Virtual keyboard (was: Re: How VNCVIEWER can bring non maemo applications onto the N800)
Concerning the virtual keyboard, I am a big fan of the way you can shift, on the standard n800 keyboard, by stroking up a key, instead of clicking it. I wonder how many n800 users have missed this feature? This idea should be extended so that we may stroke in any of the 8 directions (back and left are already used). This is much faster than shifting or whatever. I mostly never use shift anymore, even with a french keyboard in xterm (where basic characters like / have to be shifted). The Frenchman that I am will start as soon as possible to add the french accents on top of the vowels (like, getting é by an upper right stroke on e). The current special keyboard for accents is a pain. Unless somebody tell me that it's being done already. I really believe this should be standard, because it is so easy to learn. At some point, there will be the need to show the possibilities on the virtual keyboard itself (in small colored characters around the main letter). Anyway, back to VNCviewer, this should also be the way to go. Sorry if this has been around already, I'm just arriving and I haven't read all the archives yet. Florent Well, technically, it's not vncviewer's keyboard, it's the standard virtual input method keyboard that is used for all maemo applications. Plus, you have the advantages of the special keypresses provided by VNC viewer (i.e. Ctrl-Alt-Del, etc.). For the next release of VNC viewer, Detlef is making some changes that will provide the ability to configure the behavior of the + and - keys. They will basically become modifier keys (i.e. hold down the - key and click to get a left-click, if the - key is configured to act this way). I think the + and - keys will also work as modifier keys for other hardware keys (namely the directional keys), ala chords. This wasn't easily done on the 770 because it wasn't possible to have two keypresses at the same time (only the first took), but it appears that this problem has been remedied on the N800. ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: Virtual keyboard (was: Re: How VNCVIEWER can bring non maemo applications onto the N800)
Hi, ext Florent de Dinechin wrote: Concerning the virtual keyboard, I am a big fan of the way you can shift, on the standard n800 keyboard, by stroking up a key, instead of clicking it. I wonder how many n800 users have missed this feature? This idea should be extended so that we may stroke in any of the 8 directions (back and left are already used). Down is also already used, for Enter. (as explained in the user manual PDF files in the device Documents folder) - Eero ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: How VNCVIEWER can bring non maemo applications onto the N800
Hay Neil, I only want to stress one advantage of option #1. This would install about 7MBytes, where as option #2 and #3 will be about 100MBytes or more. This would be a reason to keep option #1 in mind, e.g. for a quick port of rdesktop, an application many users request... But personally I prefer option #3. But you need a big internal SD-flash. Detlef Am Dienstag, den 20.02.2007, 21:44 + schrieb Neil Jerram: Detlef Schmicker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hello, the last weeks I played around a little with setups, which allow to run applications on N800, which are not ported to maemo. The main problem using this kind of applications is the missing keyboard, if they are cross compiled. In penguinbait's experiments, I believe he uses xkbd to solve this. Presumably that would work with your approach too? vncviewer (http://vncviewer.garage.maemo.org/ ) can handle this, as easily is tested connecting to a debian linux machine and trying all the applications availible. Oh I see, that is clever! (I guess xkbd is still possible, but the vncviewer keyboard is much more convenient.) Have a look at the screen shot at http://physik.de/770/ with debian / testing runnin on a N800 within chroot and vncviewer. Very nice! To check that I've understood correctly: - Are you saying that everything from the debian/testing arm port will run without needing recompilation? - Am I right in thinking that the chroot is only needed so as not to mix up the debian/testing distribution with the maemo? (In other words, it's not required by something about how Xvnc and vncviewer work?) I tried three different setups (all are working, but none is enduser ready:-) 1.) I compiled Xvnc using the source from debian/testing within bora. This was running on N800. Than I started Xvnc for display :8 (from xterm) set the display variable and started the crosscompiled but unported version of e.g. rdesktop. Than vncviewer was started to view this localaly. How does a bora-compiled Xvnc differ from Xvnc in debian/testing? Is it just which libraries (libc etc.) it links to? This way one can use cross compiled version of linux software. 