Hi all,

I am a newbie who just ordered SL-6000 from Amazon for 380. For the same price as Dell X50V, I decide I should enter the world with more programming and less Microsoft. However, I had no experice with Linux before. I did only have some programming experiernce with C and Java.

so Could someone kinda walk me through the steps of installing Debian and using its application on SL-6000 since by reading all the threads, I know you have to upload Debian to a 512mb or larger card to a SD or CF card first.. other than that ... I have no idea... (sorry for the stupid question).. ( if someone can help me out, much appreciated)

chaosteo

Hi chaosteo,
Count on me to help you as much as I can. Just the first thing is to advice you not to expend any money on SD or CF cards, but buy a cheap microdrive (The smallest Hitachi that you can find. 1 Gh. should be enough. If 2 Gh. more than needed);
If you need bhelp, no doubt in contact me, but don't forget that I think always in term of "handcomputer" that, perhaps, is not the same as a perfect PDA.
Regards
smuelas

Hi smuelas

before I received my unit on wednesday, just have some short questions

1) Can you run default operating system shipped with Zaurus while running Debian on Zaurus? if not, can you revert it back if it fails?

2) Is microdrive stable? should I get hitachi, ibm or magicstor ones? I still cannot decide to get SD or microdrive. Since 1GB SD is going around 70 on ebay and 2GB Micodrive is around 110, I still cannot decide since one advantage of sd is that I can use a CF GPS and SD at the same time if needed.

3) Does your desktop need to run Linux for your Zaurus to run with Debian? since I have all windows machines

thank you so much

chaosteo

You're right, if you use your SD slot for storage, then you have the CF available for other features which cannot be done with SD. That's the approach I"ve taken with my 5600, dedicate the SD card for storage (in ext2 format) and then swap the CF card for what I need at the moment... additional storage for a backup or music, a WiFi connection, an ethernet connection, or GPS, or ...

Hi chaosteo, I answer to your questions:
1) Yes. You can run at the same time Debian and Qtopia. No need to do anything "strange".
2) Microdrive is totally stable. Better Hitachi. Much better than SD, a lot slower. On the other side, if you use swap, as you should, your Zaurus will be writting and reading all the time from SD. They say those cards accept up to 10.000 operations of this nature. If you want to use the slot from the microdrive, just take it out. You will lose Debian but will maintain the original Qtopia.
3) I use always Linux. Can conect zaurus trough VNC or SSH. The same should be true with Windows.
Regards smuelas

Great work Smuelas on helping get this set up.

I am to the point of having a useable Debian installation, and am working on the icewm font thing. Maybe a change to fvwm is the fix...

I am having a bit of difficulty with the Zaurus stock ROM keyboard/handwriting app and the X implementation. If I use a USB keyboard text input works great (good work ont he xmodmap), but as I am temporarily stuck with the GoldX USB adaptor, and I don't have wireless at work so I need to leave the Z in the cradle for USB-networking. The GoldX is too big to use while the Z is in its' cradle, so I have to type using the on-screen apps, and they seem goofed up inside XQt. nothing on the right side of the keyboard works- any ideas?

Secondly, does anyone have any ideas on setting up vncserver inside the debroot? I apt-get installed vncserver, but upon running it I get a "xauth not found" error. I'd love to be able to vnc into my deb installation from a bigger monitor....

Lastly, on the subject of swap, I'm currently using a CF file for swap as I cannot get swap over NFS to work. I've setup a swapfile on my host linux box, (trying both a ramdisk and Hdd-based file), I can mount it inside Debian, but swapon gives me a "invalid argument" error. I have run mkswap on the NFS file, both from inside the Debian chroot and from the native Sharp rom, to no avail. If I use the CF file though, everything works as planned. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance, and thanks to all who are figuring out how to run this great package!!!

Cheers, JJ

Hi JJ,
I think that I have good news for you. The trick for using Debian and VNC is to launch VNC from Qtopia. You will see your Z-screen clearly bigger in size and the mouse/keyboard of your desktop will do all the needed work.
Just launch Startx as usual and icewm or fluxbox and if you are running Debian on Desktop you will be able to compare the same application on both computers... :-)
Shortly I will include an improved version of .xmodmaprc in the web-page.
smuelas

dumb question,

after chroot command how do you guys accessing all other files above /mnt/~your_card~/debroot/ folder ?
i.e. how do you read /mnt/~your_another_card/* from debian ?

