Easy Debian

2009-09-17T22:50:56Z

88.181.86.27: Undo revision 18291 by 68.49.37.85 (Talk)

This is a very rough first draft.

This package, when installed, will give you OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, the LXDE Desktop Environment, Firefox 3.0 (called Iceweasel in Debian) with Java and Flash support, printing support, and access to thousands of applications that can be easily browsed and downloaded.

This package will give you all of these applications without any need for installing dependencies or other applications, and it should work on all of the tablets.

== What you need: ==

* You need 1.3 GB free on one of your memory cards (this includes the built-in 2GB on the N810), although after installing, you will only need 1 GB.
* You need to keep your expectations reasonable. Big desktop applications like OpenOffice and Firefox run slowly on the tablet. They are designed for big, power-hungry CPUs. The N8x0's processor is comparable to a Pentium II processor. Just imagine running these apps on your computer from the mid-90s (remember Windows 95?), and you'll get the idea. But sometimes, you really need something on the tablet that only these apps can provide, like MS Word compatibility or Java applets.

== Install instructions: ==

* You need to install the easy-deb-chroot package. Make sure the "extras" repository is enabled, and install it with the Application Manager.
* When this package is installed, you have to run the "Debian Image Installer" in your Extras menu. This will download and install the big image to the memory card of your choice. It will take about a half hour to download if you have fast Internet connection, and another 15 minutes to extract it on your tablet.

This may take longer... Start the install when you can leave your tablet downloading for a while, maybe just before bed or before going out

* Finally, when you get the "Congratulations!" message, REBOOT.

== Using the LXDE Environment: ==

* Switching to OS2008: Just press the "Home" / "Switch" key (with the house on it) to get back to OS2008.
* Switching to LXDE: Click on the icon on the left hand side of OS2008, or use the Home key to choose LXDE.
* Exiting LXDE: Log out, don't just close the window.

== FAQ ==

'''Q:''' I chose Iceweasel, but nothing happened! 
'''A:''' Be patient. Iceweasel has no splash screen and a very long startup time. Use Kazehakase for faster startup while retaining the ability to use Java and Flash plugins.

'''Q:''' How do I get to the OK button in the huge dialog box that just popped up? 
'''A:''' If you choose the "Toggle Movable Windows" icon in the menu, you will switch to a patched version of the Matchbox Window Manager that lets you move the big dialog boxes used by some Debian apps so you can get to the OK button. When you want to go back to "Normal" OS2008 window behavior, select this menu item again.

'''Q:''' How do I get the virtual keyboard to pop up in Debian Apps? 
'''A:''' Select the "Set Debian HW Keys" menu item; wait a bit, then you can press the minus (-) hardware key followed by the menu hardware key to toggle the Matchbox Keyboard. Press the (-) key then the (+) key to toggle between normal and mini (one-line) keyboards.

'''Q:''' How do I make Debian apps fullscreen? 
'''A:''' Select the "Set Debian HW Keys" menu item; wait a bit, then you can press the minus (-) hardware key followed by the "fullscreen" hardware key to toggle fullscreen for any app.

'''Q:''' How do I get the best turbo speed from OpenOffice, Firefox and other big apps? 
'''A:''' Make sure you have the maximum amount of virtual memory enabled in your Control Panel / Memory dialog. Then select the "Set CPU to Performance mode" menu item and launch your app. Remember to set the CPU to On-Demand mode when you're done using the big app, because Performance mode sucks your battery faster. But it still isn't as bad as the battery life of your average laptop...

'''Q:''' English isn't my first language. How do I change this to my language? 
'''A:''' Please click on the "Debian chroot" icon and type the following command:

dpkg-reconfigure locales

:Choose your language(s).

:Note that you should choose the language with no period between the language and the iso code (eg. "en_CA ISO-8859-1"), and optionally, the utf-8 version, too (eg. "en_CA.UTF-8").

'''Q:''' I want to install more applications! How do I do that? 
'''A:''' First, you have to update the repository lists. From the prompt in Debian Chroot menu item:

apt-get update

:Now, you must get some space back! There's almost no extra room in the image file.

apt-get install localepurge; localepurge

:This will get you at least 80MB back. You should probably do this first, before starting to install. Running out of space during an install in Debian is ugly.

:Also, when downloading packages, remember to frequently use "apt-get clean" to clear out old downloaded packages. That will help with free space.

