Debian on SD


From the NAND....you complete maniac!!! Cool stuffs and nice to see how the FS compresses on the NAND, are you going to experiment with that more or move onto something else?
 
I'd much rather a fully realized distribution like Debian made it to the Pandora's mainstream OS than Angstrom.


Stuckie, a separate LIB path could be added that has the critical libraries for PND's to run and pnd_run.sh could set the LD_LIBRARY path to the "Compatible Mode" libraries. Sure it would take up a bunch of space, but at least it would allow PND's to run without mucking up the Debian libraries.
 
From the NAND....you complete maniac!!! Cool stuffs and nice to see how the FS compresses on the NAND, are you going to experiment with that more or move onto something else?
Not sure what else there is to experiment with.. though I did notice another feature to add to my Extend Utils suite :)


I'll be working on "System Overlays" in a bit; effectively this gets mounted _at boot_ and everything goes direct to your Overlay file on SD card.


This stops any and all writes to the NAND, but does take up an SD slot.. could be useful for various things though.

I'd much rather a fully realized distribution like Debian made it to the Pandora's mainstream OS than Angstrom.


Stuckie, a separate LIB path could be added that has the critical libraries for PND's to run and pnd_run.sh could set the LD_LIBRARY path to the "Compatible Mode" libraries. Sure it would take up a bunch of space, but at least it would allow PND's to run without mucking up the Debian libraries.
Yea, that's probably what I'll end up doing for the most part.. still need to work out my 1.1 release plan, but PND compatibility is certainly on there; especially to make it as compatible with stock Angstrom as I can to ensure I don't accidentally fragment anything.
 
Cross forum posting for the win.


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...



Code:
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.



Code:
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 :)
 
How does Debian fare on the hardware? Is it fast? I heard that we choose a derivative of angstrom because Debian was to resource intensive. And this might have already been asked, but can you load it from an SD card?


Congratulations by the way, very cool accomplishment. B)
 
I think the main reason Angstrom was chosen because of its size, not necessarily performance reasons. Debian runs just as fast.


Stuckie made it very easy to setup. Simply untar it to an SD card. What makes it awesome is that you can apt-get install whatever-the-heck-you-want. It also runs regular pnd's, so it's the best of both worlds.
 
It can be made to run from NAND, but it's a bit iffy at the moment, so I really wouldn't recommend doing that unless you really know what you're doing. And as I wrote in the guide, don't do it, because it's not quite geared for NAND use as yet and may tax it a bit more than Angstrom.


But yes, just extract to SD card and run from that.. the NAND thing was a little experiment I wanted to look at and it worked :)


As for PND support, it's not quite complete as yet - it'll need a bunch of libraries ripped from Angstrom to run right, and I haven't had time to look into it as yet.. I've been hoping the Debian archives would keep you busy for the time being ;)


And probably the main reason Angstrom was chosen over Debian, is that Debian only recently became viable really.. and for proper embedded systems, Debian is still a bit out ( though the Emdebian project which I'm now basing this on is certainly making headway into this. ) And while I can get Debian shrunk down and smaller than the current Angstrom install on NAND now, even just back in October when I did my original proof of concept, it was a bit iffy in places. The other thing to remember is that Debian is generally compiled to work on as wide amount of hardware as possible ( it's compiled for arm4t if I mind right ) whereas Angstrom uses bitbake to compile directly for the target hardware. So there's pros and cons for both sides :)
 
As for PND support, it's not quite complete as yet - it'll need a bunch of libraries ripped from Angstrom to run right, and I haven't had time to look into it as yet.. I've been hoping the Debian archives would keep you busy for the time being ;)
I thought I successfully tried some pnd's, but I admit I'm still "apt-get installing" to my heart's content. :)


Sorry for getting everyone's hope up too high. I'm not worried. :D
 
Hi friends.