After a chroot you cannot access the other files.

Except swap, buit I think this is cause swap is done at the kernel level. I set up a swap partition on a USB drive (/dev/sda2) and am using:
swapon /dev/usb2
at the zaurus root, THEN chrooting into the debian environment. So far no crashes, and running "free" from time to time shows that the swapfile is being used quite a bit.

Dunno if this helps anyone, but I had to try it....

I also tried the chrooted deb environment under the Opie/OZ 3.5.2 ROM, but it was incredibly slow and I seem to be having problems with mounting/unmounting cf cards in OZ. Opie hangs randomly if I ahve a CF card in either slot...argh...

Oh well, deb/xqt rocks!

Cheers all!

JJ

From a Qtopia terminal I mount my CF to /mnt/card/debroot/mnt/cf
Then I can see it in Debian.

I could have been more creative, but that's what I do.

OK, I was flat out wrong on the swap. I've had 2 kernel panics now with messages in dmesg about running out of RAM. Win some, lose some...mount your swap inside your chroot!

Cheers, JJ

Ok,
Everything was working almost perfectly, and then I did the d'OH! and tanked my fstab. Can someone please post a copy of what they have in their fstab? Preferably someone who has a stock zaurus fstab, and not a new kernel /ROM setup. I'd be much obliged and my Z might be much less nuked. Thanks.

MSC_Geek

absolutely outstanding stuff.

What about using the OZ x-server (kdrive) instead of X/QT. wouldn't that be A LOT more powerful? (floating point better use of the bus etc...)
adf

Related to fstab I only add a line corresponding to the CF where I have Debian. I simply write:

/dev/hda1 /mnt/cf ext2 defaults 0 0

and never had a problem with it. When I begin Debian, I mount /proc on a corresponding /proc after Debian.

I have already tried to use the Xserver of openzaurus using the one included with GPE. The result has not been good as it seems that, althought doing Chroot, something from the original server was mixing with certain applications of Debian.
In fact, as Xqt runs so well, I haven't feel the need to look for other solutions. I try as much as I can but haven't found anything that can be compared.
Cheers
smuelas

Hi Smuelas

I ended up picking up a 512mb cf card cheap from a friend for like $20 dollar since he is getting new SD digicams. I have been reading your insturciton page. I have some questions. I am prepared to learn now. Sorry i ask really stupid questions.. i am a total newbie

1. Where is the "jvr" instructions .. I cannot seem to find it throughout the site
2. Which Xqt should i download ? There are several files with Xqt at the japan feeds site.
3. How do i format my CF card to use ext 2?
4. Do you use a text edito like what? to Modify --or write-- the file " .xinitrc

thank you

James

I think you are looking for instructions by jfv, and you can find them at:
http://www.oesf.org/forums/inde...indpost&p=41019

According to http://w3.mecanica.upm.es/~smuelas/debianxqt.html you can download all the latest packages at http://xqt.sourceforge.jp/feed-testing/. You can even add it to your ipkg sources list and install them that way. Install the packages according to jfv, although I doubt you need the glibc-locale files unless you want it in Japanese.

I haven't done this myself, but I assume you would use the mkfs.ext2 command. Make sure it's unmounted of course.

To edit text files you can use vi from the terminal.

I don't know if this is necessary, but I have been using fdisk to re-partition the card to set the partition type to linux prior to running mke2fs. Essentially:


This worked for me on my CF, CF microdrive, and USB drives with no problems so far.

Next, a question:

XQt/Deb works great, I have everything running well and when at work can chroot into the debian environment prior to launching XQt, export DISPLAY=1:0 and launch vncserver to get a VNC sesison running on my desktop machine. I've installed apache/mysql and GPSDrive inside the debroot and they all work great. At this point I would like to get Kismet and GPSDrive talking to each other. I have the Ambicom CF GPS and it works great on /dev/ttyS3.

