LinuxQuestions.org
Visit Jeremy's Blog.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Distributions > Ubuntu
User Name
Password
Ubuntu This forum is for the discussion of Ubuntu Linux.

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 12-26-2014, 07:24 PM   #1
linux_walt
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2014
Location: Houston, TX
Distribution: Debian wheezy
Posts: 127

Rep: Reputation: 29
How to format a link in /etc/apt/sources.list


Example, here is what I would like to include in my sources.list file:

http://ports.ubuntu.com/dists/saucy/main/binary-armhf/Packages.gz

I'm not sure how this needs to be broken up when putting in the sources.list file.

Here's one way I tried, out of several:
Code:
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/dists/ saucy/main/binary-armhf Packages.gz
Amongst other things, should the file extension .gz be left out?
Also I just tried the above link, in the browser, and I get a 404 error, even though the file is there. You can click on it and download it manually. The link works up to this point:
http://ports.ubuntu.com/dists/saucy/main/binary-armhf/


Thanks!

Last edited by linux_walt; 12-26-2014 at 09:51 PM.
 
Old 12-26-2014, 10:48 PM   #2
widget
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2008
Location: S.E. Montana
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628

Rep: Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497
You don't say what version of Ubuntu you are using but assuming it is 13.10 the link below will show you what the sources.list file should look like and several ways to add more repos.
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:S...a_Repositories

You should keep in mind that if you intend to do a version upgrade in the future any additional repos will complicate that version upgrade and greatly increase the possiblilty of failure.

Start reading where the link opens and you will know more about things. The sample list is further down.

The "apt-add-repository" command is probably the best way to do it but direct editing should work too.
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 12-26-2014, 11:11 PM   #3
linux_walt
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2014
Location: Houston, TX
Distribution: Debian wheezy
Posts: 127

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 29
Super, thank you! Yes, I have managed to upgrade to Ubuntu 13.10 . I'll try using just the official sources.

Here is a summary of the state of the OS at this point:
Code:
~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 13.10
Release:        13.10
Codename:       saucy

:~$ ubuntu-support-status
Support status summary of 'cubieboard2':

You have 864 packages (100.0%) that can not/no-longer be downloaded
You have 0 packages (0.0%) that are unsupported
Obviously something isn't right here, but I hope to fix it after having read the Ubuntu guide you linked to.

Some progress
-------------
The sources list now looks like this (all the previous attempts commented out):
Code:
$ cat sources.list
# deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted
# deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted
# deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted
# deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted
#deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted
#deb-src http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy main restricted
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports saucy  main

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
# deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates main restricted
# deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates main restricted
# deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates main restricted
# deb-src http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy-updates main restricted
# deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports saucy-updates main
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports saucy-updates main
Next I did an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade. Both executed without any errors. Couldn't resist to beg... it worked!
Code:
Need to get 27.3 MB of archives.
After this operation, 1,703 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y please!
New state:
Code:
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 13.10
Release:        13.10
Codename:       saucy

$ ubuntu-support-status
Support status summary of 'cubieboard2':

You have 759 packages (87.8%) supported until February 2015 (9m)

You have 103 packages (11.9%) that can not/no-longer be downloaded
You have 2 packages (0.2%) that are unsupported
Much better. Next to see what is going on with the ones that can no longer be downloaded, and why are there still 0.2% unsupported.

Last edited by linux_walt; 12-27-2014 at 01:16 AM.
 
Old 12-27-2014, 12:59 AM   #4
widget
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2008
Location: S.E. Montana
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628

Rep: Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497
One thing you should know is that there is no Ubuntu 13.1. That would be, under Ubuntu numbering procol, a version number that is not possible.

Ubuntu is released in April and October; months 04 and 10. So you have, released in 2013; 13.04 and 13.10.

That is interesting output for that command. But without some notion of what your hardware is, what you version upgraded from there is no way to determine that something is wrong.

Output for.
Code:
$ uname -a
and;
Code:
$ apt-cache stats
Will give you basic information on your system and packages installed.

LSB is not well implemented, as far as I know, in any distro so I am not sure that any statement on the condition of your system will be accurately reflected by that command.

