A Call for Help: Debian.

nice PS! ... yes, I know the site is running off your PC ... Yoldering, I'm pulling his leg on that one! PS knows ... ... right? right?

PS, on your choice of setting up your 720, if you can get your OS/shell/GUI setup, fine and good. If you can get it to be binary and api compatible with what existing users already have, it would be *excellent*. ... Many users, especially HPC/linux users are using a windows desktop as their primary desktop unit and has no *nix machine to compile existing source to run on yet another *nix distro.

Further, even *nix users may not want to have to go around compiling/building their own bin from source, at least not the casual users.

I gather this conclusion from the exchanges in the NetBSD, jlime and open embedded/zaurus forums. Most users are well ... users, and not developers. So if you can make your distro bin compatible with existing bin of common apps, users can readily try and use your distro without having to do their own build of the apps from feeds, but can simply grab the bin from existing feeds.

Last, can you post a few pics (scaled down if its too large, though I doubt the screen capture of a 720 would be large, unless you are snapping with a camera!) on this thread, so that others can see for themselves real GUI usage of the distro you have made. That would tip fence-sitters to take the plunge into *nix distro for their HCPs.

Sigh - I was getting to like links more than lynx because of its speed, but it does not remember that I logged in! Anyways, to take a picture of a gui setup, I need the gui setup first.

The second that I get ipkg working, I will install the xserver, which had better work, and then start fiddling around with everything else. I plan to include matchbox, fluxbox (if matchbox doesn't do it for me), opie, and gpe. If it comes down to space restrictions, I will determine what system is best. But all of this is relatively light weight, so there should be no problems. Anyways - going further on what you said abbout including programs, Snappy, many, many gui apps will be a feature of my X release.

I will try to include as many X programs (or others) as possible, for maximum functionality. Once X is working, I will immediately start searching for a text editor (if abiword worked it would be beautiful...but gtk2...), then a pdf viewer, a web browser (or two) - do not that dillo is not the only option, links has a graphical version too - and it is pretty good (and will not forget the password!). OTher than opie and gpe, I will try to include many PIM apps, including console ones. There are a few that email you when things happen that interest me...and so on. Basically, the X release is not just console edition with X. It will be an entire distribution. That means it will have the full capabilities of the console edition, my little touches, and a truckload of gui apps, and a few little friendly things to bring it all together.

I will do a lot this weekend, and hopefully my cf card will get through it. But just wait until it is released, it will be a very good system.

I will send version 2 out of both editions when everything works perfectly, but that means that version 2 will not come out until kernel 2.6 is available. If kernel 2.6 suddenly is available, I will still probably release version 1 when it is completed with kernel 2.4. Why? Because the system will not be perfect yet, and may need modification to run kernel 2.6 smoothly (the real reason).

This weekend will be a large work time for me, and I have a lot to do. I seriously need the pentium up immediately, not only to run the site, but that nfs server is essential (and ftp).

Ok then, the pentium is up and working as a NAT (network access translation) device. That means that my pc is hidden behind my pentium's ip, while remaining fully functional. It uses less than 1% of the 200mhz processor to do the job, (I was encrypting a 4096 bit dsa key for ssh on the pentium, and browsing the internet with my pc at the same time), and my gateway doesn't see me. So I have double or triple firewall action going on here.

Major thing is that now both the pentium and my pc have internet access, and yes, the apache server is already running off a 100mb zip disk , and the proftpd server off my hard drive. Its really impressive how much a 200mhz pentium can do if you use it right. Lol, I still am not running out of space on my 32mb of ram. I will try to get the irc server running sometime. The nfs server for my 720 is closer to working, but still not there. And, as I said earlier, until I get a proper case for the pentium, it is still going off at night.

-Big thanks to C:Amie for the tutorial, and Matrixcore for the dns tip.

Good job lad! ... PS, very nice progress ... hope to see the final distro from you soon. That might just tip the scale for me to switch to a 720! ...

btw, I'm with you that a 200Mhz machine can already do wonders. Typically web servers running in pure console mode do not really need that much beef. When servers just listen to port 80 and do file access, it really don't need much processing power. When a server is running with system GUI, it can get depressing as there is this whole mesh of system message loops soaking up cpu cycles.

Hahah, thanks. I will be working on the 720, mainly on getting ipkg compiled. If I get nfs working, it will not be too long until I start porting everything I can think of, including Pine.

