PanDebian


Hello,

The other day I acquired a brand spanking new 64GB SD card and I figured I'd give pandebian a try. I have been using Pandian (mark 2) as the main OS on my Pandora for most of this year and it has been working well. However, I wanted to see what a hybrid system might be like.

It took me 4 attempts to get pandebian installed. I formatted the card using ext3 and then tried the direct install of wheezy into a sub-directory. This did not work. I then tried a direct install of wheezy to the root directory of the card. This also failed. Third attempt was to a 20GB loopback file and this again failed. Finally, I decided to try squeeze instead of wheezy and this worked, using a direct install to a sub-directory on the card.

I did notice that some of the packages for wheezy were broken when attempting to install. In all failed cases, I got to the point where I was told that the base install had been completed but then the installation failed telling me something about /var/run but I didn't write down the actual error message unfortunately.

In any case, having installed squeeze, I realised that I needed to upgrade as the software I want is not available on that version of Debian or is much older than I would like. I changed the apt/sources.list file to point to testing and updated the database. Upgrading proved difficult immediately due, I think, to apt (in squeeze) not being able to understand some of the configuration options in later versions of Debian. I had to uninstall a number of packages, particularly most of gnome and lx related packages before an upgrade worked. Once I got a new version of apt and libraries installed, I could then re-install lxterminal, lxpanel and other packages to ensure that pandebian would work upon reboot...

I now have a working testing Debian installation running with Super Zaxxon 1.7! It's quite nice and seems more responsive than Pandian was although this could be because the 64GB card is faster than the 16GB card I had for Pandian. Not sure.

Note that the Pandebian Share does not work for me but I have not yet explored why this is.  I am not too bothered, mind you.

My main problem, instead, is that I don't like the window manager in Super Zaxxon. I'm a ratpoison user... having to use the mouse or strange key combinations for manipulating my windows annoys me!

As I don't often use PNDs, I'm probably going to go back to Pandian but I'm going to give pandebian a chance by using it for a couple of weeks.

In any case, thanks for the option! :D
 
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For those who care, I've managed to make synaptic package manager to work, from System and/or Settings menu that is.  It 's a simple fix really.  Just modify the Synaptic Package Manager .desktop files in /usr/share/applications.

So, instead of "Exec = synaptic-pkexec", modify this to be "Exec = gksu /usr/sbin/synaptic" for the two .desktop files and you will be able to execute Synaptic Package Manager from the System and Settings menus of Pandebian.
 
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Just upgraded to Jessie a few days ago and now the panel containing the menu button in the top left corner appears on the top of most windows. I figured you can move the panel below other windows by running "wmctrl -x -r panel.lxpanel -b add,below" but you need to run this every time you start PanDebian. Does anyone know how to run the command automatically when you start PanDebian or maybe have a better solution on how to keep the panel below other windows?
 
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Just upgraded to Jessie a few days ago and now the panel containing the menu button in the top left corner appears on the top of most windows. I figured you can move the panel below other windows by running "wmctrl -x -r panel.lxpanel -b add,below" but you need to run this every time you start PanDebian. Does anyone know how to run the command automatically when you start PanDebian or maybe have a better solution on how to keep the panel below other windows?

Solved the problem by copying the file called launcher from the PanDebian PND to PanDebian's appdata folder and replacing the line at the end that said

exec "$PDROOT/mount.sh" su "$DEBUSER" -c lxpanel

with

exec "$PDROOT/mount.sh" su "$DEBUSER" -c 'lxpanel & sleep 2 && wmctrl -x -r panel.lxpanel -b add,below'
 
Hey everyone!

When I was running HF6 PanDebian worked flawlessly. Now I can´t get it to run anymore. I try to install Squeeze (loop and direct, tried both ways) on my card and everytime I get: Failure to run "chroot: /pathtocard/ mount -t proc -proc /proc". Why does this happen?
 
fyi... squeeze (& lenny) packages are no longer available at mirrors. not installable.
consensus seems to be wheezy not installable
mine fails with "failed to create /var/run"
@ step 13 here: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/pandebian.60208/page-15#post-994145
pandebian doesn't have an install script for jessie.


to install nicely, update debootstrap with legacy mirror:
run pandebian installer, but before doing anything,
open /mnt/utmp/PanDebian/debootstrap/debootstrap in text editor
change line 46 from:
DEF_MIRROR="http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian"
to:
DEF_MIRROR="http://archive.debian.org/debian"
save, close, continue pandebian squeeze install​
success
 
Flynx...

I tried it with this method, but with saving i get the errormessage :eek:peration denied

Is there a way to change it in the pnd itself or to get an updated pnd on this issue?

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@Maschinenherz:

I haven't gotten into packaging PNDs yet, maybe the package manager could update it. Gregor?

In the mean time... you probably received that error message because you don't have permission to edit the file. Try with sudo.

Code:
sudo mousepad /mnt/utmp/PanDebian/debootstrap/debootstrap
 
Grab a pen and start writing: I will never use sudo for GUI applications again, I will never use sudo for GUI applications again...

Use gksudo, you will screw up permissions otherwise. It's equivalent to sudo -H, but the latter does not take care of X and might fail due to lacking X authorization on some systems.
 
I tried with sudo. I even opend rhe pnd on my debian maschine via wine and pndtools and changed the file. Copied the updated pnd to the desktop folder. But it wont start.


Is gksudo preinstalled an can be opened via terminal or is it even in the menu? I cant remember atm. All i know, in my debian system it ia not installed.



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You can copy the file to /media/nameOfYourSDCard/pandora/appdata/PanDebian/debootstrap/debootstrap and edit it there. It will be used instead of the file in the PND.
 
"xhost +localhost" is the way to go if you want to launch X11 Apps via root/sudo.
 
Changed file in appdata folder, chose 4000MB file size... installed squeeze. Started synaptic via terminal. Added wheezy repos. Currently updating thanks for the help
 
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