Note also that Ubuntu gets packages from many sources and modifies them for their repos. While they, in theory, base non LTS versions on Debian Sid many packages may come from elsewhere. This will cause some confusion. This is a snippet from the end of the man page for lsb_release under my Sid install here;
Quote:
Detection of systems using a mix of packages from various distributions or releases is something of a black art; the current
heuristic tends to assume that the installation is of the earliest distribution which is still being used by apt but that heuris‐
tic is subject to error.
I would very carefully inspect your sources.list also. Make sure it is correct before adding or removing repos.
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 12-27-2014, 01:12 AM   #5
linux_walt
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2014
Location: Houston, TX
Distribution: Debian wheezy
Posts: 127

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 29
Hi widget, I still need to re-read your post, but in the meantime, here is the output from the two commands:

Code:
$ uname -a
Linux cubieboard2 3.4.61+ #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Oct 26 18:10:18 CST 2013 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux

$ apt-cache stats
Total package names: 12502 (250 k)
Total package structures: 12502 (600 k)
  Normal packages: 7792
  Pure virtual packages: 350
  Single virtual packages: 806
  Mixed virtual packages: 37
  Missing: 3517
Total distinct versions: 9521 (686 k)
Total distinct descriptions: 15455 (371 k)
Total dependencies: 60819 (1,703 k)
Total ver/file relations: 10068 (161 k)
Total Desc/File relations: 15455 (247 k)
Total Provides mappings: 2402 (48.0 k)
Total globbed strings: 67 (502 )
Total dependency version space: 394 k
Total slack space: 67.8 k
Total space accounted for: 3,266 k
Edited 13.1 in previous post. Must be a habit of ignoring trailing zeros.

You mention to very carefully the sources.list and make sure it is correct before adding or removing repos. I have to admit that the only measure I know of, at the moment, is if update and upgrade work without errors. I have also read that it's dangerous to just change the entries, it could break your system, but so far I have been lucky (apparently).
I have just spent the last couple of days putting in trial and error entries.

The distribution that was installed originally was Linaro lubuntu-desktop-nand.img. Here is a backup copy of the original sources.list:

Code:
$ cat sources.list.old
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ quantal main universe
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ quantal main universe
I just noticed something, the old entries are almost the same as the new ones, the only difference is 'quantal' has been replaced by 'saucy'. Could it really have been that simple all along?

Last edited by linux_walt; 12-27-2014 at 01:47 AM.
 
Old 12-27-2014, 03:02 PM   #6
widget
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2008
Location: S.E. Montana
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628

Rep: Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497
The standard command for a version upgrade, which is what gui applications invoke with scripts and you can invoke on the cli for Debian based (APT using distros);
Code:
sed -i 's/squeeze/wheezy/g' /etc/apt/sources.list && apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
The way that is written would upgrade a Debian 6 (Sqeeze) install to Debian 7 (Wheezy). Sed is an text file editing tool. -i causes it to edit the file in place. s indicates the text to be replaced and the g indicates what it is replaced with. The single ' marks show the start and the finish of the edit.

The spaces all indicate a change in instruction. So you have the tool to be invoked, what you want it to do (edit in place), what text you want edited, what file you want edited.

&& indicates the end of that command and the start of another to also be carried out.

That really is how the process works.

People do not understand the package management system and gui tools feed this ignorance. I have nothing against gui tools, at least ones that are dependable, at all. I am a gui kind of guy myself. But calling something an Udate Manager is extremely misleading.

Your sources.list is the heart of this system. It tells the system what repos to connect to.

When you run "apt-get update" this updates your available package list. This is a list of all packages in all repos enabled in the sources.list. This is an update.

When you run "apt-get upgrade" dpkg (the backend and actual package management work horse) compares the package list with the packages installed on your system. Where the package list has packages with a newer version than the one installed they are marked for being upgraded.

Sometimes packages will be "held back" this is becuase to upgrade them there needs to be some package or packages removed and/or added. Added is more likely. These are new depends almost always.

To upgrade the held back packages your use "apt-get dist-upgrade". This is because you are changing your distribution. You are changing it by adding or removing packages. This has nothing to do with version upgrades.

The upgrade and dist-upgrade commands are what give you an up to date system. This is a package upgrade, not an update.

One way to do a version upgrade is to manually edit your sources.list to point to the new version. Then run apt-get update to get the new package list. Then run apt-get upgrade to fine how many hundreds of packages can be upgraded and how many need removed and how many are held back for a future dist-upgrade command.

The combined command I started this with just edits the sources.list, gets the new package list, and runs dist-upgrade. I prefer to run upgrade and watch it for errors before doing the remaining packages simply because it limits the number of packages to check for errors.

