DR800 DRebian

[GregorRichards]

I've "ported" Debian to the IREX DR, by creating a Debian chroot but using the DR's original kernel and userland.

For those who just want to run it, here's what you need:

• dima_tr's VNC port: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...18&postcount=6 . Install it as usual. Make sure Programs/_vnc/vncviewer exists on the card.
• The Debian scripts, which are attached to this message. Extract to the SD card as well.
• A Debian image. A 1G image is available at http://www.mediafire.com/?zoy6f560r26oi8h . Un-gzip it, and give it the filename Programs/_debian/loop . It must have precisely this name. If you want a bigger image or want to make your own, read on.

Programs/debian.desktop will start up Debian. You can exit the VNC session by pressing the menu button, and reconnect by running debian.desktop again (it won't lose your current session). The intelligent refresh works beautifully, so it's actually quite usable, if a bit slow sometimes

For those wishing to create a larger Debian image:

Spoiler:

• Make a blank image file (e.g. dd if=/dev/zero of=loop bs=1M count=2048)
• Format it with ext3 (NOT ext2 or ext4) (e.g. /sbin/mkfs.ext3 loop)
• Loopback mount it (e.g. mount -o loop loop mnt)
• Fetch the following archive: http://www.mediafire.com/?363pzo5ok5hfbel
• Extract it to the mounted filesystem (e.g. tar zxf -C mnt debian-squeeze-irex-dr-2011-08-09.tar.gz )
• Unmount (e.g. umount mnt)
• Put your new filesystem in Programs/_debian/loop .

For those wishing to create a custom Debian image:

Spoiler:

This image was created with debootstrap. I'm not going to teach you to use debootstrap, but it's quite easy. After debootstrapping the filesystem, I did the following:

• Installed these packages: wamerican jwm menu xvkbd rxvt tightvncserver synaptic
• Made these changes to /etc/jwm/jwmrc:
  • <FocusModel> to click
  • <MoveMode> to outline
  • <ResizeMode> to outline
  • <Background> to type="solid", content "white"
  • Added a new tray: <Tray x="0" y="-32" height="200"><Swallow>xvkbd</Swallow></Tray>
• Set the VNC server's password to (oh-so-secure) "vncvnc" (running vncserver will prompt for this)
• Connected to VNC to configure xvkbd to disable automatic click (menu->Properties->Automatic Clicking=off)

For the curious, I used VNC instead of connecting to X11 directly to take advantage of the ported viewer having screen-refresh intelligence. Laziness hooray!

For those wishing to port to the DR1000:

Spoiler:

The only changes I expect are:

• You will have to recompile the ext3, jbd and mbcache kernel modules for the DR1000's kernel.
• You will need to change the "debian" script to start the server at 1024x1280 instead of 768x1024.

I've included the ext3 module and prerequisites. They were built from sources at http://developer.irexnet.com/iOn/Sou...24-irex.tar.gz . All Debian sources available from http://packages.debian.org/ .

A "screenshot" (I thought a photo would be a bit more honest ):

Changelog

Spoiler:

• 2011-08-09-3: Mount /tmp to Debian's tmp, to avoid thrashing the SD card.
• 2011-08-09-2: Made jwmrc a bit more sticky by making the wrapper script rewrite it as necessary.
• 2011-08-09: Initial release.

My original message here:

Spoiler:

At this point this is just an FYI: I discovered the VNC viewer for the DR, and in particular the fact that it does the screen refreshes automatically. That gave me all the momentum I needed to get a Debian chroot installed to my DR (without it, I'd need significant hackery to make it perform the screen refreshes, and I never managed to get that hackery working the last time I tried). As of this moment, I have Debian running on my DR800. It's all part of my master plan to run Debian on everything.

Mind you, it doesn't make much sense to run Debian on a tablet with electronic paper display ... but ... well, uhh ... I have to run it everywhere :P

Anyway, expect me to post the requisite scripts, screenshots and such here. So far it's working shockingly well

[fekhner]

Great, looking forward to the scripts! Recently another member jonathan_s had similar plans ...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...debian&page=14
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...debian&page=15

[GregorRichards]

I have a long history of "porting" Debian by running it in chroots on already-Linux systems ... my desktop and laptop run Debian natively, but my phone, el-cheapo-Chinapad, Pandora and (now) DR run it by chroots alone ... I love debootstrap so much

I'm uploading images now.

[fekhner]

somehow I always get an error (Cannot write target file "/Volumes..../debian/loop" Input/output error (5) ) when trying to copy the renamed image "loop" to Programs/_debian/ and then the DR ejects itself ... will try again tomorrow.

[GregorRichards]

Originally Posted by fekhner

somehow I always get an error when trying to copy the renamed image "loop" to Programs/_debian/ and then the DR ejects itself ... will try again tomorrow.

That ... is a little bit too bizarre for me to have any idea what the issue could be, doesn't sound related to my stuff :P

[rvs]

Nice work. Can you tell us which config settings you used to build these modules?

[fekhner]

Finally copying the 1 GB loop file worked by taking out the SD card and putting it in a card reader. Unfortunately, it does not work yet:

In /Programs/_debian

I now have debian, ext3.ko, jbd.ko, jwmrc, (the downloaded 1GB image file renamed as) loop, mbcache.ko, mnt

any ideas what could be wrong ?

[GregorRichards]

Add this, run it again, and give me the log.txt it produces (or should produce anyway ). log.txt will be in Programs/_debian .

Alternatively, using usbnet, ssh in and run Programs/_debian/debian , then give me the log. (Should be the same as above)

[fekhner]

thanks! the log.txt file is indeed created but completely empty ... will re-install dima_tr's vnc port and try again.

[GregorRichards]

The log file was empty because I did it wrong :P

Corrected version attached.

[GregorRichards]

Originally Posted by rvs

Nice work. Can you tell us which config settings you used to build these modules?

All I did was take the .config off the device, and add ext3 as a module. Otherwise it's all default. Config file is attached.

[rvs]

Originally Posted by GregorRichards

All I did was take the .config off the device, and add ext3 as a module. Otherwise it's all default. Config file is attached.

Thanks. I suspected as much because I couldn't find the other modules in the config file, but I wasn't sure. I'll try to create the modules for the DR1000 and post them here as soon as I've got it working on my machine.

[GregorRichards]

Sweet. If you get it working on the DR1000, I'd love to see a photo

The other modules are just prerequisites for ext3, they'll fall along if ext3 is included.

[fekhner]

here you go

[GregorRichards]

mount: mounting /dev/loop0 on /media/mmcblk0p1/Programs/_debian/mnt failed: Invalid argument

Well, this line is definitely the problem ... I suspect that there's something wrong with your image file, but "Invalid argument" isn't the most compelling of error messages. Did you download my 1G image, or make your own?