Debian 5 LXDE Edition

This board posts about running linux on your webdt366
quotaholic
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Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by quotaholic »

This is Lenny with LXDE and Wicd,

If you move around a lot this one may be of interest to you. LXDE provides a very nice "desktop environment".
Wicd was included as the network and wifi utility. What a great application. I received one negative report on wifi radar.
Hopefully Wicd proves to be both more advanced and more reliable.

Spent some time reading up on bluetooth and linux. Here is a link to something that you will find integrated in this image:

http://simbot.wordpress.com/2006/06/04/bluetooth-fuse-obexfs-under-debian/

By the sounds of it if you know the mac address of the phone you wish to pair browsing it like a local directory is a mount command away. Hoping that this tests well. I have no cell phone to try it out with so please let me know if this works.

There is also a blueooth scanner cli utility called "btscanner" included that will help you discover your devices.

LXDE provides a standard compliment of software:

Pcmanfm - file manager
Gpicview - photo viewer
Xarchiver - Archiving
Opera - Web broswer
Appearance and session control

Additional software:

Mp3blaster - cli mp3 / vorbis player
Weechat-curses - cli IRC client
gCal - Screen calibration 4|9|16|25 are the variables
Madwifi - Chipset support
Btscanner - Bluetooth device discivery
This kernel should support usb rt2500usb users.
Xvkbd      (Xvkbd does an odd thing in lenny. It loads with the autorepeat option selected in the configuration. Thanks go to Vinagrad19 for discovering that clicking on the logo "xvkbd" and selecting "off" for autorepeat within the "property" section stops this annoyance)

Username is webdt
Password is webdt
Root pass is webdt

If one plays with the /etc/sudoers file a little I think it is possible to get shutdown and restart options as the user. Either that or there is a user group that I am not finding that allows the webdt user to shutdown. At the moment the buttons are greyed out. Help n this would be appreciated.

Here is one link:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/age505h/n/Debian5LXDEWebDT366_zip


Let me know how it goes

quotaholic


PS Starting Weds I have to take a week off to move to another location. My hopes are that in the couple of weeks that I have been at this I have provided a variety of choices that can keep one busy for a while with linux and a WebDT. Across them all one can find some variety.
Last edited by quotaholic on Fri May 01, 2009 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
ionbladez
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by ionbladez »

I tried using ghost to write this, but it won't let me.
Invalid image.
I downloaded it 2 times already.
is there a force switch? I checked all the options..
vinograd19
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by vinograd19 »

ionbladez , it isn't a image for ghost. It is image for linux command "dd". Here you can find instructions.
ionbladez
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by ionbladez »

Ah, kk cool.
I got it installed and running right now.
I used DSL to copy the image from a cd.

it works, a little slow but its WAY better than CE.
I can't find the mp3 player,
My main reason for doing this is to have music.
I bought a pair of bluetooth headphones from my friend yesterday and mistakenly thought it would work on CE.
I was wrong..

I'm not new to linux at all, it's just I can't find the media player/bluetooth settings.
quotaholic
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by quotaholic »

Hey ionbladez,

glad you were able to get things working ok as far as getting the image installed. the mp3 player i put in that image is a command line only player. meaning you would have to open a terminal and type in "mp3blaster". still learning about lxde, this was the first time I had used it. it may be possibly to make a menu item or a dock launcher got the mp3player too. I just dont know how to do that yet.

i hesitate to open my mouth before its working right but at about 7am this morning I successfully built this package:

http://blueman-project.org/screenshots/ ... ut=default

Only problem is that I have like no room left for much else. i have to be out for most of the day and then I am relocating in a few days. trying to say i am goign to be busy as heck for the next week or so but if you were interested i may be able to make a image for you with this package, with a gui mp3 player. May have to loose a couple other packages but it may be dooable.

The blueman application is exactly what you are looking for. I'm not even going to link you to the instructions on how to do this from the CLI (without blueman). Its not for people who are used to writing code. Instead give me a shout back with your interest and give me a little time and I can get you what you are looking for.

I do have to say that we have access to 1gb chips and its amazing how much more one can fit in a gig. Just an fyi.


quotaholic 

ps yeah lxde is a little slow, flux box and jwm are two differnt window managers that are much less "laggy"
Last edited by quotaholic on Sun May 03, 2009 9:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
ionbladez
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by ionbladez »

Ya I'm very aware of the window managers, and I've also "hacked" a lot of command line programs on my laptop to the panels.

I've made panels on my desktop on OpenSuSE and ran .gbc roms through the emulators, using the game pictures as the icons.

None of this is new to me, but it's a lot of confusion when you go to look for stuff.
Also, thanks for the link, good stuff.
quotaholic
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by quotaholic »

Apologies, it just a lot safer for me to assume a person knows less than more. Picture my support efforts. Thats cool on what you did on suse. I miss Suse.

Well i did my activities today and just sat down for a few hours working on that image I mentioned. I just finished it. Frikin debian doesnt have some of the python ctl apps I needed to build blueman. Thankfully one of the ubuntu packages installed and it seems to work. I only have a laptop to send to and from so try it and let me know. Hopefully it works.