Most gui text editors like pluma, gedit and kate have a function that will search for text and also one that will search for and replace text. The last basically invoking sed. But you can do it in the text editor very easily. This is a much better option than doing it manually yourself. It will be more reliable in maintaining any white spaces that are so very important.

There are other scripts used in Update Mangler when doing a version upgrade. If you use the option to watch terminal output (a small window opens on top of UM when you do this and shows roughly what is going on) you will see "cleaning up" or something close to that at the end which sits there a long time. This is running, several times, some dpkg commands to configure reluctant packages and broken packages.

While this is a handy tool having scripts make desissions for your system is probably not the best idea in the world. Particularly on "strange" hardware.

What is this cubieboard2 thing?
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 12-27-2014, 04:58 PM   #7
linux_walt
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2014
Location: Houston, TX
Distribution: Debian wheezy
Posts: 127

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 29
Good morning widget, thanks for the detailed explanation. Duly cut and pasted into my notes.

I did wonder about the 'held back' packages. I don't think I have those any more, but at one point I did.

Here is something else that gave me intermittent trouble with 'duplicate sources' errors during apt-get update. This file:

/var/lib/apt/lists/

Had no choice but to erase everything inside (sudo rm -r *). It fixed the 'duplicate entry' errors, and it was also updated with new information on the next cycle of apt-get update/install. Don't know if this is ok/safe to do.

Finally, here is a nice source of information about other files that could be involved in storing repository information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Packaging_Tool Section on 'Configuration and files'.

I had some in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ as well, which I backed up somewhere else (now I can't find them!).

---

Here is a link to the manufacturer's cubieboard2 page:

http://linux-sunxi.org/Cubietech_Cubieboard2

When you get the board it has 4gb of nand memory, split up into 3 sections:

Code:
$ cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name

  93        0    3989504 nand
  93        1      65536 nanda
  93        2    2097152 nandb
  93        3    1810432 nandc
   8        0  488386584 sda
   8        1   12581888 sda1
   8        2    5242880 sda2
   8        3  470559768 sda3
nanda Is where it first boots from, and the root file system is in nandb. After it has booted, I don't think nanda is used anymore, because you can mount it somewhere and take a look inside:

Code:
$ sudo mount  /dev/nanda /mnt/tmp
$ ls -al /mnt/tmp
total 6378
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root   16384 Jan  1  1970 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root    4096 Nov 23 19:57 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  118912 Jan  1  1980 boot.axf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     106 Jan  1  1980 boot.ini
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  222964 Jan  1  1980 drv_de.drv
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  233932 Jan  1  1980 drv_hdmi.drv
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  344813 Jan  1  1980 font24.sft
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  357443 Jan  1  1980 font32.sft
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    2048 Jan  1  1980 linux
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     512 Jan  1  1980 magic.bin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    2048 Jan  1  1980 os_show
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  226576 Jan  1  1980 prvt.axf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   46184 Jan  1  1980 script.bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  284320 Jan  1  1980 sprite.axf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     176 Dec 26 05:21 uEnv.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     177 Dec 26 05:19 uEnv.txt.bootnandb
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4654656 Jan  1  1980 uImage
uEnv.txt has the command to tell it where the root file system is:
Code:
$ cat /mnt/tmp/uEnv.txt
console=tty0
extraargs=console=ttyS0,115200 hdmi.audio=EDID:0 disp.screen0_output_mode=EDID:1280x720p50 rootwait panic=10 rootfstype=ext4 rootflags=discard
nand_root=/dev/sda1
Before adding the hard drive, the last line was nand_root=/dev/nandb .

It looks to me like it just has a minimal Linux system on nanda, then the boot process moves to /dev/sda1. Apparently it doesn't care what OS you have, and changing the Linux distribution (on /dev/sda1) does not seem to mess with the original hardware drivers.

PS Last night I was able to upgrade from 13.10 to 14.10, this time very easily with just a distribution upgrade command. Many things need a tweak though: mplayer, vncserver and possibly other things. A lot of the very light applications, from Lubuntu are now orphans and need to be replaced.

Thanks again.

Last edited by linux_walt; 12-27-2014 at 06:07 PM.
 
Old 12-28-2014, 12:00 AM   #8
widget
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2008
Location: S.E. Montana
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628

Rep: Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497
I don't quite understand why you would need to remove the lists in /var/lib/apt/lists. Have heard of folks doing it before though.

