here though.. this in the default pandora user effectively fresh from the tarball?

yes fresh from tarball.

another thing if i change nub modes (i prefer right nub as mouse and left as mousebuttons) it doesn't stick after a reboot?

edit/

that pref menu disappering happened in tarball 1.0.2 as well if i can recall

 

[Stuckie]

Hmm, that's controlled via the pandora-state init script... you could "force" it in by doing "sudo /etc/init.d/pandora-state restart" after setting your nubs.

Not sure why it isn't running though.. it should be - everything else is..

I suppose there had to be ONE problem!

I've also been unable to recreate the preferences disappearing.. so I can't track this down.

 

[xopher]

EDIT: hmmm....they show up on the d-top for user pandora but not my new user xopher....maybe a reboot resolves this....noppers.....have to see what is missing between user pandora and xopher.

Try doing "killall -1 pndnotifyd" in a Terminal.. I forgot to add this to the xsession when it seemed to work... it might be it's looking at the wrong user.

Seems I get the icons on the desktop only if I load lxde first, logout, then back in with xfce. Did try the killall -1 pndnotifyd suggested but no change.

 

[Stuckie]

This is generally why I label everything I do as dodgy hacks, as someone always manages to find rather obscure bugs

Not a clue about this one either, I'm afraid.
Also, how did you create your user? as I noticed I accidentally left in the new user stuff from Angstrom, which is broken and wrong - you should use "sudo adduser MyUserName" from a terminal.. as I'm not quite sure what the Angstrom one does ( or doesn't do, whichever the case may be. )

 

[xopher]

I did add via terminal, my favorite place. I'll poke around it more and try to help figure it out but I'm not sure how many other users are going to add users etc....I just rather be me than pandora. I did notice with the Gnome desktop icons do not appear on the d-top but you can add them but if you don't load the lxde session first the PND links appear stale/orphaned until you load lxde then the other d-top. Just my immediate observations, I haven't tested with different scenarios to attempt to single it down.

EDIT: I got it, had to add the line to .xinitrc for XFCE after the killall line....in case anyone else wants xfce action

 

[Stuckie]

What was it you did? Just add the "killall -1 pndnotifyd" line? Might as well feed it back in so that when I get round to 1.1 its as solid and stable as I can get it

 

[xopher]

I spoke too soon, I've not had enough consistency with success....will keep trying

 

[panik]

This might be related to the problem xopher has, but I'm not sure. I'll just report my findings.

I created a new user using "sudo adduser panik", and added it to the /etc/sudoers file ("panik ALL=(ALL) ALL"). Adding the user from the "Usermanager" menu-item doesn't create a home-directory for the user. The command adduser does. Now that I can log in with this new user, I run into some issues. For example, selecting "CPU_Speed" from the menu.

Mounting the PND failed. The application won't start. Please have a look at /tmp/pndrun_op_cpuspeed.out

The content of /tmp/pndrun_op_cpuspeed.out:

sudo /usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh -m -p /usr/pandora/apps//op_cpuspeed.pnd -e op_cpuspeed.sh -b op_cpuspeed
sudo: no tty present and no askpass program specified
The union File-system is not mounted !

However, getting the properties of the menu-item "CPU-Speed" and copy/paste the command in the terminal does work:

panik@pandora:~$ /usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh -m -p "/usr/pandora/apps//op_cpuspeed.pnd" -e "op_cpuspeed.sh" -b "op_cpuspeed"

The main difference is in the use of quotes. Not using sudo doesn't matter, it works as expected (popping up the window where you can select the CPU-speed). Also note the double slashes "//" after "apps".

Running the command in the terminal without the quotes doesn't work:

panik@pandora:~$ sudo /usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh -m -p /usr/pandora/apps//op_cpuspeed.pnd -e op_cpuspeed.sh -b op_cpuspeed
not mounted on loop yet, doing so
LoopMountedon:
/dev/loop5
Filetype is Squashfs
Mounting PND (mount -t squashfs) :
/dev/loop5 on /mnt/pnd/op_cpuspeed type squashfs (rw)
Filesystem is
Mounting the Union FS using //pandora/appdata/op_cpuspeed as Write directory:
none on /mnt/utmp/op_cpuspeed type aufs (rw,dirs=//pandora.appdata/op_cpuspeed=rw+nolwh:/mnt/pnd/op_cpuspeed=rr)

Hope I didn't make any typos, and this is useful in some way.
Thanks a lot for your efforts, Stuckie! Running a fully fledged Debian on the Pandora is pretty awesome.
I didn't run into any trouble with the default "pandora"-user yet.

edit: typo

 

[Stuckie]

You need to make your user part of the wheel group, as all the pnd specifics are on the wheel group, rather than the sudo group.