I took liberty to play with Stuckie's 1.0.5 rootfs. I kind of dig XFCE (we know you love XFCE chris_c, sorry lol) I take no credit for anything other than the time I spent adding packages breaking and configuring things. This is based off the work of others and I present it to the community to help further its development. I have made some headway in getting some PNDs to work some 100%, some launch, and some do not much else. The pandora user session has been tweaked for more finger friendly action (see screenie) and see the changelog for all additions/modifications. I'd like to thank Stuckie for an awesome rootfs to work from and chris_c for his testing with Stuckie plus all the others from where I gathered various tweaks.


Rootfs is here.


Screenshot is here:

screenshot.png


KNOWN WEIRDNESS:


=================


Must access card with PNDs to mount it, then wait a moment hit F5 on desktop to get PNDs to populate it. If you want XFCE menu to populate with the PNDs you must log out of session and log back in. Fix anyone?? :)


Changelog/Instructions


If you'd rather get just get PND integration to work as far as I have follow these steps:


-Copy nand´s /usr/lib to /opt/, rename folder to pan-lib, add LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/pan-lib:/usr/lib to /usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh


-Copy nand's /etc/xdg/op to /etc/xdg/op


-Copy from nand /usr/bin ofbset, op_*, to /usr/bin


-Copy bzip bins from nand /usr/bin to /usr/bin/


-Copy /usr/lib/ libsdl* and libcurl* libtiff* from nand to /usr/lib (do not overwrite files)


-Copy /usr/sbin/fbset* from nand to /usr/sbin


If you download the rootfs all the above has already been done + the extras listed below:


EXTRAS


======


-Set autologin to user pandora and allowed root permission to have X login.


-Added abmouse, normouse, xkbset to /usr/bin with corresponding .pndmodmap* files to /home/pandora


this allows A/B Left/Right mouse button operation. Added launcher to panel (mouse icon) to revert


back run normouse (joystick icon).


-Added conky folder to /home/pandora added line .xsession to execute it on xsession login.


-Install via apt-get mtd-utils to allow mounting of nand to created folder of /media/nand/


-Install via apt-get xfce4-goodies to get additional xfce bits like xfce4-terminal etc.....


-Install via apt-get net-utils, ping, and traceroute


-Added modified op_start.png to /usr/share/pixmaps and configured startmenu icon to it.


-Added Xubuntu-2x theme to /home/pandora/.themes for finger friendly titlebars and nice look.


-Added Zeckton ttf to /home/pandora/.fonts and selected size of 8.


-Added .gtkrc-2.0 to /home/pandora for finger friendly scrollbars.


-Adjusted XFCE4 panel to 54 pixles high more finger friendly action.


-Adjusted desktop icon size to 24


-Adjusted desktop font to 7.


-Adjusted some transparency aspects of desktop for task oriented visibility.


-Adjusted terminal prefs...transparency and made font green size 7.


-Added dir exports from Angstrom .xinitrc to top of .xsession file but commented out the export of


$HOME/Application/Settings because battery monitor was misreading somethinng and tnhought battery level


was 0% and immediately shutdown the Pandora. Also copied Applications dir to $HOME/pandora to try


for more PND functionality....orignal folder is stil there renamed Applications-


Enjoy!
 
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Question: do we know if there's going to be a point at which Debian's going to be as complete as it is on a 'real' computer? I've been thinking of Debian-ing it (on the NAND, hopefully - like my NanoNote) at some point, but only when it's not broken in any way, not dependent on one of my other computers to maintain. I'd use a 64G card as well (naturally), and lay it out thus:


NAND: /


SDp0: swap (1G)


SDp1: /usr/ (2G, ext4)


SDp2: /home/ (the rest, ext4)


Basically, the way I've got my NanoNote and my 'real' computers set up. I'd not be too bothered about the PND format (though it'd be nice), and I want GNOME running.


I'm not going to start hacking around with the OS for a while - I want to play games, write simple code, and maybe work on my book - but when Debian becomes a real option, I'd love to run it instead of Angstrom. I've done the OS hackery before; in order to get Debian working on my NanoNote, I had to flash a broken copy onto it, forge a shaky Internet connection into it using ethernet masquerade, and practically rebuild the OS from there, installing it one file at a time either from the Internet or from the host machine, which at the time ran Ubuntu. It took me a couple of months to get it right, when the site said it should be up and running within the hour - and I had to go into realms of Linux Guruness that at the time made me crap myself. Not that I mind having done it, it works bloody well now, but I don't fancy doing it all again just yet.