If you run into that problem again, before going to that solution, try;
Code:
# dpkg --clear-avail
This may clean that out.

Duplicate sources should always be found in the sources.list or sources.list.d. Once those are fixed and you run "apt-get update" the problem should, in theory anyway, be fixed.

That sources.list.d is a handy place because you can actually have some repos that are duplicates of those in sources.list without getting that error.

There is an application; apt-spy that will search for fast mirrors if you have some slow connections. It will pick the fastest and install it in sources.list.d. All repos enabled there and in sources.list will be checked. If you watch the output when upgrading you will see some repos will be from one and others from the other address. Kind of interesting to watch. Just goes with the first one to respond.

I hope you went from 13.10 to 14.04 rather than 14.10. If it was 14.10 you got lucky. You can do LTS to LTS because this is set up before the next LTS even comes out with some packages added to the old one and so forth to help build the upgraded system.

On the "regular" releases this is not done. They are based on Sid which is Debian unstable and jumping a release is just asking for problems.

Looks like an interesting piece of hardware. Don't have too much fun. What the hell, have too much fun. If that is even possible.

I might look into one of those mini board deals someday. To much on my plate with wanting to build a home server that I can't afford right now without just buying things to have fun on.

Thanks for the link. Is one I have not looked at before. Getting to be a lot of them. I can think of some interesting things to do with them too.
 
Old 12-28-2014, 11:30 AM   #9
linux_walt
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2014
Location: Houston, TX
Distribution: Debian wheezy
Posts: 127

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 29
Hi widget, all I can say about /var/lib/apt/lists is that sudo-apt update was complaining about duplicates. After clearing out that folder 'update' quit complaining. Beyond that I know nothing at the moment, although I suspect this:

Adding repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list changes the information in /var/lib/apt/lists.

Removing repositories from /etc/apt/sources.list does not undo the changes in /var/lib/apt/lists

dpkg --clear-avail Sounded a bit dangerous, but wanted to try it with a safety net. A few weeks ago I started learning git, so I put it to use here:

In root directory

/$ sudo git init
/$ sudo git add /var/lib/apt
/$ sudo git add /etc/apt
/$ sudo git commit -m 'initial apt commit'

/$ sudo dpkg --clear-avail
/$ git status
... nothing happened. I may be using git wrong, but all apt files seem to be unchanged.

About the switch to 14.10 instead of 14.04, I can't remember what the selections were, if any, after the dist-upgrade command (from saucy). I've since read that 14.04 seems to be preferred and it's also going to be supported for longer. It may have been that there were no 'armf' versions of 14.04. Haven't checked yet.

These little boards are great for getting started in Linux. In hindsight, I can see why the official Linux images are a bit behind relative to mainstream os releases. They are small, fast and everything (sort of) works.

Just an example: On the original Linaro/quantal release for this board, the root directory was around 2 gig. Mplayer worked great, although can't remember if I had to add it myself.

14.10 Is using over 6 gig. Had to throw out mplayer, it just didn't work. Currently using vlc player, which only kind of works: if you resize to full screen cpu usage goes to over 100% from around 60%, switching back to non full screen doesn't reduce cpu usage to what it was. Only solution is to shut it down and restart. The original small and simple mplayer used 30-40% cpu and you could resize it any way you wanted without trouble.

It's possible I have something messed up with my desktop setup. Lots of things to explore, but I do miss the simple LUbuntu/quantal and may go back to it.

Last edited by linux_walt; 12-28-2014 at 11:59 AM.
 
Old 12-28-2014, 05:21 PM   #10
widget
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2008
Location: S.E. Montana
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628

Rep: Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497
The changes in the sources.list should change the content of /var/lib/apt/lists. This seems to be a problem more with Ubuntu than with Debian and other Debian based distros. Have no idea why. There were several fellow Ubuntu testers that had this problem but I never did.

You, may, on your desktop want to give some other distros a whack. While most stable versions are "behind" what is available you need to also consider that what is available, even if released as "stable" will be more buggy. This is simply a product of development being done in virtual environments with no direct interaction with the hardware and then being exposed to the chaos of diverse hardware. Some of it will need fine tuned to actually work well.

Canonical bases, roughly, their normal (non LTS) versions on Debian unstable (always Sid) and the LTS versions on Debian testing (currently Jessie). They have a different definition of "stable" a term which is extremely subjective.

I quit using Ubuntu for other reasons than stability.

