Gpe Image Without Flashing

[deusiah]

I tried to install GPE without flashing.

My Zaurus works of a looped filesystem image on an SD card. Currently I only have Opie on there but I wanted to give GPE a try too (Gnome is my favorite when it comes to desktops).

I mounted the GPE initrd.bin and copied the files into a 150MB ext2 image which I then put on my Zaurus and tried to boot.

No joy however, I get quite a few error messages so I'm guessing the image is more than just an image and must do something as well?

I would like to know if it's possible to install GPE this way? It's certainly a lot less hastle then messing about with flashing if it is.

Many Thanks,
Chris

[Hrw]

ipkg remove bluez-utils-nodbus (bluez-utils-dbus will be installed later)

ipkg install xserver-kdrive-fbdev gpe-task-base gpe-task-apps gpe-task-settings gpe-task-pim

[deusiah]

ipkg remove bluez-utils-nodbus (bluez-utils-dbus will be installed later)

ipkg install xserver-kdrive-fbdev gpe-task-base gpe-task-apps gpe-task-settings gpe-task-pim
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Thanks for your reply.

Wouldn't that just install GPE ontop of OPIE? That's not what I want to do, I'd like two images, one of Opie and one of GPE.

Or is it the case that I need to do this anyway? I'm not quite sure how these images work, if it's the case that I need to do this then the images don't contain the entire install and the intregrated install still plays a part. Obviously it runs my rboot init script to select my image but apart from that I didn't think it did much else.

Chris

[deusiah]

I tried what you suggested just incase, adding feeds GPE and X11 and installing the files to my Zaurus's internal copy of Opie. I'm getting precisely the same errors as before .

[Hrw]

it works on my husky..

anyway that needs some work to get both running good - OZ website have howto about it.

[deusiah]

I dont see why you would need to install any GPE things to get GPE to run from a seperate image.

The OZ website does not have a how two about this, it has a howto that tells you how to run both at the same time from the same place, as I have stated before this is not what I want to do.

Perhaps I am not explaining it well enough. All I want is two image files, one Opie one GPE which I can choose between at startup. Since there doesn't seem to be a way of getting this GPE image I need I shall just have to flah my Zaurus to build it. I really wish someone knew how to turn one of initrd.bin files into working images as this would also save me reflashing for upgrades.

[CoreDump]

I dont see why you would need to install any GPE things to get GPE to run from a seperate image.

The OZ website does not have a how two about this, it has a howto that tells you how to run both at the same time from the same place, as I have stated before this is not what I want to do.

Perhaps I am not explaining it well enough. All I want is two image files, one Opie one GPE which I can choose between at startup. Since there doesn't seem to be a way of getting this GPE image I need I shall just have to flah my Zaurus to build it. I really wish someone knew how to turn one of initrd.bin files into working images as this would also save me reflashing for upgrades.
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You can find an opie and a GPE image here:
[a href=\"http://hentges.net/tmp/do_not_use/collie/loop-images/]http://hentges.net/tmp/do_not_use/collie/loop-images/[/url]

If you have a collie, that is.
Have fun.

[Greg2]

You can find an opie and a GPE image here:
http://hentges.net/tmp/do_not_use/collie/loop-images/

If you have a collie, that is.
Have fun.

You may want to change the file names from:

xxxxxx.ext2.gz to xxxxxx.tar.gz

It would make them easier to d/l and less likely to be corrupted.

Edit:
It's working for me now, I couldn't d/l one that wasn't corrupted earlier.

Greg

[deusiah]

Hey thanks for the link CoreDump  Do you know if these images are unmodified 3.5.3 images? I notcied the file says RC4?

EDIT: I tried the image but it just booted up Opie, I was quite surprised to see only one image in the tar archive. Is this correct?

[CoreDump]

Hey thanks for the link CoreDump  Do you know if these images are unmodified 3.5.3 images? I notcied the file says RC4?

EDIT: I tried the image but it just booted up Opie, I was quite surprised to see only one image in the tar archive. Is this correct?
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Ah, my bad. I've uploaded a new pre-release of my ROM and removed the images in the process, sorry.
Uploading a stock Opie and a stock GPE image now. Well, not so "stock" after all as they are based on the latest OZ sources  

[deusiah]

No problem, thanks for uploading the GPE image. I just it but it didn't get very far, it came up with a warning message about me using the wrong kernel .

How exactly does one make these images?

[CoreDump]

No problem, thanks for uploading the GPE image. I just it but it didn't get very far, it came up with a warning message about me using the wrong kernel .

How exactly does one make these images?
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The kernel-message is annoying at times but was required when a lot of "newbies" complained about "broken" OZ ROMs in the past. 8 out of 10 times they have used an ancient kernel which caused all sorts of problems  

Remove /etc/init.d/checkversions to get rid of it.

I'm building the images from source, just like any standard OZ ROM. OE is very flexible and lets you choose if you want to build a jffs2 image (for flashing) or an ext2 image (to be mounted as a loop-device)

The meta-data is always the same

However, ripping an existing ROM should work, too but it requires advanced Linux knowledge - or a good HowTo

[deusiah]

What other steps would be involed in converting a rom to an ext2 image? All I did was to make an ex2 image, mount the rom and copy it's contents into the ext2 image but it didn't work.

What's the difference between a rom and an image anyway in terms of file contents. I assumed that both would have the same content in just stored in a different way because of the different filesystems.

[CoreDump]

What other steps would be involed in converting a rom to an ext2 image? All I did was to make an ex2 image, mount the rom and copy it's contents into the ext2 image but it didn't work.

While I've never tried, this should work.

What's the difference between a rom and an image anyway in terms of file contents. I assumed that both would have the same content in just stored in a different way because of the different filesystems.
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The content is exactly the same. The only difference is how the image is created.
Flashable ROMs are built into an jffs2 image, an ext2 image is installed into a loop-mounted
ext2 image. That's it

[deusiah]

Well that confirms what I assumed then lol

I only became suspicious after I did this and it failed to work, it brought up a few error messages about bluetooth and a few other errrors before dropping to a command line. Perhaps I should just try and do it again, perhaps some files failed to copy correctly.