Full Debian On The Sl-c3000

[Newbix]

Here is a quick HOWTO (to be continued) to install a debian on the SL-C3000.

Feel free to ask if you have any question...

[mammothrept]

If I understand this right, all if the original applications and functions of the SL-C3000 remain but you somehow bootstrap a full Debian distro on top of it?  Nice.

What is the downside?  Does it mess up the Japanese kanji display?

[Newbix]

Well, the original environement (QTopia) is still present if you need it, but it isn't run at all when you use the debian system (well, the sharp kernel is still used). The debian comes with it's own X server, and you can run any windows manager you like.

If you want to get back to QTopia, you'll have to reboot the zaurus. There is maybe a better way, but I don't need it so I haven't searched in that direction.

So the drawback is that when using debian you don't have acces to QTopia and QTopia apps (but to me it is more an advantage than a drawback).

As foar as kanji are concerned, the debian programms are in english, but you can put some of them in other language if you like. However ther seem to be a bug somewere, and unicode chars are not displayed properly, so you should stay with latin-1.

[Milan]

Well, the original environement (QTopia) is still present if you need it, but it isn't run at all when you use the debian system (well, the sharp kernel is still used). The debian comes with it's own X server, and you can run any windows manager you like.

If you want to get back to QTopia, you'll have to reboot the zaurus. There is maybe a better way, but I don't need it so I haven't searched in that direction.

So the drawback is that when using debian you don't have acces to QTopia and QTopia apps (but to me it is more an advantage than a drawback).

As foar as kanji are concerned, the debian programms are in english, but you can put some of them in other language if you like. However ther seem to be a bug somewere, and unicode chars are not displayed properly, so you should stay with latin-1.

It works perfectly! Thank you very much Newbix :-)

[bmsleight]

Thank-you very much Gaëtan for the HowTo.
I am going to try it once I get a chance.

Brendan

[bmsleight]

Dear Newbix ,

You How To for installing debian the Zaurus 3000 has been very helpful.
Below are some notes, I have made where I deviated from your instructions.
 Which may help other users.

I have managed to get to the stage where  Fbvnc launches successfully.
This gives me  Xterm open, but I do not think I have IceWM running, I do
not have the IcWM panel, as per your pretty screen shot:-
  http://www.eleves.ens.fr/home/leurent/zaurus.jpg

I am very poor with Window Manager generally, so this will be a good
learning exercise. I wonder if you could give me any tips on launching
IceWM.


Once again thank-you for the detailed HowTo.

Regards,
Brendan M. Sleight

http://www.barwap.com/blog/


****


I followed Gaëtan instructions with a few minor tweaks.

First once I was root, I did a :-
df -h
To confirm which partition is the biggest spare...
In my case this was hda3 not hdc3. I believe looking at the rc.rofilesys,
this hints at the fact that it could be hda hdb or hdc:-
mount -t $LINUXFMT -o noatime /dev/${IDE1}3 /hdd
Hence refernces to hdc3 were replaced with hda3

When doing the command 'mount -o remount,rw /dev/root' I get an error that
/dev/root is not listed in fstab. I therefore copy the line from mtab to
fstab. (I used an editor but here it is in one line)

cat /etc/mtab | grep /dev/root >> /etc/fstab

To copy the debian-tar ball onto the zaurus I used :-
wget http://pocketworkstation.org/files/zaurus-...n-big-v0.17.tgz
wget http://pocketworkstation.org/files/gnu-tar.gz

I then had to make gnu-tar execuatable.
chmod ugo+x ./gnu-tar

./gnu-tar xvzf zaurus-debian-big-*.tg
Should read ./gnu-tar xvzf zaurus-debian-big-*.tgz

I was unable to launch the fbvnc inside the tar ball - screen calibration
error. Had to use the one suggested
http://www.tcp-ip.or.jp/~naorou/linuzau/fb...20041121.tar.gz


Un-able to figure out how to get the IceWM panel. I got a feeling it
something stupid I am missing.

[Milan]

Dear Newbix ,

You How To for installing debian the Zaurus 3000 has been very helpful.
Below are some notes, I have made where I deviated from your instructions.
 Which may help other users.

I have managed to get to the stage where  Fbvnc launches successfully.
This gives me  Xterm open, but I do not think I have IceWM running, I do
not have the IcWM panel, as per your pretty screen shot:-
  http://www.eleves.ens.fr/home/leurent/zaurus.jpg

I am very poor with Window Manager generally, so this will be a good
learning exercise. I wonder if you could give me any tips on launching
IceWM.


Once again thank-you for the detailed HowTo.

Regards,
Brendan M. Sleight

http://www.barwap.com/blog/


****


I followed Gaëtan instructions with a few minor tweaks.

First once I was root, I did a :-
df -h
To confirm which partition is the biggest spare...
In my case this was hda3 not hdc3. I believe looking at the rc.rofilesys,
this hints at the fact that it could be hda hdb or hdc:-
mount -t $LINUXFMT -o noatime /dev/${IDE1}3 /hdd
Hence refernces to hdc3 were replaced with hda3

When doing the command 'mount -o remount,rw /dev/root' I get an error that
/dev/root is not listed in fstab. I therefore copy the line from mtab to
fstab. (I used an editor but here it is in one line)

cat /etc/mtab | grep /dev/root >> /etc/fstab

To copy the debian-tar ball onto the zaurus I used :-
wget http://pocketworkstation.org/files/zaurus-...n-big-v0.17.tgz
wget http://pocketworkstation.org/files/gnu-tar.gz

I then had to make gnu-tar execuatable.
chmod ugo+x ./gnu-tar

./gnu-tar xvzf zaurus-debian-big-*.tg
Should read ./gnu-tar xvzf zaurus-debian-big-*.tgz

I was unable to launch the fbvnc inside the tar ball - screen calibration
error. Had to use the one suggested
http://www.tcp-ip.or.jp/~naorou/linuzau/fb...20041121.tar.gz


Un-able to figure out how to get the IceWM panel. I got a feeling it
something stupid I am missing.

IceWM: you should create $HOME/.xinitrc according the howto :-)

[Newbix]

I am very poor with Window Manager generally, so this will be a good
learning exercise. I wonder if you could give me any tips on launching
IceWM.

IceWM is launched by zvncserver (itself launched by Vncserver) in the default config. In my config, I have moved it to ~/.xinitrc

First once I was root, I did a :-
df -h
To confirm which partition is the biggest spare...
In my case this was hda3 not hdc3. I believe looking at the rc.rofilesys,
this hints at the fact that it could be hda hdb or hdc:-
mount -t $LINUXFMT -o noatime /dev/${IDE1}3 /hdd
Hence refernces to hdc3 were replaced with hda3

Yes that's funny, rc.rofilesys detects if the microdrive is on hda or hdc. Maybe there are different SL-C3000 hardware ?

When doing the command 'mount -o remount,rw /dev/root' I get an error that
/dev/root is not listed in fstab. I therefore copy the line from mtab to
fstab. (I used an editor but here it is in one line)

Oh, it is not in mine either. This must be an error in the HOWTO.
I will correct it to 'mount -o remount,rw /dev/root /'.

cat /etc/mtab | grep /dev/root >> /etc/fstab

To copy the debian-tar ball onto the zaurus I used :-
wget http://pocketworkstation.org/files/zaurus-...n-big-v0.17.tgz
wget http://pocketworkstation.org/files/gnu-tar.gz

I then had to make gnu-tar execuatable.
chmod ugo+x ./gnu-tar

./gnu-tar xvzf zaurus-debian-big-*.tg
Should read ./gnu-tar xvzf zaurus-debian-big-*.tgz

Yes, you're right.
Anyway, gnu-tar is in fact not needed, the are allready a zcat and a tar on the Zaurus, so you might just do 'zcat zaurus-debian-big-*.tgz | tar x'

I was unable to launch the fbvnc inside the tar ball - screen calibration
error. Had to use the one suggested
http://www.tcp-ip.or.jp/~naorou/linuzau/fb...20041121.tar.gz

I'll add a note in the HOWTO. the included fbvnc worked fine for me (excepted for the keyboard). In fact I remmember I had added '-hw c700' when it was launched. That might be it.