Unfortunately, I will not be getting the microdrive for a bit, because it really is a hassle I do not want to deal with. Most likely, I will finish this project, as long as I am careful, with my cf card. Anyways, I accidentally set my powerbook duo on fire, and need to spend $30 to buy a replacement.

It will be really great when I get another $5 ethernet card into my pentium, then it will truly be an awesome router.

really? good idea...

looks like the forum didn't tell me it had already sent my post. not even an error message.

Edited by cmonex 2005-09-05 11:56 AM

Minimo might be worth a look for web browsing, but you could run firefox too? Admittedly, you're likely to need swap for that, but with your microdrive then you've not got to worry about wearing out a CF through swapping

Personally, I think both are pitiful candidates for a H/PC web browser.

-Was that a bit flat?

hahaha. minimo is quite good i can tell you

Too much memory and complications. I'd rather find something lighter that just works.

Well, I am now in that kind of weird find-all-the-packages-you-want-without-really-doing-anything stage. Lol. So I went to www.linuxlinks.com - only to find out that many projects are discontinued and very outdated. So, I will have to find another site. But anyways, there were a few gems. Everyone will probably hate me for liking the classic Perl/tk gui style, but in addition to looking cool and being functional and ...peaceful... those programs use hardly any memory.

I found a few text editors, but I am having a hard time finding anything other than rtf ones. Abiword would be a spectacular edition to the 720, but gtk2 is really pushing it. By a lot. Once I compile ipkg and get a gui working on there, I will *attempt* to get a somewhat speedy compilation of abiword on there. But I wouldn't get my hopes up. Essentially, if I can get the 720 to run gtk2, many quality programs can be ported. But for now, Perl/Tk, lesstif, and others. I found a few organization/PIM programs - one of them has the look I like, but I am not sure exactly if anyone will find it useful or not. Essentially, all the linux programs that support windows documents are gtk2.

I decided that I wanted the console to have some sort of PIM, and I found a few programs that look like they will do the job.

I found some spreadsheets, and some other various programs too. But overall, I am not impressed with these programs. If anyone knows of any PIM programs, word processors, or ANYTHING that they think would be useful, please post.

I will not have nearly as much time tomorrow as I did today, but the search will continue.

http://www.naskita.com/linux/zorgan/zorgan.shtml

-Well I think it looks cool...

EDIT: Also, as far as web browsers, I found an excellent text one called elinks. It is a text browser, but it works so well that it looks like a gui one without the pictures. Also, Links 2 looks good, because it is both a text browser AND a graphical browser much better than dillo.

Edited by ProgramSynthesiser 2005-09-06 1:22 AM

Good work PS!

I don't mind the GUI look of Perl/tk, as long as we have fast, useful applications. And I agree that porting GTK 2 to the Jornada at reasonable speed would enable a lot of new applications to run on our machine. I believe that there is also an "embbedded" version of the QT.

About the web browsers, I didn't know e-links and links2. They are damn good! I like them so much.

About PIMs. Most of HPC users are sticked to Windows CE, and so, to the Microsoft Office Suite, so all our information and contacts are stored at Outlook for syncronising. I would be nice to choose a PIM that could import Outlook data, but I don't if we will find one that runs fine on the Jornada 720. I'll take a look around.

I would like to ask about the WiFi support: what PCMCIA cards will be supported? Will the distro include drivers for the PRISM2 chipset or will we able to compile and install them?

I'm also so interested on a VPN PPTP client. Is there someone that would compile and work without cosuming too much resources on the Jornada 720?

Keep up the good work!

Yeah, useful apps are what I am striving for. As far as outlook synchronization, there are ways, some more complicated than others. I'll look into them later. Also, many of these programs also have windows versions..

VPN? These's probably a lot of stuff for that, but I am not sure. Hey, if anyone wants to take care of looking for random packages that might be useful, that would be great. They just need to not be bloated and have source code so I can cross-compile.

-It looks like the 720 will be able to handle gtk+, I'll look into all this once I can compile. Gtk+ is much less consuming than gtk2.

EDIT: I would not worry about pcmcia drivers. Whereas CE comes with a couple, the kernel has drivers for all the cards that I know of compatible with CE, and more - built in. Just an advantage to a system that tries to support everything.

Edited by ProgramSynthesiser 2005-09-08 7:29 PM

Sigh. School is finally taking its toll, and it may be a little bit until I can finally get nfs working (why?!), and start cross-compiling. Either that, or I could just figure out how to add more libraries to my cross-compiler...but that might also take a bit to learn.

-It might be a little wait yet.