Easy Devuan J720 install from disk image!!

Joval, this all looks fantastic. Thank you so much for your dogged work; every week, you make something better.

It will be so interesting to hear of a decent word processor that could run alone in the J/Linux. I once got my TextMaker for Zaurus to run in jlime, but the fonts/icons were unadjustable and far too small.

Jake

Hi Jake,

You can try AbiWord....

And for spreadsheet, gnumeric.....

Best,

Mark

Hi, Mark,

I wish I liked AbiWord more. I've used it on the Zaurus and always felt like the *.doc conversion was spotty, as if they were hiding behind *.rtf and not doing true conversion. That said, I imagine newer versions of AW might be better. Do the plugins work, spell, thesaurus, etc?

Jake

Hi Jake,

TBH, I have not used it much....since Zaurus days....

I haven't tried any plugins yet.

Will try to do that when I get a chance....

Mark

Jake:

Thank you for the kind words and great feedback.

I really have to give a shout out to ArchiMark for his bold move of introducing IceWM window manager... that gui is such a beauty and so efficient... his brilliant idea!

You can see from the "cpu meter" if your clicks on terminal icon are working (fluxbox was crazy making with click key combos and wait, click again and then eons later 3 terminal windows appear,ugh).

You might guess, I want it to be real easy to set Devuan up. It took weeks for me to reliably learn all those linux quirks and commands in my early days. where's the drive, what the heck are mount points,etc.

I knew from my RaspberryPi that their setup only involved burning/writing an image to an SDcard from a simple single image... super easy, chose target, and click ok! I had used Win32 imager for years but never understood it could so easily create a burnable image of a multipartitioned drive/Cf or SD card.

And Stefan... amazing fellow... he discovers all these fantastic workarounds, mods,hacks, and fixes. I take his offerings and try out variations. It really has been a remarkable team effort! His connman find saved me from having to wrestle with that wpa-suplicant issue which I never mastered.

Ethernet is still about twice the Speed of WPA wifi currently, but it is so cool to be untethered and I have a couple RasPi 3 and 4 around the house and I can connect to one or both at the same time, run VNC desktop on one window, and firefox on another via ssh.

Netsurf and links2 allow users to use limited sites via WPA/WPA2 respectively without the need for a RasPi,etc. But the RasPi turns the J720 into a once again delightful powerful device that can open most any door/website, read pages via the RasPi speaker jack or Bluetooth headphones or home theatre,etc.

Simple setup==>powerful versatile outcome... it's what I'm aiming for! So pleased to have your feedback, cuz you're right... it has taken some effort!

I've grown to appreciate the text based browser Lynx thanks to your guidance. so nice to have all these options available! Text editors are not my forte... but I'll see what I can find.

best reards,

joval

posted on my J720/Devuan-IceWM/RasPi/Firefox blue beastie once again!

Hi All!

New (best so far) 16Gb image with the elegant IceWM window manager now available for download. New features like cpu meter, network meter, easier xterminal icon, automatic time date, stylus calibration, screen capture, samba-client for network shares, WPA2(slow) and WPA (fast for ssh to RasPi) wifi that auto connects , Links, tigerVNCviewer, File manager, Leafpad editor, and more!

Adjust Params.txt to reflect your devices onboard memory,((now set at mem=64m).

Please let me know if it works for you! More Gb sizes to follow and will add imaging/paint apps if feasible. Find images here: https://app.sugarsync.com/iris/wf/D4898663_09915533_66697

Special "Thanks" to Stefan (Devuan port, connman WPA2 wifi fix) and ArchiMark (IceWM GUI).

joval

posted from one of my J720/Devuan-IceWM/WPA/RasPi/Firefox Hybrids!


Edited by joval 2021-08-12 8:53 AM

Hi Joval,

Sounds great!

Now if I can just get it to boot, I'd be all set....




Meanwhile, there are a few linux word processors, but most will be 'heavier weight' compared to AbiWord.......although I might try installing LibreOffice Writer (and maybe the whole Office suite), just for kicks, and see if it can run on our lil' 720's......there's Calligra Writer, Apache OpenOffice Writer, etc.

Text editors are a different animal and there's plenty of those around that should work on 720....

Onward and upward,

Mark

The Eagle has (finally) landed!!!!