Launching the gpsd that comes with qpeGPS and running the kismet under the Sharp environment (outside debian) does not work- kismet will not see the gpsd no matter what I try. The kismet.conf has been edited to support GPSD, but no go. GPSD is working, I can telnet to it and see data, qpeGPS works, and if I launch gpsd prior to chrooting into debian, I can launch GPSDrive and it sees the qpeGPSD and works great.

At this point I've searched the boards and googled my way around for hours and it appears as though either the qpeGPSD does not talk to Kismet, the complied-for-zaurus Kismet does not have GPS support built-in, or both. I've been unable to find an alternate gpsd that works, so I have one last-ditch attempt I want to make:

Use the GPSD that comes with GPSDrive.

To do this, GPSDrive needs to be able to see the Zaurus /dev/ttyS3 that is outside the debain chroot. Symlinking from the stock environment like this:
ln -sf /dev/ttyS3 /mnt/cf/debroot/dev/ttyS3
does not work.

Does anyone know how to either link or mount the Sharp /dev filesystem (like mounting the /proc system) into the Debian chroot? I'm googling my way around, but struggling...

Cheers, JJ

I would think you could just create new device nodes after you chroot into Debian. Doing a man ttys on most linux machines pops up the instructions on how to create them.

I don't know if that will fix your problem, but it should at least create the nodes in your /dev directory.

[EDIT] Reading over your post again you said that it had to use the devices in the stock /dev directory. Are you sure this is true? I can't think of why they would work any different under your debian environment. Maybe I missed the boat with chroot though [/EDIT]

Hi JJ,
I can't help you with kismet & gps. Never used :-(
What I can do is to give you some hint on your last question. What you want to do is exactly what is done to implement Gentoo on the Zaurus. I've tested it a few days ago and they did using a special trick that I haven't discover but that is related to the creation of some directories after Chroot with names like:
.usr.rom
Then, the mounting is done trought:
/after/chroot/some-bin/mount --bind /dev to/directory/chroot/dev
I've tried it with no succes, but really, it was just a try.
If you don't find the way, I suggest you to contact someone from Gentoo site.
smuelas

Hello,
I made a mistake calibrating the pointer, so i cannot move the cursor
so how can i recalibrate it?

thanks Denis

Hi gang,

Just wanted to ask if this topic on X/Qt with Debian is specific to the 6000L ? It looks like it might be of value to more than just 6000L users. If so, would you mind I moved it to the X/Qt forum?

cheers
byz

I have no specific preferences on sites.
If you think it would be better placed in X/QT, I'm o.k. with your proposal.
smuelas

NEWS!!
I have updated the "special" web page that I did for Debian with Xqt. You will find the updated ".xmodmaprc" and some interesting informations. Cheers!
smuelas

cool! can you repost the link to your page?

Here is the site for Debian&Xqt:

http://w3.mecanica.upm.es/~smuelas/debianxqt.html

smuelas

This is pretty cool.

Random thought: I wonder if ALSA works on the X/Qt systems at all? If the SL-6000L has enough processing power (might be a bitch with audio but MIDI might be okay) and it works, it would be kind of cool to run Rosegarden on Debian and have a very small portable studio sequencer.

It looks like you can request that someone compile a package for XQt in the Japanese pages of the main project site: XQt wiki

There is also some general information on configuring and compiling, links to packages compiled by others, and so forth. The translator extension to Firefox makes this somewhat accessible, though some text remains mysterious in machine translation.

Works on my 5600!!

I actually went ahead and ran Klauss' scripts. I can do debian sid either in the fbvnc mode or in xqt wint NO Vncserver (no backrounded Xvnc.. no vnc anywhere). In xqt icewm does a great job of making apps useable in my 240x320 screen.
On a 5600, (and i bet a c700) due to the small 32meg ram limit you absolutely must use swap. no swap = no dpkg as far as i can tell.

Vlc in the debian chroot even plays movies via xqt.

