Nimblex sub 100 distro

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quotaholic
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Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by quotaholic »

Nimblex sub 100 does boot by pressing f2 at the boot choice menu and pressing left arrow until you see vga=791. Change that to read vga=771 and that should do it. You will get varying results if you have already had Nimblex installed once as the installer picks up on files on your local hd on the second try. If this is your first run through this should get you to a desktop. From there run "kate" or "nano" and modify the xorg.conf file removing all the 1024x768 mentions. Restart x and enjoy. Please reply to this post if you run in to any problems.

Posted a video on line here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4459995737871873106

quotaholic
Fleegman
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by Fleegman »

I just watched your video, great job.  I'll give NimbleX a try. Have you had any luck at getting the Penmount 9000 drivers working yet?

I'll have to get a 'mini usb hub' so I can plug in the keyboard, mouse and usb stick all at once.

I'll post my results.
quotaholic
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by quotaholic »

Hey Fleegman,

Thanks for your post. A gentleman who should be receiving his dt's today found this bug in launchpad that talks about the penmount.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/227183

Knowing that such a package would have to made in to a module in order to install it in to Nimblex I regrouped. It seems Nimblex and Slax both use a lzma compression and keep most of the operating system on read only. Thats going to make a penmount and a startup config a little tricky. I wrote an email to the developer of Nimblex yesterday asking if he had the driver in his development tree. I am still awaiting a response.

I registered this bug in ubuntus launchpad last night:

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/65263

All attempts to boot in to ubuntu have failed with broken graphics. I was thinking that if I could get ubuntu installed the penmount package they modified in the first link would be an easy thing. Wating on launchpad.

As of right now the only distro out there we know of that will give you a functioning screen is one that the LinuxMCE project is selling. After install only 4Mb of drive are left to play around with. Thats about enough for an apt-get update.

Hopefully this will change soon

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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by quotaholic »

Status,

Efforts have not stopped on Nimblex and getting the touch screen working. It may not be as involved as anticipated however it is going to take a little time.

In the mean time I made a discovery about NimbleX that anyone should know.

It is a live distribution however Nimblex allows you to save files AND settings. I believe I stand corrected.

To do this copy the file holding the configuration values you want to save to the rootcopy folder reproducing its full path within that folder. Lets take the xorg.conf file for example:


To stop adjusting the xorg.conf file all you have to do is copy it in the
rootcopy/etc/X11/ directory from your flash drive. You'll have to create
the etc directory and inside that the X11 directory.


So there is a root copy folder already there in Nimblex. We simply have to make sure the path in that folder matches the path to the file we copied.

Another example. Say you have a mplayer config file that you need and it normally lives in this location:

/home/yourname/.mplayer/conf

Well then open /rootcopy and start making directories. We need a /home if its not there and a.mplayer directory within that one.
when your done it should look like this:

/rootcopy/home/yourname/.mplayer/ and in there paste your mplayer conf file so it shall be saved.

Do the same for whatever else you will need.

IMPORTANT

If you have not yet installed NimbleX take in to consideration one thing. The saved data goes in a "data" partition. You specify the size of this partition during the install. Give some thought as to how much stuff you save on average and what you will need to have available to you upon powerup. You can always redo your configs but if you have the potential to want to download pics or a movie while you are out or on the go and transfer it when your home then plan for it and give yourself a large data partition.
Fleegman
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by Fleegman »

Here are my results of trying to use NimbleX on my WebDT366:

All methods below had a USB hub connected to the WebDT with an external keyboard, external mouse and I was booting off a USB stick.


First off, I was not able to boot the "custom" NimbleX build.  Reason being is that my main system would hang during the CD boot process and I was not able to make a USB boot stick of this build to try and use on my WebDT.  On a side note, those "custom" builds of NimbleX are based on the 2007 distros.