/monologue
 
Question: do we know if there's going to be a point at which Debian's going to be as complete as it is on a 'real' computer? I've been thinking of Debian-ing it (on the NAND, hopefully - like my NanoNote) at some point, but only when it's not broken in any way, not dependent on one of my other computers to maintain. I'd use a 64G card as well (naturally), and lay it out thus:


NAND: /


SDp0: swap (1G)


SDp1: /usr/ (2G, ext4)


SDp2: /home/ (the rest, ext4)


Basically, the way I've got my NanoNote and my 'real' computers set up. I'd not be too bothered about the PND format (though it'd be nice), and I want GNOME running.


I'm not going to start hacking around with the OS for a while - I want to play games, write simple code, and maybe work on my book - but when Debian becomes a real option, I'd love to run it instead of Angstrom. I've done the OS hackery before; in order to get Debian working on my NanoNote, I had to flash a broken copy onto it, forge a shaky Internet connection into it using ethernet masquerade, and practically rebuild the OS from there, installing it one file at a time either from the Internet or from the host machine, which at the time ran Ubuntu. It took me a couple of months to get it right, when the site said it should be up and running within the hour - and I had to go into realms of Linux Guruness that at the time made me crap myself. Not that I mind having done it, it works bloody well now, but I don't fancy doing it all again just yet.


/monologue

I think I did see Stuckie mention he did have Debian installed to nand for entertainment purposes so it can be done.


As it stands now, any of the premade rootfs downloads are fully functional as an OS or you can follow the wiki and build your own from scratch then include only the apps you want. Since you're not concerned with PND integration you could grab one of the files extract and let it rip to save time and testdrive it. All of the rootfs files already have the Gnome environment installed you only have to change the desktop environments at the login screen. If you're unhappy with the rootfs files available check out the wiki and have fun!
 
Ok, I have a couple of questions - as yet I haven't tried what I intend because I'm very tired and would only get frustrated. I figure though I can guess a few of the short comings in my plan, and if I ask my questions tonight before I go to bed, there may be a couple of useful answers waiting for me and I can start refreshed tomorrow (all being well).


First let me explain what I want to do, I want to boot from my 2.5" passport HDD (which runs nicely using the Pandoras battery as a power source by the way). Obviously that would be a bit insane for normal use, but currently I have my desktop PC on 24 hours a day, at night I listen to old radio shows and download torrents while I sleep, something the Pandora can do using much less power - yes it would be plugged into the mains drawing power for its self and the attached 500gb 2.5" HDD - and probably with the battery removed (and clocked at 500mhz). To gain speed and save ANY writing to SDHC since I'll have a large capacity HDD connected anyway, I'd like to boot from HDD partition 1 (which will be an over generous 5gb for the OS) the most of the drive will be partition 2 for storage, and another small partition 3 for swap (2gb sounds nice!).


The main points I wonder about are as follows, can I boot from a USB HDD? If not, can I set up a small boot partition on an SDHC which will set the root to sda1 and load the OS from there? What will the boot.txt contain? I'd guess: root=/dev/sda1 and if booting from SDHC then "ext2load mmc 0:1" will work, but if I can boot from HDD WTF should I replace "mmc" with? Is it as simple as "sda 1" (as with lots of linux stuff it usually makes sense but only once the proper answer is revealed to you - my "guesses" are invariably close, but not right).


My next major question, which could save me finding out the hard way, could I make the root filesystem EXT4 (oooh, don't you just love the dangerous speed of EXT4?). I suspect that booting from EXT4 is a no-go area, so if I made a small fat32 or ext2 partition with the boot image on it but make the root fs a larger EXT4 partition would that do the trick, or are we not able to use EXT4 yet?