I now have a good opie setup and debian sid on an openzaurus system. AMAZING!!!!

this changes EVERYTHING.
(it also makes app development growing pains in open zaurus much less frustrating<G>)

adf

Hi adf,
Just one point of your mail: are you running xqt on your 5600 with openzaurus as ROM ? or you can run xqt with Sharp-rom + Debian OR Klaus fbvnc-Debian OR opie with openzaurus???
So, what is what you have as ROM for running Debian trought Xqt?
I have done some testing with openzaurus-GPE + Debian , but the result is not very stable in my tests. It seems to have less load but also to limit quickly the capability to accetp big loads. As any one tried this possibility?
smuelas

What I have at the moment:
I installed openzaurus 3.5.2 with the opie rom (no need to double x and opie is more functional than gpe)
installed opera on opie (I really love opera--a killer pda app)
Installed various and sundry opie things I like..games etc. nothing pertinant.,
Installed xqt. with the big font pack- though I doubt it makes a dfference.

Shut down my z pulled the sd. slapped it in a card reader. Made the debroot dir. and untarred deb big
put sd back in z rebooted. terminated opie.

ran /mnt/card/debroot/INSTALL.d/postinst.sh

used de. in vnc for a bit.
in vnc mode changed my repositories to unstable from testing and upgraded to sid.
installed vlc scite firefox and ted

closed out of vnc went to opie. statred xqt ( I have it boot to xterm rather than rxvt) I needed to link (from memory this) /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5.4 to the same v. so.4 because that makes xqt xterm happy in open zaurus.

Almost forgot ..hehehe you have to do export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin: you get the idea.. type $PATH in a linux box (or a z propmt maybe?) to get what is in a standard path.

Because of the xqt colonectomy on my 5600 i had to do this in my shell in qt and save into a spot in the debroot then do a chmod +x on the file to get a path working.




Did the chroot.

perfection. I have both up and can change at the touch of a button. Or if I have the need I can go straight to Klauss very cooll vnc setup. The wauy it is now is probably the best all around-most flexible way I could go

firefox is a pig



What I plan when I have time:
either
A). untar straight to the card --no /debroot
load oz bootstrap image and x11 from the feed.
move the dirs by hand over the top of pocketws...combining the chroot env and adding oz x11 in there.

or

doing oz bootstrap x11... and use their apt and dpkg as it is now in the feed and goin 100% debian

probaly wil do a combo.. build on the stuff Klass already made for us and use the native X from oz


My current setup pretty much rocks though
I might just be oz xqt depending on video and game performance stuff in there....

adf.

Thanks a lot adf for your explanations. Now some questions:
From the first part of your mail I understand that installing opie with openzaurus I get the X's, as you say that it doesn't need to "double" the X's and that it is more functional than GPE.
But afterwards you say that you install Xqt. Then I am lost. Probably it is my very limited English. I apologize.
Surely Opie is more functional than GPE, but I used this last to have the X's and run Debian with NO XQT nor VNC, that seems one of the things that you want to try, compiling yourself.
I think that your experiences are extremely interesting and could serve as a big help for all of us. For example, have you found any sensible diferences in running Debian trough Klaus VNC or trough Xqt?. If afirmative, which ones?
Well, I have a lot more questions but I don't want to make this mail too extense.
Cheers
smuelas

Hi. I've been able to get everything running on my 6000, with one problem so far -- I can't seem to get xmodmap to work!

When I run xmodmap using the posted .xmodmaprc (after chrooting to debian and within an xterm) it says something to the effect that the first 7 lines are bad keycodes and stops running. When I run xmodmap -pk (or whatever the command is to view the current keycodes, I'm doing this from memory) it does indeed only start with keycode 8. So next I commented out the first 7 lines in the .xmodmaprc and tried again. This time xmodmap runs without comment, BUT now my entire keyboard is completely messed up, with every key mapped incorrectly so it becomes unusable.

I have tried apt-get update xmodmap and it is part of xbase-clients, so it updated that package; that didn't help.

Another thing: xmodmap app is in /usr/X11R6/bin, which isn't in my default path for some reason. That seems strange too, since lots of apps live in there.

I am wondering if I am missing some configuriation file that xmodmap needs to know the valid keycodes? I did the "small" version of the xqt install, so maybe that is part of it?

Anyway, can anyone help me figure out what is causing this problem? Apart from this (and the fact that firefox is just too slow to be usable) everything has been going great!

Thanks,
Dave

I remember to have had a problem similar to yours with xmodmap, but I cant't remember exactly what I was doing.
Anyway, my feeling is that the first thing that you should do is to upgrade your Debian-distribution or, at least, the package x-base.
Probably, that will solve your problem. Otherwise, tell us as I should remember when I was in this trouble.
smuelas

Yes, I've already done the apt-get update, and that didn't help.