2.) I installed the debian armel port within a chroot environment, installed the vncserver package within this port and did basicaly the same as in 1.) what to be done for setup this: I have debian / armel port running on N800 on a 512 internal flash. I had to format it with ext3 filesystem (I think ext2 would have been OK) I had to insmod mbcache and ext2 module I mounted it I unpacked the rootfs from http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2007/01/msg00034.html I installed chroot and chrooted to the directory (I installed a new version of tar (compiled from sources), as the busybox does not support bz2 files) Now I do a gpt-get update within chroot ... This way all packages within this debian armel port seem to be usable on the N800 ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
How VNCVIEWER can bring non maemo applications onto the N800
Hello, the last weeks I played around a little with setups, which allow to run applications on N800, which are not ported to maemo. The main problem using this kind of applications is the missing keyboard, if they are cross compiled. vncviewer (http://vncviewer.garage.maemo.org/ ) can handle this, as easily is tested connecting to a debian linux machine and trying all the applications availible. Have a look at the screen shot at http://physik.de/770/ with debian / testing runnin on a N800 within chroot and vncviewer. I tried three different setups (all are working, but none is enduser ready:-) 1.) I compiled Xvnc using the source from debian/testing within bora. This was running on N800. Than I started Xvnc for display :8 (from xterm) set the display variable and started the crosscompiled but unported version of e.g. rdesktop. Than vncviewer was started to view this localaly. This way one can use cross compiled version of linux software. 2.) I installed the debian armel port within a chroot environment, installed the vncserver package within this port and did basicaly the same as in 1.) what to be done for setup this: I have debian / armel port running on N800 on a 512 internal flash. I had to format it with ext3 filesystem (I think ext2 would have been OK) I had to insmod mbcache and ext2 module I mounted it I unpacked the rootfs from http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2007/01/msg00034.html I installed chroot and chrooted to the directory (I installed a new version of tar (compiled from sources), as the busybox does not support bz2 files) Now I do a gpt-get update within chroot ... This way all packages within this debian armel port seem to be usable on the N800 3.) I did basically the same but with debian / testing for the arm platform. I compiled debootstrap for maemo, used it to install debian / sarge into a chroot environment. Than I configured /etc/apt/sources.list to use debian testing within the chroot. Did a apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade (if I remember correctly I had to remove apt-get first and install the version from debian / stable download dpkg -i), installed vncserver and icewm (window manager) and two init scripts: /root/init.sh with on N800 to start the chroot environment #!/bin/sh insmod /mnt/initfs/lib/modules/2.6.18-omap1/mbcache.ko insmod /mnt/initfs/lib/modules/2.6.18-omap1/ext2.ko mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /media/mmc2 chroot /media/mmc2/sid-arm /root/init.sh and within the chroot environment there was #!/bin/sh Xvnc -depth 16 -geometry 800x600 :8 export DISPLAY=:8 icewm mount proc /proc -t proc mount devpts /dev/pts -t devpts xsetroot -solid rgb:00/00/30 /bin/bash And up was the debian testing on the N800. I tried running firefox, gimp, kstars, xterm (a device was missing in debian / testing). firefox was quite fast, kstars very slow (floating point ?) gimp was slow too. But simple applications (gnome based and kde based) seem to run perfectly, just apt-get them within debian / testing and run. E.g. rdesktop runs fine in this setup. I expect even gnome desktop would be installable, only my 512 internal sd-card is to small:-) Thus anybody discussing, helping ... to get (I would love the debian / testing) setup enduser ready? A 300 MByte root fs I do not want to deliver, which would be the easiest way :-) Or getting the first setup developer ready, so that they may easily crosscompile an launch application they love. How to pack this for maemo (dependence an vncviewer and Xvnc server (not x11vnc as in 2006 application list :-) Hope some discussions will start :-) Detlef ___ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
Re: How VNCVIEWER can bring non maemo applications onto the N800
On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, Neil Jerram wrote: Detlef Schmicker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hello, the last weeks I played around a little with setups, which allow to run applications on N800, which are not ported to maemo. The main problem using this kind of applications is the missing keyboard, if they are cross compiled. In penguinbait's experiments, I believe he uses xkbd to solve this. Presumably that would work with your approach too? vncviewer (http://vncviewer.garage.maemo.org/ ) can handle this, as easily is tested connecting to a debian linux machine and trying all the applications availible. Oh I see, that is clever! (I guess xkbd is still possible, but the vncviewer keyboard is much more convenient.) Well, technically, it's not vncviewer's keyboard, it's the standard virtual input method keyboard that is used for all maemo applications. Plus, you have the advantages of the special keypresses provided by VNC viewer (i.e. Ctrl-Alt-Del, etc.). For the next release of VNC viewer, Detlef is making some changes that will provide the ability to configure the behavior of the + and - keys. They will basically become modifier keys (i.e. hold down the - key and click to get a left-click, if the - key is configured to act this way). I think the + and - keys will also work as modifier keys for other hardware keys (namely the directional keys), ala chords. This wasn't easily done on the 770 because it wasn't possible to have two keypresses at the same time (only the first took), but it appears that this problem has been remedied on the N800. Have a look at the screen shot at http://physik.de/770/ with debian / testing runnin on a N800 within chroot and vncviewer. Very nice! To check that I've understood correctly: - Are you saying that everything from the debian/testing arm port will run without needing recompilation? That's my understanding from conversations with Detlef, but I haven't personally tried this yet, so I don't know from personal experience. - Am I right in thinking that the chroot is only needed so as not to mix up the debian/testing distribution with the maemo? (In other words, it's not required by something about how Xvnc and vncviewer work?) I tried three different setups (all are working, but none is enduser ready:-) 1.) I compiled Xvnc using the source from debian/testing within bora. This was running on N800. Than I started Xvnc for display :8 (from xterm) set the display variable and started the crosscompiled but unported version of e.g. rdesktop. Than vncviewer was started to view this localaly. How does a bora-compiled Xvnc differ from Xvnc in debian/testing? Is it just which libraries (libc etc.) it links to? This way one can use cross compiled version of linux software. 2.) I installed the debian armel port within a chroot environment, installed the vncserver package within this port and did basicaly the same as in 1.) what to be done for setup this: I have debian / armel port running on N800 on a 512 internal flash. I had to format it with ext3 filesystem (I think ext2 would have been OK) I had to insmod mbcache and ext2 module I mounted it I unpacked the rootfs from http://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/2007/01/msg00034.html I installed chroot and chrooted to the directory (I installed a new version of tar (compiled from sources), as the busybox does not support bz2 files) Now I do a gpt-get update within chroot ... This way all packages within this debian armel port seem to be usable on the N800 Cool. So, comparing (1) and (2), one basically has a choice between cross-compiling and chrooting - right? 3.) I did basically the same but with debian / testing for the arm platform. I compiled debootstrap for maemo, used it to install debian / sarge into a chroot environment. Than I configured /etc/apt/sources.list to use debian testing within the chroot. Did a apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade (if I remember correctly I had to remove apt-get first and install the version from debian / stable download dpkg -i), installed vncserver and icewm (window manager) and two init scripts: /root/init.sh with on N800 to start the chroot environment #!/bin/sh insmod /mnt/initfs/lib/modules/2.6.18-omap1/mbcache.ko insmod /mnt/initfs/lib/modules/2.6.18-omap1/ext2.ko mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /media/mmc2 chroot /media/mmc2/sid-arm /root/init.sh As you say, this seems effectively identical to (2). and within the chroot environment there was So this is /root/init.sh, is it? #!/bin/sh Xvnc -depth 16 -geometry 800x600 :8 export DISPLAY=:8 icewm mount proc /proc -t proc mount devpts /dev/pts -t devpts xsetroot -solid rgb:00/00/30 /bin/bash And up was the debian testing on the N800. Well I've already said it, but I'll say it again: very nice! And in my view this is a nicer solution than