After many, many failed attempts, today, Friday the 13th turns out to be lucky day!

Using Joval's latest image file, I (finally) managed to get it to boot up successfully!

Wow!!!! it's been a long journey in the Devuan wilderness to get here....but with Joval's kind and helpful support this day finally arrived.

Only issue so far, is that when I tried 'startx' it did not complete the process of opening X and system crashed......dang!

Will try it one more time.....

A historic day though.....

Thanks, Joval!

Mark



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J720-Devuan-startx-08-13-21.jfif (942KB - 1 downloads)

Congratulations!!! Good for you, Mark! Hallelujah, I guess there is a Jornada God afterall (gotta remember that sacrificing goats fix/trick.. works like a charm... not to mention the offer to rip the guts out of the J720 ...ie, replace the ROM board... "so ya won't cooperate, eh??! Why I'll put the fear of God in ya, you little black and blue punk"!

I'll check it out and make certain all is good with the image and startx, but I believe it's running fine here. Maybe you should try re -installing IceWM... or repeat image download and burn again (on another card) , because, man o man, is it slick!! Ctl+alt+esc can take you from full screen Firefox (via RasPi) to any window.

Delighted, and you're welcome! Glad all your hard effort finally paid off, you deserve a gold star for persistence alone!

Here ya go... do you have a prism based wifi card for fast WPA... you can ssh into your linux computer and x forward... and this is what you can see/do:

Estoy soriendo!

Joval



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Looks nice, Joval!

Thanks again for all your support. Would have given up by now otherwise.

Will try remaking card.....

Best,

Mark

Mark... so happy for you , Hombre!! Suggestion: try params.txt.with mem=64 and reboot, see if startx comes up(could be a config issue or something). I'd hold on to that card and use another. Hey, you should be able to use the AMbiWL54 and Lynx. Ethernet should work right out of the box ( may not need connman, )... Lynx works without startx too, FYI.

Shucks, looks like I forgot the Xmod keymap file... I'll add it next time. Your help on keymaps would be appreciated!

Just can't praise you enough for the IceWM manager... It saves so many steps getting up and going... a dream come true!

Joval

Edited by joval 2021-08-13 11:37 PM

Well, some progress.....

Downloaded file again...reimaged microSD card....

Left PARAMS.txt file with 64M.....

Booted up OK.....

startx worked this time!

Bad news is system can't find connman.....

Tried /usr/sbin/connman....several times

FYI, if you re-do image file, please include urxvt terminal, has scroll bars and color....much easier to use when you try to look through a directory with many files, etc....

Thanks.

Mark

Markus,

You said you have a Linux computer? You might want to try running checkdisk ckfs.ext2 at the Command line on the SD /CF card's 2nd partition( usually /dev/sd'x'2)... if you have Gparted installed, just run "check" on the dropdown menu when right clicking on partition 2. Seems I recall a few "inode" errors once but think that was another image... so just in case its the issue. Let me know how it goes. If you're using an SD Card I would set root delay =0 in params.txt too.

best regards,

Joval

ADDENDUM: Oh, I see you have startx IceWM working, but no connman? the command is connmanctl in xterm right?

Edited by joval 2021-08-14 12:23 AM

Mark,

FYI: it's /usr/sbin/connmanctl that starts connection manager! Don't forget the ...ctl part, amigo.
You're almost there!!

Now, get 'er done!

Joval

ADDENDUM: Reminder, that downloaded image has the kernel/ zImage for 32 and 64Mb boards, you need to install/replace it with Stefan's kernel for 128 Mb (then startx will probably work with it), n'est-ce pas?

Edited by joval 2021-08-14 12:51 AM

Mark,

1. In retrospect, the reason your first attempt failed / crashed on loading up startx is you had mem=128 (per your screenshot) which requires Stefan's special 128 kernel. It probably would have booted into IceWM if params.txt had mem=64 instead, thus saving you the effort of repeating the img download and re-burning it. Let me know if you get the 128 kernel working with IceWM, por favor, and how much that improves performance.

2. Connman command line interface name to call it up is: connmanctl... "connman" is a no go without the ctl part.

It all makes sense now, but in the thick of the Devuan jungle, these things are easy to overlook. Hope you have things up and running by now!

all the best, my friend,

Joval



Edited by joval 2021-08-14 4:48 PM






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