Anyone else have this problem?

One question - I installed the xqt packages to internal flash, while my debroot is on my SD card...since debroot cannot see internal flash, I am wondering if this might be a problem? Is this how everyone else has it set up?

Thanks,
Dave

hafken,
Sorry but I insist. With "apt-get update" you don't update any packages. What you have to do is: "apt-get upgrade" or, simply, apt-get install and your package. The last version will be choosen and your x-base upgraded.
I'm almost sure that my problem was the same.
About your second question, what you have done is, I guess, what we have all done. Right way. Don't forget that, when running your Debian, you are still in Qtopia and you can run any applications charged in main memory.
smuelas

firs the opie xqt thing. XQT draws X windows through opie..uses the opi graphics stuff to display X if I understand correctly.

I did it this way for 2 reasons
1 separate pda type environmemt for quick pda type applications (right now I am trying to change to sharprom/watapon --all qt on the z all pocketworkstation on the sd-) and an environment for sysop and productivity--debian.

As to performance issues.... I don't know yet about speed. VLC on debian just thought my Zaurus was too slow. I'm going to ave to do a new debian meda player (anyone know what is out there for debian arm? mplayer would be best ..IU might end up compiling.) I think xqrt is smoother, but I have no certainty

the "feel" of doing this on xqt is way different. Icewm limts the size of the dektop to the size of thewindow pretty nicely, so there is a "feel" of being at a tiny desktop rather than slithering around in a porthole the way the vnc thing does. I like to have both available, as there are things each approach is better at.


at the moment I Im doing a sarge upgrade on the "new" enironment..then off to reset xqt to do chroot to debian at one point I got a "couldn't open display 0:0" any ideas?

and ..ummm... where the #$%^#@@@!!!! is the colon key on xqt??
I have t make scripts out of stuff with colons (llike export DISPLAY=0:0) and call the scripts in the first terminal..a really goofy thing to have to work around. modmap help anyone??

OH by double the x's I think I was the one confused. I meant no point running 2 x environments )gpe pocketws) when one is going to be ignored (gpe) better to have 2 environments (opie pocketws) or 1 integrated environment (oz X running debian).. you used kdirve to acces pocketworkstation?
anything good about doing it that way/ how was the speed?


if you want to run a palmtop environment and pocket workstsation

LMAO.. more posts for one answer



I do eventually want to do an integrated X environment. but keep in mind, I am right now on a 240x320
screen and just starting to make progress because of your post. My 5600 has limited memory as well (32megs ram) and on this particular box having a standalone ope/qt environment with a browswer to fall back on is helpful.

Here is an example...
Dillo doen't do ssl
Firefox deos
opera does.

firefox sofar has been painfully slow on my 5600. I just went to a kernel without the cachefix and increased the swap and moved xqt off the sd. hopefuly this will help

s far I know (since I need ssl for work) I sometimes have to use opera...

If it is the small memory bogging firefox so badly then goin to straight x on this box won't really help

I was planning to cjheck that this christmas.. but got bogged down in the 300 dollar 6000 scandal
I will soon though if the wataponrom xqt pans out on the 5600 I might not try for a straightx z till Iget one with a vga screen.
adf

argh
someday I will get an ide into asingle post

a meant that I might not try to go with astraight debain zaurus till I have vga and 64 megs ram.The ram actually counts more than the vga

Hi Smuelas,

I followed the steps to install xqt and then I unpack debian from pokcetworkstation using winzip in windows and copy all the unpacked files into /debroot folder in flash card, then ithere are some problems for next steps

1) What if I don't have a file called " .xinitrc " in /home/zaurus? I followed the steps...
2) how do you create a link between two diretories?

thank you

I think maybe winzip is your problem?
Does your z have "tar" ?
Find and install tar (an archive system)
put the tarball on your card
cd to "card"(wherever that is--my sd card is at mnt/card) /debroot --cd /mnt/card/debroot
untar the tarball there
tar -zxpvf "the name of the tarball--zaurus debian big or something"
when its done do: /debroot/INSATLL.d/postinst.sh this will make scripts. Unless you wanted a pristine difficult to manage do it yourself setup?
the .xinitrc should have been installed with xqt. you might want to redo that using force reinstall and force overwrite..