But I can say that, at least in my opinion and on my hardware, Debian Sid is more reliable than Ubuntu. It is not stable but it is pretty close to the leading edge of what is being released. This is not quite as true right now as testing is in freeze and all packages headed for testing start in Sid and then migrate to testing. As the package major version numbers are frozen and basically all that is being done is bug work there is nothing new coming in.

I wanted to check out the new LibreOffice, the 4.4 version, because there are some significant changes. This is not available in the repos, and not liking to go outside the repos I got it from the Debian experimental repo. It is not quite the version that the LibreOffice folks have out as a beta but is very close.

I have a couple throw away installs VictimT (testing) and VictimS (Sid) on which I make sure that package upgrades don't break my installs before running them on the installs I actually use. And where I will install non native and experimental repo packages.

One package that is no longer, Ubuntu 8.04 was the last to have it, in Ubuntu is apt-listbugs. This is a handy tool. It checks for bugs filed against a package and lists them for you when you attempt to upgrade to the buggy version or install the buggy version. Some people don't like it because it does list all bugs filed on the package. The architecture that is effected my be what you are using on your cubieboard and have nothing at all to do with my desktop with AMD 6 core cpu. A bug may be reported by one person with a very custom setup and effect no one else at all. But it does let you know the bug is filed, gives the number so you can check it out.

It is still very possible that you are the lucky person to discover a bug, prehaps a system breaking bug. None the less I really think it is a great tool that Canonical should have kept.

Debian based systems seem to work well on the miniboards. You may want to check out Sid on your desktop and see if you want to give that a whack.

The way I install is using a netinstall or netboot image and not use it to install everything with meta packages. I finish the installs after configuring APT to not install recommends automatically and editing the sources.list to be exactly what I want.

Most people using testing and Sid use the netinstall image for what ever Debian version is stable and upgrade it, with no additions to the very base install, to the version they want to use before finishing the install. Your board really wants a pretty special customized system and this would be the way to go. Ubuntu does have a netinstall image too so you may want to look into that.

One thing Ubuntu has, in all images including server editions, is a package called ubuntu-minimal. This meta package calls in all sorts of depends to make the release really Ubuntu. Some of them, to a lot of us, make little sense. Plymouth may be one of your favorite packages but is it really sensible to install it on a server? Should the package mountall depend on plymouth? Plymouth is available in the Debian repos but mountall most surely doesn't depend on it.

So simply by using Ubuntu you get a larger system, with no ability to change that easily, than with some other distro that is not Ubuntu based (respins of respins make no sense to me at all). I would think that on small factor hardware this would be something of a concern even with the addition of a hard drive.

I run boinc (distributed computing application) on here and have it set to use 85% of my cpu power. On this box I don't even notice any performance change between running or not running it. But I have a pretty good sized cpu.

Your VLC/mplayer problem is interesting to say the least. You may want to check into something based on libxine like gxine or xine-console. I haven't used them but xine-console is run from the cli and may not use nearly the resources. I think it should support most file formats.
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 12-28-2014, 06:34 PM   #11
linux_walt
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2014
Location: Houston, TX
Distribution: Debian wheezy
Posts: 127

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 29
Hi widget, your detailed posts are very much appreciated.

Funny you should mention giving something else a whack. This morning I installed 'Cubier mini 20140305'. From the read-me file:

Quote:
1. base debian 7.4
2. default root password: cubier
3. kernel 3.4.79
4. only terminal, no desktop
5. include openssh-server
6. it's a nand image, use Livesuit/PhoenixSuit tool to write the image to cb2

This version is for testing, you can use it as your base system
any question, please mail to benn@cubietech.com
It's size on disk is only 368882K. May be a bit too mini though, it didn't even have a 'sudo' command (now does). Got ssh to work, now I am trying to put together a small desktop environment. So far I have downloaded openbox, and trying to get it working.

Some quirks:
Typing in
Code:
$ exec openbox-session
logs me out and asks for a password again.

When the monitor goes to sleep, it will not wake up again.
Moving the mouse generates several lines of "<something> requests probe deferral.." . Can't be more specific at the moment because the monitor has gone to sleep.

Anyways, if I don't get the desktop system running soon, I'll give this one a try:

Debieez v1.01
Debian Wheezie
kernel 3.4.79
Release date : Around 2014-02
Features
Lightdm, LXDE
Linux-3.4 Kernel

But, I seem to notice things when replying to your posts, this says exactly what's needed: Lightdm, LXDE . I tried LXDE last night, on Ubuntu 14.10, and didn't like it much. Pause a bit while I download lightdm and try again...