My day started at 9am and its now 4:43. I'll upload and post this tomorrow. I managed to cram the mp3 player "sonata" in there. Even got xournal, a scrible app in there too. Maybe I can ask you a couple tips on linking scripts to icons or menu items?

quotaholic
ionbladez
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by ionbladez »

Sure, I'd love to help work on this.
I've tried to get a minimal install of gcc on here, but nothing works.
I wanted to install XMMS. which is REALLY tiny (hence being on Damn Small Linux!).
a c compiler is needed.

I can definitely help on making shortcuts to command lines.
if I remember correctly, openSuSE I installed was KDE, and I think KDE would be cool on here, but would eat all the resources.

I could do some more "hacking" and add some templates to the "New" menu.
like New folder, New Text Document, new shortcut, etc.

I can get started on some of this stuff but I need to figure out where these templates are located.
I may attempt to get Fluxbox on here, since I like the little detail box on the top right (shows the resources used and etc).

I'm not sure what LXDE is based on really, this is a totally new thing for me.
I've seen a few embedded-ready desktop managers for linux but this one is new.

Anyways let me know about that new image, I'll get "hacking".
quotaholic
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by quotaholic »

I will happily share my resources with anyone who asks.

On debian I found apt to be a very counterproductive package manager in terms of saving space. Dependencies are what adds up. XMMS is a small client however by the time apt adds up every format XMMS can play and includes all of them we can be talking about 30 mb of drive space for an mp3 player. On that level it makes more sense to compile one yourself.

Debians package "build-essential" will include a compiler, make and a couple of other build tools. I want to say that this eats about 66mb or so. Do this before you add the gui as once you get going on python with py-gtk and the other things needed to get bluetooth and wifi managers linked you will run shy on space.

Apt is a little greedy with space. If I run "apt-get install lxde" apt wants to put down 250mb of packages. If I wget each of the lxde packages in and then "dpkg -i" all the the lxde packages apt only wants to bring in 75mb worth of packages. Long story short is dont let apt see the internet. Transfer your packages in for a local shared folder then build them. If you plan on using apt or dpkg at all that is. On these builds I have erased a great deal of things that are not needed for the build. Links that a compiler would need are no longer there. We would need to start over to make one work. If you removed packages and then googled "build-essential debian" You should be aimed at debians package site. From there search under "lenny".

LXDE builds on openbox. Between the two they are about 20mb or so. LXDE stitches a lot of things together and gives more of a desktop experience. My limitations with linux leave me shy of the knowledge needed to effectively assign the right groups and permissions around items like udev, dbus and logging in and out. "featured" window managers like LXDE make it easier for me to offer a more "desktop" experience. Flux box is much, much faster than LXDE on a DT. I want to build matchbox as it looks smaller yet and "featured". Fluxbox with fbpanel would be interesting.

Just got the dd of the image out of the dt. I will start a new topic with its details within the hour after it finishes uploading.
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by david_halliday »

To save space on debian I use either

aptitude install --without-recommends

Or add the following to apt.conf

APT::Install-Recommends "0"
APT::Install-Suggests "0"

I also did

aptitude install --without-reccomends localepurge

and then do

aptitude clean
aptitude purge
localepurge

on a regular basis. This leaves only the package lists as a disk hog these can be reduced by removing all the enries from the sources file (comment them out) then do aptitude update

Dave.
quotaholic
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by quotaholic »

Once again thank you Dave,

I knew I had to be missing something. Valuable bit of information.

quotaholic
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by fabio »

hallo i've just installed lxde, it's a wonderful work, but wicd doesn't load and i can't connect to the internet, and is it possible to install a screen keyboard? can you help me?
thanks a lot
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by quotaholic »

Hello Fabio,

Try running:

Code: Select all

wicd-client


as root or su. 

Xvkbd was included in that image. It is an onscreen keyboard.

If there is no icon for it on the dock I will make the needed file for you an post it once I rub the dust from my eyes.

Some window managers pick up on applications quite easily and include them in the menu structure. Not the case here. LXDE relies on .desktop files that get placed in /usr/share/applications. These have the path to the icon, executable and menu placement data in them. Despite my best efforts I am just not hitting the nail on the head with these files. Especially when a program requires super user or root access to run, like wicd.

I am working on a replacement image for the second LXDE release that I had to take down. Confronting this as we speak. On this image I have a launcher for xvkbd, the on screen keyboard on the dock and am "working' on wicd. Once I find my mistake I will update this thread to let you know how I did it.

quotaholic
Last edited by quotaholic on Sat May 09, 2009 6:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
fabio
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by fabio »

hallo, thanks for answering, wicd opens and run just for half a second and then stops,
regards Fabio
quotaholic
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Re: Debian 5 LXDE Edition

Post by quotaholic »

hrm.... try this

Code: Select all

sudo wicd-client -n
That tells it that you do not have a notification area and hopefully that will get it started. You will have to login as su or give the sudo command to get admin rights to start this application. I just powered up my dt and tested this. It works on mine. Let me know how you do.....

I didnt notice it at first but when I dont use the "-n" a very small try icon gets made next to the cpu meter. Until I get a good .desktop file made one can use:

Code: Select all

sudo wicd-client
and the tray icon will be available for your session. Signle click on it to bring up the utility
quotaholic
Last edited by quotaholic on Sat May 09, 2009 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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