Secondly, I was not able to boot the sub-100 distro of NimbleX on the WebDT... it would always hang at the "starting X11" prompt


However I was successful in booting the standard Nimblex2008 distro, but I was not able to get the desktop to downsize the resolution to 800x600; and yes I changed the vga= to vga=771... and it still started in a 1024x768 mode.

Have you successfully created a USB boot stick that works yet?  If so, is there anyway you can use PartImage(linux based) to create a "disk image" of it and upload it so that I can re-image one of my usb sticks with it?  PartImage has compression settings so the image file won't be that big, I'm guessing it would be around 50mb. 
My largest usb stick is 4gb, so if you are able to do this, make sure your usb stick isn't bigger than 4gb or I won't be able to place that image onto my usb stick.

I'll try to tinker around with NimbleX more today, but it's a slow process.
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by quotaholic »

Hey Fleegman,

Very very interesting. We are taking two different approaches. I think that may explain why we are seeing different results. Thank you for posting!

For all of my tests I used an usb external cd rom drive with the iso file burned to the disc. Ditto with usb hub, keyboard and mouse. Ironically I was not able to boot in to 2008 however the custom image I made as well as sub100 worked ok for me. Go figure.

I did have the same problem with the desktop resolution. vga=normal sets a 640x480. It works on some but not others. Are you ok with editing your xorg.conf file?

Varied results changing my resolution through desktop settings. At times it just rebooted. Go for the xorg.conf file in the /root directory if you do. The one in /etc/X11 did nothing for the root account.

I wish I could offer help on the usb stick. I tried a few other methods with images that were not dd and got frustrated. My biggest limitation right now is the motherboard is toast on my main computer. Currently using an apple and my WebDT.

The only images I have been able to get to take were ones in the dd format. For whatever reason when I "dd" the file to the usb stick it was recognized as a bootable target.

In the 2008 NimbleX whats the chance you see the slapt-get package manager? If you do try to see if you can find the penmount package. It may look like this: xorg-xserver-input-penmount I saw it in the custom image I made but I got distracted before I had a chance to use it. Thats on my to do list.

Found another build service but i will make anther thread on it.

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Fleegman
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by Fleegman »

The reason why I'm using the USB method is that once we get a linux distro working, I can simply plug in the usb stick, power it on and voila, everything is up and running on the WebDT --- kind of like using the Ubuntu USB method on desktops.  That way, these USB distro's for the WebDT can be made publically available.

The benefit of using distros like Slax and NimbleX is that they have the "persistant" save options, that way all your work and settings are saved.


Anyhow, I finally got NimbleX2008 loaded via USB boot.  I had to modify the xorg.conf file in the 02-xorg.lzm package and I had to remove all instances of the 1024x768 references.

Once I rebuilt the .lzm file, I rebooted and it loaded the desktop fine.  I even managed to get the xvkdb (virtula keyboard) for NimbleX working as well.

However, other than the desktop and XVKDB getting loaded, no other drivers worked; no sound, no wireless, no bluetooth... and it was dogged slow.  So i'm scratching NimbleX2008 out of the picture.

I'll try and give the sub-100mb edition another try... I might have to muck around with the .lzm file a bit and see what results I get.

I'll keep you posted on my findings.
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by Fleegman »

NimbleX 69MB Version

I was able to boot into the 69mb version of NimbleX, but I had to modify the nimblex69.lzm file.  I had to fully decompress it, locate etc/x11/ foler, and modify the .conf files and remove all instances of the 1024x768.  I created a new nimblex69.lzm file based on the changes, inserted my usb-stick into the WebDT and it booted to the desktop with no problems.  This was a very fast boot and it was very responsive as well.

The xvkbd module worked fine, however touchpoint and wireless didn't work "out of box".  You mentioned that you go wireless working "out of box" from the CD Boot?  Did you add a custom .lzm file when your created it?  If so, could you post that file here on the forums for download.

I'll try my hands on the Nimblex sub-100mb version next, i've downloaded several wifi .lzm's as well... so we'll see how this goes.

Once I'm able to get to a desktop and use wireless I will then concentrate my efforts on the penmount drivers, until I get wireless working there's no point for now.