This is taking a while sorry.. will get back in a bit.

Thanks again!
 
Old 12-28-2014, 11:56 PM   #12
widget
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2008
Location: S.E. Montana
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628

Rep: Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497
You have commands that are for the firmware on the board and I am not in the least familiar with them. So I am can't be much help there.

OB is pretty nice once you learn to use it. I have used Lxde which is built on OB and find that, for me, OB is actually easier and more convenient to to use.

Pretty good sized learning curve though which would be a lot easier on a regular box. Takes some time to learn what tools you want installed and so forth.

I don't use sudo. Don't like the way it is configured by default at all. This was not what it was designed for. Someday I am going to learn to configure it in a more appropriate manner but until then I am really happy with it not being on my installs at all.

Looked at the image you are thinking of using. Should be pretty good. Wheezy is boringly reliable on a desktop or laptop. Hopefully this carries over.

You will find the sources.list a bit simpler than the one used by Ubuntu. You may be shocked. You have to have all of 3 lines enabled.

It is a wee tad easier to administer. Even in mine where I have the
Code:
## debian multimedia
deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org wheezy main non-free
## deb-src http://www.deb-multimedia.org wheezy main non-free
added. That is a 3rd party repo, maintained by all of one guy that is a dev with Debian. Supplies some packages that Debian will not offer at all due to some legal restriction in some jurisdictions.

Handbrake is only available through that repo and there are a couple of VLC packages also. Used to be you had to get a lot of packages from there but the legal and code issues are rapidly deminishing. Not needed for most uses. The flash from there is needed on this box to get BBC videos to play in mozilla based browsers (flashplayer-mozilla).

I had to look that up in my /mnt directory where Wheezy is mounted so I can keep it up to date in chroot rather than actually go there and do the update/upgrade cycles.

Have it and Squeeze installed on here. They don't get visited much. Main purpose is for use when I need better security setup than I use on Sid or testing or if I actually suceed in breaking both testing and Sid production installs. Had to use Squeeze for a whole week once in the Wheezy-testing cycle. Real bummer.

This Jessie cycle I have suceeded in forgetting the passwords to both Sqeeze and Wheezy. Had to chroot in and change the buggers. Been tryiing to log in more often to avoid that embarrassment.
 
Old 12-29-2014, 01:19 AM   #13
linux_walt
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2014
Location: Houston, TX
Distribution: Debian wheezy
Posts: 127

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 29
Hi widget, I'm still at it!

By some Linux magic, at least in this case, the hardware does not seem to matter at all. I'm just following the generic Linux instruction I find online. I'm sure later on there will be a few things that do not quite work, for example, is Wheezy using both A20 processors, or is any video hardware acceleration being used.. I don't know at the moment. SSH Works, the hard drive still works, HDMI output works.

I stuck with base debian 7.4, and have downloaded almost all the software I need. Not present yet is a browser, and LaTex. Watching the BBC sounds good, I'd like that as well.

So far the most challenging package to find has been a decent pdf viewer. Went for the lightweight, stable ones but they are just a bit to crude: xpdf, gv. I am currently downloading okular. It's a bit big, but hopefully it's nicer.

Gnome mplayer is working way better. There is still a resizing problem though. Maybe that could be a hardware problem? As you resize it, the video remains the same size, but it makes copies of itself and stacks them on top of each other, staggered in the direction you are growing the window. If you leave it alone it works fine.

Okular has finished downloading, and it looks much better. Don't have a pdf file handy at the moment though.

Here is my sources list:
Quote:
deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
I didn't add the non free, the list came that way. I was going to try and list the status of my packages, but that doesn't appear to be as straight forward as it was in Ubuntu. Will work on that later.

Had to look up what Handbrake and SID are. Doesn't sound exactly like video editing, but that's what came to mind. Last time I tried to edit a video it was maybe 7 years ago on Windows xp. It seemed like a fun thing to try, but turned out not to be. Maybe I should try it again on Linux.

I may try, and should, VLC player again, just to see how it runs. I'm fine with mplayer though, if I can just get it to resize the video. Will be needing a browser as well, and as much as everyone seems to rave about Mozilla, my experience with it on windows is that it just hogs memory. Love the interface and ease of use though, makes all other browsers look lifeless. If they could just make it use less memory.