Un-able to figure out how to get the IceWM panel. I got a feeling it
something stupid I am missing.

I think I know what's happening: the default zvncserver launches a 640x640 desktop, so the IcemWM panel is hidden down. You should be able to scroll with Fn+Menu+Drag&Drop.

In my zvncserver I have changed the desktop size to 640x480 which seems more usefull to me. The point of having a 640x640 desktop is that you can rotate the screen and still have no black borders.

[adf]

Guys.. check out smuelas stuff on debian and XQT in the XQT thread in development.
Also, you might try after doing apt-get update while in vnc or xqt mode, dropping out of all gui stuff chrooting to /debroot and doing apt-get install x-window-system. I'm not sure how your keymaps will come out..what extras might be necessary. I did it on my 5600.. not much luck but then I don't have a vga screen. It didn't break anything.. I can still use xqt+debian and still use the original vnc stuff.  OPenzaurus has apt and dpkg and x11 too...

[bmsleight]

HI,

Thank you for the feedback. The menu bar was at the bottom of the screen if I scrolled down, *blush*.

So the good new is that I can run chrooted debian. As per :-
[img]http://192.168.1.11/photos/blog_images/thumb/blog_images_040.jpg\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /]
[img]http://192.168.1.11/photos/blog_images/thumb/blog_images_039.jpg\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /]

I have also backed up Vncserver and zvncserver files and have been trying to run debian as user zaurus as per newbix extra tips.

I copied accross all the /.icewm directory and the file .Xdefaults, resolving a few problems.  I have also solved a few issues I had with my system by changing some permissions.
   Fatal server error:
   Could not create lock file in /tmp/.tX1-lock
Resolved by:-
chmod oga+w %DEBROOT/tmp

The /etc/vncpasswd file could not be read from user zaurus
chmod oga+r $DEBROOT/etc/vncpasswd

But I am stil having problem with X4fvnc when using not using root, but user zaurus:-
_XSERVTransSocketCreateListener: failed to bind listener
_XSERVTransSocketUNIXCreateListener: ...SocketCreateListener() failed
_XSERVTransMakeAllCOTSServerListeners: failed to create listener for local
13/12/2004 11:54:44 Xvnc version XF4VNC-4.3.0.2
13/12/2004 11:54:44 Copyright © 2001-2003 Alan Hourihane.

Rather than when using root with  debain :-
13/12/2004 11:25:37 Xvnc version XF4VNC-4.3.0.2
13/12/2004 11:25:37 Copyright © 2001-2003 Alan Hourihane.
13/12/2004 11:25:37 Copyright © 2000-2003 Constantin Kaplinsky
13/12/2004 11:25:37 Copyright © 1999 AT&T Laboratories Cambridge

Again any pointers would be helpful.

Regards,
Brendan

[Newbix]

In fact, I don'y run Vncserver and Fbvnc as user zaurus; I run them as user root, but the chroot changes user to zaurus (you can choose any user you like, in fact, and it doesn't even need to exist outside the chroot).

[bmsleight]

Thank-you all for your help. I now have debian, inside the chroot. Running as a normal user (zaurus).

To solve the last couple of problem I had to remove the old directory
rm $DEBROOT/tmp/.X11-unix -R

Also I hade to change some dev permissions:-
chmod a+w $DEBROOT/dev/tty*
chmod a+w $DEBROOT/dev/pt*
chmod a+w $DEBROOT/dev/null

Also an interesting point to note while you hacking away at you zaurus. If the black terminal screen suddenly flares to all white then to nothing. Then your zaurus is not dead. Although your blood pressure may rise. Its just the internal battery running out of charge. (Although it take about 2 minutes of charge before it will come to life again)

[bmsleight]

You may also wish to set su passwd while you are inside debian as root.

[Cyril92]

about the problem of mounted partitions, it seems that the SL-C3000 doesn't mount partitions in the same manner, depending if there is a CF or not.
try rebooting with CF and try without : Very strange, and dangerous IMHO.

[wormwood]

Thanks Newbix!

I'm gonna deviate a bit from your guide though, mainly because I still want to have a swap, and a fat partition for usb storage. I hope that doesn't take too much hacking