Hope that helped?
adf

In fact, you don't have the file .xinitrc in your home. You must create and edit it.
To create a link in Linux you must write:

ln -s (name of original file/directory with the PATH) (name of linked file/directory with the complete PATH)

smuelas

Sorry. chaosteo, I made a mistake.
Yes, you should have the file .xinitrc in your home directory once Xqt is installed. Perhaps the problem is that, as you are new in Linux, you only type "ls" to see what you have in a directory. This will not show you the hidden files/directorys. To see everything you must type: " ls -a "

smuelas

re: xmodmap problems

ok, I did the apt-get upgrade, but still didn't fix my problem.

I even reinstalled the whole xqt, but that didn't help either.

Any more ideas? Is there some way for me to further debug what exactly xmodmap is doing?

thanks,

Dave

I'm sorry, Dave about your problems with xmodmap.
What you can do is what I did to edit .xmodmaprc. You must run a program that is launched typing " xev ".
Once launched you will see that everytime you type a key there is a message where you can find the number that the computer assigns to that key. This and the actual file .xmodmaprc. should serve you to edit the right file for you.
Cheers,
smuelas

Hello Smuelas,

I used Vim to edit .xintrc wtih
rxvt //&
//blackbox
i saved it
and then i tried to link xqt and x
but somehow there is no directory called X under my QPalmTop/bin

???

thank you again

Hi, chaosteo
What you should have is a file with the name " Xqt " in directory /home/QtPalmtop/bin
It is an executable file (in fact, the x-server). Now you must create a linked file to this one with the simple name " X ". So, you must type only once being root:
ln -s /home/QtPalmtop/bin/Xqt /home/QtPalmtop/bin/X
and that's all.
smuelas

sorry guys another question..sorry being so dumb

I linked the two directory and then
I typed in startx and it jump to the black meshed screen and quit itself .. here is what i get from terminal

statx
mcookie:not found
xauth:creating new authority file/ home/zaurus/.Xauthority
xauth:creating new authority file/ home/zaurus/.Xauthority
Using authority file /home/zaurus/.Xauthority
xauth; (stdn):1 bad "add" cpmmand line

xauth:creating new authority file/ home/zaurus/.Xauthority
xauth:creating new authority file/ home/zaurus/.Xauthority
Using authority file /home/zaurus/.Xauthority
xauth; (stdn):1 bad "add" cpmmand line

qtApInit
SISharedManager can't get proc entry
Display size:480*640
couldn;t open translation file / home/QtPalmtop/i18n/en/libs1.qmid <
qtRandRrtotate(0)
_XSERVtransmkdir: Owner of /tmp/.X11-unix should be set to root
create shawdo image 480*640

qtRandRnit()
qtInitvisualsShadow- Masks 0000f900 000007e0 0000001f BPRGB 6 d 16 bpp 16
qtRandRInit()
qtCreatDEfColormap- Deferring to fbCreateDefColormap()
qtFinishScreenInitFb- returning
qtScreenInit-returning
Could not init root path element /opt/QtPalmtop.lib.X11.fonts/75dpi., removing from list
Could not init root path element /opt/QtPalmtop.lib.X11.fonts/100dpi., removing from list
cat: /home/zaurus/.Xauthority: No such file or directory

waiting for X server to shut down

xauth: create new authority file /home/zaurus/.Xauthority

hi chaos...
Sorry but this time I cannot help you. It seems that you have a problem with the installation of Xqt. Are you sure that you have employed all the packages needed. Check other sites in this forum, specially those related with xqt installation.
smuelas

2 things

Chaos.. you are using a standard sharprom install? any way you can secureshell into your z and startx from there? the output might help.. I think a reinstall with all packages listed should do it ..smuealas seems to know what he is talking about.

Has anyone tried -with pocketworkstaion- dropping into tty1 chrooting to debroot and installing xwindows? "apt-get install x-window-system" ..then configuring the debian x-server there?
It would rock if we had debian's x, Klauss' vnc, and xqt as good working options

-adf