Off to install Latex, and that should be it for tonight.

Good night...

Last edited by linux_walt; 12-29-2014 at 01:24 AM.
 
Old 12-29-2014, 05:08 AM   #14
widget
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2008
Location: S.E. Montana
Distribution: Debian Testing, Stable, Sid and Manjaro, Mageia 3, LMDE
Posts: 2,628

Rep: Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497Reputation: 497
Most custom distros based on Debian add those repos.

Debian policy is to have the default install completely FOSS. The FSF (Free Software Foundation) doesn't certify Debian as "free" because they host the non-free repos. But Debian really does make the effort to make sure that their default install is completely free software.

In the case of your hardware I would assume that there is a need for, at least, firmware that doesn't meet that standard.

On my old Dell box I had to have the "firmware-linux-nonfree" package installed to boot to a gui. No video would work without it. Had to boot to the tty prompt, edit the sources.list and install from there.

The image you got is made for that hardware. This is helpful. You may want to generate a list of packages that are installed so you can figure out what it requires.

That sources.list is a bit easier to read than your Ubuntu one isn't it.

I am wondering a bit why the other standard repo for Debian Stable isn't in there.
Code:
deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free
I have never really checked to see what it provides. You might want to check documentation for your install to see if it casts any light on that.

I have no idea how video is handled on that board. Sounds like you need to do a bit of research on that. Like what is the default resolution set at? And how does this compare to the resolution of the monitor you are using.

The tiling proliferation of windows sounds like some sort of locked resolution trying to be accomodated along with your wish for more screen space for the video output.

Do you have something that works for a monitor other than the one you are using? If so plug into it and boot up. If it is a different make and it works more the way you want then the system may be having trouble properly detecting the resolution for the one you are using.

There may be some firmware for that in the repos.

There may be some settings that need tweeked.
 
1 members found this post helpful.
Old 12-29-2014, 11:27 AM   #15
linux_walt
Member
 
Registered: Dec 2014
Location: Houston, TX
Distribution: Debian wheezy
Posts: 127

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 29
Hi widget, I just realized last night, of course the hardware is working, the distribution was made for this board. Was starting to wonder if Linux had some magical powers.

Also, since both vlc and mplayer misbehave after resizing, it does point to something wrong in the system. I'll check out the resolution settings in Linux. Although, the monitor APEX LE1912 (only one available for now), seems to automatically set itself to whatever resolution and frequency is being fed to it.

My suspicion is still a missing desktop component. I have openbox, lightdm, and for a task bar I used tint2. Had to install tint2, because without it if you minimized a window it just disappeared . Something in the middle, between the output of the player, and desktop, is missing... maybe. Or just hardware setting as you mentioned.

This line that I have in sources.list:
Code:
deb http://security.debian.org/wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
Does not have the same packages as the one you mentioned?
Code:
deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free
Again! I don't seem to see things until I post them. Mine says security.
I'll add yours right now and do an update/upgrade.

Thanks!

PS I guess there was a reason they didn't include the ftp wheezy-updates repository. Broke a few things: sound, and gnome-disk-utility no longer work. For the disk utility it says it can no longer find 'palimpsest'.

Not a problem. Thanks for pointing that out anyway, we learn by breaking things. Will mess with it later, and after some more reading up on video-to-desktop topics I will probably want to start clean from the beginning.

I have been checking storage memory, while installing and purging packages (especially while looking for a good pdf reader). I noticed that, after purging a package (then apt-get autoremove), storage space never quite goes back up to where it was. The difference seems to be quite a bit more than what might be needed for, possibly, updating a history log in some file.

Last edited by linux_walt; 12-29-2014 at 12:38 PM.
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
disabling cd sources in apt/sources.list revod_neb Linux - Newbie 4 05-25-2013 12:03 PM
'E:Malformed line 54 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list (dist parse), E:The list of vsssuccess@gmail.com Linux - Desktop 1 11-17-2010 08:17 AM
apt-get; E: Type 'GPG' is not known on line 20 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list tomorrow Linux - Newbie 9 05-21-2009 08:42 AM
Can't configure /etc/apt/sources.list. Format? KenJackson Mandriva 5 11-07-2007 01:55 PM
Need Recommendation for Debian Etch sources.list ( /etc/apt/sources.list ) forgox Debian 6 05-05-2007 01:57 PM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Distributions > Ubuntu

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:23 AM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration