Nimblex 2009 WebDT Beta
Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 12:12 pm
Just heard back from Bogdan and he has indicated the following:
This is a special NimbleX version for WebDT based on NimbleX 2008 and with a customized version of the kernel that will be in NimbleX 2009.
WARNING: NimbleX was not designed to work on hardware that is as limited as the WebDT hardware so expect very little.
This archive contains some last minute changes that are NOT TESTED AT ALL and there is a slim possibility nothing will work.
If I haven't missed major suff the following should work:
- The touchscreen should work acceptable. For that I had to downgrade the X server to a much older version. Also the X server taker forever to load probably because of the penmount touchscreen driver. Maybe someone could try to find a way to make X server load much faster.
- Bluetooth is untested but if I had to guess I'd say it will work. Most bluetooth related drivers are compiled directly in vmlinuz because in theory this would provide a more robust and slightly faster loading kernel.
- The buttons from the front of the device now register keypresses. Support is compiled directly in vmlinuz and there is an additional module called WebDT-keyboard.lzm that has a program which fires various scripts when one of the 4 buttons uder the display are pressed. I think the keypresses register function keys (eg. the keybord key registers F1 ?!) so maybe that program is not the best way to go. Also in the module it's the matchbox-keyboard with a customized layout that makes it very big but also very easily usable.
- Sound works. Drivers are compiled directly in vmlinuz again. When KDE loads you can hear the device is struggling to load and it make a very bad sound but when playing music in XMMS it works just fine.
Tips and tricks:
1. gparted can be used to easily format the internal flash of the webdt.
2. the persistent-dev.lzm module can be used to improve boot time by not using udevtrigger & udevsettle components of udev. udevd --daemon is still recommended so that hotpluggable USB will work. Bottom line, to improve boot speed comment line 96 in rc.udev and use that module.
3. If KDE is too slow for your taste try e17, fluxbox, ede or something else. Instead of startx at the autoexec parameter you can have: rune16, rune17, runede, runice, runflux, runtwm. For added usability try to optimize them for WebDT and ... don't forget to share
4. Tapping the screen for ~1s should produce a right-click event. I find this very little usable but when you have to right-click it's the only way to go.
5. Delete nimblex/rootcopy/etc/rc.d/rc.sshd if you don't want SSH to start. If you decide you want to start SSH don't forget to CHANGE THE ROOT PASSWORD and generate your SSH keys again for increased security. Currently pregenerated keys are available in WebDT-Settings.lzm to prevent for generating every boot.
6. Try to use the rootcopy directory as little as possible when you run NimbleX for a FAT partition because fat is not POSIX compliant and it doesn't hold correct permissions for your files. If you make changes you should pack them in a LZM module.
7. The dir2lzm command can be used for packing a directory as a LZM module and lzm2dir for the reverse action.
Further work.
There is much that can be improved but I don't think I'll be able to help with this. Hopefully someone can continue where I left of and optimize this for the WebDT. I think the main advantage is that now you can use packages that are compatible with NimbleX 2008 and packages that will be available soon for NimbleX 2009.
Even though boot will always be slow because the first 50 second of the boot on the WebDT actually take 2-3 seconds on my laptop and there is not much I think can be done there, there are places where the boot could be optimized like init scripts (start less things) and probably X.
The interface could be designed around a much lighter window manager and that will make the device perform a lot better. For example if you would want to use the thing mainly for web stuff KDE is a lot of bloat and the only requirement would be Firefox and a virtual keyboard that can be binded to the correct button on WebDT.
I've only booted from a flash drive where I installed syslinux but if that worked I don't see why booting from the internal flash shouldn't be possible.
All this being said, Happy Hacking
Bogdan
And here is the link:
http://public.nimblex.net/test/NimbleX-09-webdt-beta.tar.gz
Thank you very much Bogdan!
This is a special NimbleX version for WebDT based on NimbleX 2008 and with a customized version of the kernel that will be in NimbleX 2009.
WARNING: NimbleX was not designed to work on hardware that is as limited as the WebDT hardware so expect very little.
This archive contains some last minute changes that are NOT TESTED AT ALL and there is a slim possibility nothing will work.
If I haven't missed major suff the following should work:
- The touchscreen should work acceptable. For that I had to downgrade the X server to a much older version. Also the X server taker forever to load probably because of the penmount touchscreen driver. Maybe someone could try to find a way to make X server load much faster.
- Bluetooth is untested but if I had to guess I'd say it will work. Most bluetooth related drivers are compiled directly in vmlinuz because in theory this would provide a more robust and slightly faster loading kernel.
- The buttons from the front of the device now register keypresses. Support is compiled directly in vmlinuz and there is an additional module called WebDT-keyboard.lzm that has a program which fires various scripts when one of the 4 buttons uder the display are pressed. I think the keypresses register function keys (eg. the keybord key registers F1 ?!) so maybe that program is not the best way to go. Also in the module it's the matchbox-keyboard with a customized layout that makes it very big but also very easily usable.
- Sound works. Drivers are compiled directly in vmlinuz again. When KDE loads you can hear the device is struggling to load and it make a very bad sound but when playing music in XMMS it works just fine.
Tips and tricks:
1. gparted can be used to easily format the internal flash of the webdt.
2. the persistent-dev.lzm module can be used to improve boot time by not using udevtrigger & udevsettle components of udev. udevd --daemon is still recommended so that hotpluggable USB will work. Bottom line, to improve boot speed comment line 96 in rc.udev and use that module.
3. If KDE is too slow for your taste try e17, fluxbox, ede or something else. Instead of startx at the autoexec parameter you can have: rune16, rune17, runede, runice, runflux, runtwm. For added usability try to optimize them for WebDT and ... don't forget to share
4. Tapping the screen for ~1s should produce a right-click event. I find this very little usable but when you have to right-click it's the only way to go.
5. Delete nimblex/rootcopy/etc/rc.d/rc.sshd if you don't want SSH to start. If you decide you want to start SSH don't forget to CHANGE THE ROOT PASSWORD and generate your SSH keys again for increased security. Currently pregenerated keys are available in WebDT-Settings.lzm to prevent for generating every boot.
6. Try to use the rootcopy directory as little as possible when you run NimbleX for a FAT partition because fat is not POSIX compliant and it doesn't hold correct permissions for your files. If you make changes you should pack them in a LZM module.
7. The dir2lzm command can be used for packing a directory as a LZM module and lzm2dir for the reverse action.
Further work.
There is much that can be improved but I don't think I'll be able to help with this. Hopefully someone can continue where I left of and optimize this for the WebDT. I think the main advantage is that now you can use packages that are compatible with NimbleX 2008 and packages that will be available soon for NimbleX 2009.
Even though boot will always be slow because the first 50 second of the boot on the WebDT actually take 2-3 seconds on my laptop and there is not much I think can be done there, there are places where the boot could be optimized like init scripts (start less things) and probably X.
The interface could be designed around a much lighter window manager and that will make the device perform a lot better. For example if you would want to use the thing mainly for web stuff KDE is a lot of bloat and the only requirement would be Firefox and a virtual keyboard that can be binded to the correct button on WebDT.
I've only booted from a flash drive where I installed syslinux but if that worked I don't see why booting from the internal flash shouldn't be possible.
All this being said, Happy Hacking
Bogdan
And here is the link:
http://public.nimblex.net/test/NimbleX-09-webdt-beta.tar.gz
Thank you very much Bogdan!