Until my next post...
quotaholic
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by quotaholic »

Awesome Work Fleegman!

Have you tried any of the different desktops? I wanted to try e17 as it can have a very low memory footprint.

I cant say much at the moment but please don't dismiss Nimblex just quite yet.

I feel bad as my computer is on the fritz and now comcast botched my internet install. I am on a borrowed signal down the hall right now.

For me I saw the wireless light blinking so I went to wireless connections in the internet menu and it was that simple. Again on sub100 and custom images only.

Hey have you tried booting from your compact flash card? Any luck?

quotaholic

 
Fleegman
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by Fleegman »

To answer your questions, no I haven't touched the CF card yet.  Until I'm able to get everything working on USB boot, I won't touch the CF just yet.  Basically, USB booting would be the same if I put it on the CF anyway.

... more info since my last posts...

I finally figured a way to get both NimbleX Custom (which is just a custom build NimbleX 2007) and Slax5 working on USB boot.  The good thing about these "older" versions, is that they seem to work pretty well on the WebDT... however it's a bit tougher for me to modify the xorg.conf files as the newer versions of NimbleX and Slax stopped supporting the .MO files; once I get things working I'll write my finding in a bit more organized manner... I'll even upload the USB image too.  Until my next post....
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Re: Nimblex sub 100 distro

Post by Fleegman »

... and 8hrs later

Well, after a full day working with every type of NimbleX build and Slax builds it turned out to be a failed attempt.  Penmount support turned out to be a flop.

The only build that seems to be the most compatible with the WebDT366 is the Custom NimbleX builds (which are based on NimbleX 2007) these builds recognize everything (WiFi, BlueTooth, Sound) except for the touchscreen of course.

Below are some steps in making a 90% working version of NimbleX on your WebDT366:

1. Access the http://custom.nimblex.net/ website
2. Create a custom build of nimblex
3. Don't go crazy on the build, keep is light, here is what I suggest on your custom build:
  - office: none
  - games: none
  - network: firefox OR opera, remote desktop
  - graphics: none
  - multimedia: xine-ui
  - system: java runtime environment, gparted, xvkbd (must install for virtual keyboard to work)
  - develop: none
  - drivers: none
  - wallpapers: none
  - Volume: 100
  - PCM: 80

Keep the build as light weight as possible.  Once the build is complete, burn the ISO do a CD Drive.

To make things easy, download the following module for this build:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?wjhzzzncy2y

The above module will pre-configure the xorg.conf files to only allow a resolution of 800x600, which is perfect for the WebDT.

ADDITIONAL STEPS
- downloaded the X11.mo file (from the .zip above)
- create and burn the Custom NimbleX CD using guidelines above
- insert the CD into your Desktop computer and reboot  (yes, desktop computer).
- wait for the NimbleX desktop
- double click on the "Install" icon
- Install NimbleX onto a blank USB Flash Stick (min 1gb)
- Wait for NimbleX to install onto USB Flash Stick
- Once install is complete, copy the X11.mo file into the "module" folder
- Shutdown main system and remove USB stick
- Insert USB Stick into the WebDT366
- Power on and wait until NimbleX loads up (takes about 5-10min).

FURTHER TIPS:
Everything works except for touchscreen ---- which I couldn't get working.
At first boot, connect a USB keybard and Mouse (via a usb hub).
Using your external hardware, make a shortcut to the "xvkbd" program (located in /usr/bin/) on your desktop
That's it.


CONCLUSION:

Since I couldn't get the penmount drivers working in the slackware builds I'll be trying my luck with UBUNTU USB or another build, I know that Damn Small Linux was able to boot to the desktop with no modification whatsoever, and that was via the usb method from "pendrivelinux" --- but since it's a Knoppix build, I'm not to familiar with it to dip my hands in those waters.

Hopefully the above information will provide useful to others who are wanting to give this a go.
Last edited by Fleegman on Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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