Check the guide on which groups you should be a part of: http://pandorawiki.org/Debian_On_SD#Users_and_Permissions there's a few of them!

I'll probably clean this up a bit more for 1.1, and edit the add user gui thing to do it all properly.

 

[panik]

Instant happiness. Thanks!

 

[Stuckie]

I've just uploaded another release.. this one's really just 1.0.4 but with XFCE instead ( and a couple of minor tweaks, which I'll detail below, as there's no point grabbing 1.0.5 if you already have 1.0.4 unless you want XFCE instead of LXDE. )
You can grab it here: http://www.stuckiegamez.co.uk/apps/pandora/Debian/pandora-squeeze-1.0.5-grip.tar.bz2

The minor tweaks are:
pandora-state now actually does what it's supposed to.. I had to redo it's start/stop levels slightly so if you want to do the same, perform the following...

sudo update-rc.d -f pandora-state remove
sudo update-rc.d pandora-state defaults 05

Also, the console keymap now works. This is a bit dependent on GDM starting up ( and it knocks out the CTRL+ALT+F1 combination, annoyingly.. but you can install console-tools to use chvt if you need to anyway. )
sudo nano /etc/gdm/Init/:0 - the "\" is needed to allow ":" to be used in the filename.
And add the following line.

loadkeys /etc/keymap-extension-2.6.map

You could probably just call "loadkeys /etc/keymap-extension-2.6.map" manually if you wanted from a terminal after using CTRL+ALT+F1 to get there.
Thanks to mcobit for the heads up on loadkeys, and to chris_c for the GDM Init fiddling in general

 

[chris_c]

gaah arrgh noooo XFCE

 

[TitanUranus]

Right - I have this booting and I love it. Just one thing...

Anyone know of a way I can edit the autoboot.txt to allow a choice of booting from NAND or SDHC? For some reason the boot menu won't let me choose, so I have to eject the card to boot angstrom, or leave it in to boot Debian. Ideally I'd like a choice - dual boot option. I'm sure it must be possible and probably fairly simple, but then I'm fairly simple so I'd be much obliged if some kind soul could enlighten me.

Also, off topic I know, but while I'm here can anyone tell me how to set the CPU max to opp1 or opp2? The slider is great but only allows opp3 as a minimum, and I'm desperate to try lower. Thanks for bearing with my noob-ishness.

Also - this is an amazing piece of work, I cant wait to see further development.

EDIT: Ok, so it was easy, rename autoboot.txt to boot.txt and hold R-Shoulder during startup. Man, I hate not knowing things... especially when they are simple. In my defence, searching for that answer isn't easy! Now who's going to tell me how to change to opp1/2 (in either or both angstrom/debian)? Come on - show me how dumb I am!

 

[FouDuBassan]

Hi,

Indeed a very good job, and I really like the evolution of the wiki page as well.

Still, sometimes, I can't shut down the wifi -- generally once after the pandora has been suspended using the physical button. BTW, it would be great to add a call to /etc/init.d/wl1251 to stop it before the suspension.
From http://pandorawiki.org/Running_Linux_from_an_SD_card, it would be great to have the necessary in /etc/fstab to be able to parse the internal memory. /mnt/nand is one option.

Many tkx!

 

[Stuckie]

Welcome to the boards! Now I can keep track of all the ideas you give me, hehe

I had forgotten about the NAND mount, I shall mark that down on the stuff to do for the next release, which I should be starting around the middle of May

Also, off topic I know, but while I'm here can anyone tell me how to set the CPU max to opp1 or opp2? The slider is great but only allows opp3 as a minimum, and I'm desperate to try lower. Thanks for bearing with my noob-ishness.

I haven't fiddled with over clocking my Pandora at all.. I just leave it on the default, so I'm not so sure on this, I'm afraid
Glad you got your other issue fixed though.. it's autoboot.txt by default as I assume that you're sacrificing a card for Debian anyway, and that any time it's inserted, you're wanting to use it. Also easier for me to test things if all I have to do is swap cards and not remember to catch it booting!

 

[chris_c]

guys you might want to add psplash=false to the kernel line in /autoboot.txt

You can even spot some interesting things in official firmware!

bound to be able to spot something - I really must get round to doing another decent debian hacking session - I nearly got pcsx-rearmed working....