Are there any other hideous (and probably glaringly obvious) traps I'd need to avoid? I'm a linux noob, but I'm a fairly quick learner so I don't feel totally out of my depth or anything, I'd just like someone with more knowledge than I have to warn me of obvious mistakes I may make that would seriously tax my ill educated arse (where my brain resides).


It'd be great to just bung 50 torrents and leave them seeding/downloading overnight, while soothing music plays over my superb audio system, in the knowledge that my PC won't turn my bedroom into a baking oven. As an added bonus it might gain the earth an extra billionth of a nanosecond lifespan by reducing power consumption.


I'm off to bed now, sweet dreams everyone, or have a good day depending on where in the world you are.
 
[ 11.473815] Warning: unable to open an initial console.


Is there any way to get around this? I got it on the basic one and 1.0.5.
 
Can't wait for my Pandora. The idea of downloading this and just having another whole OS on a handheld is awesome! Thanks to Stuckie, Xopher and all for what sounds like more future fun!


(off topic) Man I knew these ARM chips were supposed to run cool but in the above screenshot it shows the processor about a degree cooler Fahrenheit than a human at normal temperature. So people run hotter than Arm chips...lol
 
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Dunno why this board refuses to send me notifications of people posting in a watched topic... feel free to poke me on IRC or on the other board if you find issues with my Debian stuff.


Anyway:


[ 11.473815] Warning: unable to open an initial console.


Not sure what that is, can you elaborate a bit more on where that came up?


I fixed some oddness in 1.0.5 whereby the keyboard map was bollocksed up in the standard console, but I wonder if I accidentally tripped something else in the process.


The partitioning stuff is a bit of a custom process really.. if you want to go ahead with something like that, you're probably wanting to go do it from scratch, or wait till I've got the installer setup. I'm hoping to start getting the installer going by the end of the month, and this'll mark the start of my 1.1 series of "doing things properly" rather than "stealing things from Angstrom and wedging it in!" that the 1.0.x series has done ;) Hey, it's worked, don't knock it :D


Additionally, I do have it running from NAND... I'd recommend not doing it just now, though as it was more of a "I wonder if I can do this... yes I can!" than anything else... you'd also still not get your custom partitioning layout with the default NAND partition setup unless you really want to mess with that. I wasn't completely sure how the NAND can be partitioned so I just overwrote the existing Angstrom root partition instead. You're also best pulling from Emdebian Grip for this as it's MUCH smaller, but then they've got some issues with stock Debian ( specially dev packages ) so.. not sure what you should do here if you seriously want to try getting Debian on NAND.


As for GNOME... you're likely not going to get that squeezed on to the NAND.. it's far too big.


-edit-


Didn't fully read your partitioning bit in that you wanted to spread out onto SD rather than partition the NAND... that should be fine in either case, just ensure your SD doesn't leave your chosen slot, obviously ;)


TitanUranus's stuff was discussed on the other board.. which did prod me that someone had posted!
 
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I couldn't swear to it but I think that just means it's unable to open a text mode console as it would on a PC, certainly I've seen that error and it's never made a bit of difference to anything I wanted to do...


I'd be interested to know where I should add the loadkeys command to fix the console though, I'm sure it's something lurking in rc.d but I'm not sure which one


Thanks
 
Thought I had fixed that post 1.0.5 ... oh well, if you just do the loadkeys manually from the console, it'll work happily.. though I'm damn sure I had added it to the GDM init script to load both X side and console side.


I remember trying to fiddle around with adding it to the correct rc, but it wasn't for working properly for some reason.
 
Seems like I accidentally breathed life back into this thread by posting about it on GP2X boards. Perhaps for the sake of convenience we could issue a "Do Not Resuscitate" on this rather sickly and overlooked duplicate thread, and people could be redirected to the more useful and up to date discussions and news on GP2X:


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/57097-debian-on-an-sd-card/page__pid__948863__st__270&#entry948863


I for one would be happier to get my "official news" of updates from there. I'm very much looking forward to the 1.1 release later in the month. My 2 new 32gb class 10 SDHC's are just begging for some more data.
 
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