:If you're comfortable with the command line, you can use the technique listed in this post to double your install space.

:Even with all of these tricks, you'll still run out of room fairly quickly. You'll probably have to uninstall packages in order to add new ones.

:More advanced users can put a minimal system into an empty image and build a custom set of apps using this post. The most advanced and best way: partition your SD card and put your Debian fs there.

'''Q:''' What's this "Iceweasel"? 
'''A:''' Iceweasel is the Debian name for Firefox. It's a long story, but in short, Mozilla and Debian had a philosophical disagreement that ended in Debian renaming Firefox to Iceweasel. 

'''Q:''' How is this different than the [http://trac.tspre.org/projects/nit-debian Deblet project]? 
'''A:''' Easy Debian uses a fully installed Debian system to run applications inside of Maemo. The Deblet project helps you install a bootable Debian system from scratch; Deblet is mainly designed for booting to an alternate OS.

'''Q:''' I already have Debian in a partition, or I'm running Deblet. How can I use your package with my Debian? 
'''A:''' Edit the /home/user/.chroot file to point to your Debian partition or image file. Easy Debian will do the rest.

'''NOTE:''' If you are using Deblet, delete the /home/user/.synchroot file before running Easy Debian for the first time, so your Deblet config files don't get overwritten. Remember that you'll need to make a user called "user" in Deblet (with the proper ID) for things to work correctly. Also note that your maemo home directory will be used by default. This can also be changed in the .chroot file.

[[Category:Users]]

Mer/LXDE/InstallOn0.8

2009-09-11T01:53:44Z

88.181.86.27:

~~Warning: If you want to see login screen your user name and your password can not have any numbers or symbols in it. Make sure you change then before installing lxde or you will have to chroot in from your maemo install and change them. You have been warned.

~~Warning: I take no responsibility if you break your system or the sky falls down. Do this at your own risk or you will be reinstalling Mer.

 
First Load your Mer Partition and Open x terminal.

Then enter each of these commands one at a time

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get -t jaunty install libvte9

sudo apt-get install synaptic

sudo apt-get install onboard

~~N810 Users Who want Login Screen (if you plan on using both Hildon and LXDE you must install with this option.)

sudo apt-get install lxde

~~N800, 770 and N810 users who don't want login screen.

sudo apt-get --no-install-recommends install lxde libgtkstylus

echo "exec startlxde" >> ~/.xinitrc

If you want to use lxlauncher to easy opening of applications

sudo apt-get install lxlauncher

Then type this to reboot your system.

sudo reboot

Choose Mer partition again and it should ubuntu login window.

login using the username and password you made when installing Mer

**I hope you remembered to remove any numbers or symbols from them if not I will tell you have to chroot in later and fix this.

Once you have loaded Mer/LXDE then we need to make a few changes to make everything better first to connect to network.

Click Application Menu

Click Run then type.

nm-applet

Choose your network and logon.

Now using an FTP client on a desktop computer login to your Tablet using your root information

~~If you did not install ssh server when installing Mer you will need to install it first.
Download folder and put the files in the following locations.

/usr/share/applications
*nmapplet
*onboard
*nmconnection
*lxlauncher

/etc/xdg/autostart
*nmapplet
*lxlauncher (if you want it to load at startup)

Now you should have a working install of LXDE on top of your Mer open synaptic and install any applications you want. Also if you want to skip the login screen from now on Click Application Menu -> Settings -> Login Window.

Click Security tab and Enable Automatic Login then enter your users name there.

If you want to be able to load either Hildon or LXDE then follow these steps.

Load Mer and ftp in.

Copy this file to /usr/share/xsessions
hildon.desktop

Then Logout and click Options -> Select Session -> Hildon -> Change Session

Then Login and you will load Hildon instead of LXDE for this session ou can set Hildon as your default and use same way to load LXDE when you want.

~~To Log out of Hildon Click Advanced Backlight and then Click any Rotation option.

Let me know if you run into any problems with anything. I am also working on a custom LXDE layout to organize the programs a little better. I will be posting that soon.

Thanks: Thanks to Stskeeps, Qwerty12, B-man, Qole,FatalSaint for helping out with this.

Maemo Wiki Mirror - User contributions [en]

Easy Debian

Mer/LXDE/InstallOn0.8