Related
Optware was originally developed as a distribution mechanism for software for the Open Source Linux project for the Linksys NSLU2 (a small low cost network storage device). That consumer storage device ran on Linux, and the community opened it up, but they needed a lightweight distribution mechanism for their lightweight devices.
Since 2004 Optware has been adopted by a variety of Linux communities and device developers including the webOS community working on the Palm Pre and Pixi, and developers for devices as diverse as Asus WL-500g,WL-HDD, WL-500gx, WL-500gP routers, the Synology DS-101 and DS-101g+ NAS devices.
At its core, Optware is a package manager to allow you to easly install and uninstall cross-compiled linux applications on your device over the internet. At this time, optware supports the automatic download and installation of over 1500 programs. (See the list at the end of the wiki article.)
Why should I use Optware?
Like the original slug, android devices lack a distribution mechanism to install Linux/command line tools programs and utilities. Many in the Android community who want or need to do command line processing on their device use a chroot of some sort (Debian seems popular) to get their distribution and package management tools. With Optware, it becomes possible to simply run whatever utility or program you want on the native underlying Linux.
Additionally, Optware For Android installs openSSH making it possible to access your Nook from any PC with SSH capability, and sets up an unprivileged username/password login system for the device at the command line. All in all then, since it can be installed with a single script, since it's lightweight, and since it's designed for small and embedded devices, Optware is a perfect fit for the Android community.
Optware for Nook is the first Optware for Android release by the Novaports team and is their gift to the Android community members who have helped them so much with information on Android devices.
What does it do?
The Optware bootstrap installed the IPKG package manager. It installs the optware Busybox. It installs openSSH and makes the ssh demon persistent. It creates an unprivileged user with a username and password you choose.
See Installation instructions and details at the Optware for Android page at Nookdevs.com
For completeness of licensing compliance, the source code for all optware package can be found at the following locations:
1) build scripts at svn.nslu2-linux.org in the /svnroot/optware/ area
2) tarballs at sources.nslu2-linux.org in the /sources area (this is a *large* directory)
To contribute code to Optware, see www . nslu2-linux . org in the /wiki/Optware/AddAPackageToOptware area
-- Rod Whitby
-- Original NSLU2-Linux Project Lead and Optware Architect
This works beautifully! Thank you!
Gonna try this and see if i can get samba to work.. a SMB mount over wifi would be awsome...
Many thanks!
I don't suppose there's a quick and easy way to completely remove optware?... not looking forward to culling through scripts and manually un-doing it all.....
adduser: not found
When it gets to the part in the install script to add the username of the unprivileged user, I enter a name, then it says: adduser: not found.
If it helps, I am using Rooted Stock 1.1.
Anyone get Optware to install on CM7 (newer nightly)
I am running CM7 #103 and would love to have optware installed.
But I get Fail if I try to use the method from Nookdevs
Tonight when I have more time I will look at the errors and see if I can tell what is up.
It looked like partially due to missing dir's for one (/tmp)
madrascafe said:
Gonna try this and see if i can get samba to work.. a SMB mount over wifi would be awsome...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The market has your answer and it's free:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.funkyfresh.samba&feature=search_result
Am I the only one that wants Optware on CM7?
It goes fine on a manualnootered 1.2.0 NC But I prefer CM7 (And use the nightlies)
I would love to get this going on my NC as well. Running CM7 N121 w/ 6/30/2011 OC kernel. Was able to manually work past the tmp directory problem you mentioned, but I can't seem to execute the ipkg binary or installed. I've verified it indeed exists in the path I'm trying to execute it from, it has +x perms for user/ group/ other, but it always gives the error below:
/data/opt/bin/ipkg: not found
I've tried messing with bin directory and ipkg binary ownership, but no dice. If anything it should at least find it even if permissions aren't correct.
Looks like the contents of the binary reference ELF libraries which sounds like an issue attempting to execute in an Android environment. Going to see if I can chroot an environment that will work for it.
Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk
This is happening because it's looking for /lib/ld-linux.so.3, and not finding it. I worked around by
ln -s /data/opt/lib/ld-linux.so.3 /lib/ld-linux.so.3
I also had to make these links:
ln -s /data/opt /opt
ln -s /data/tmp /tmp
And then set this:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/opt/lib
export PATH=$PATH:/opt/bin/:/opt/sbin
in my bash profile to get things to start working.
One problem is my symlinks seem to get erased every reboot. I worked around by re-creating them in my bash profile, but I wish I knew how to make them permanent. This may be a ROM specific thing - this was written for a rooted stock nook, and I'm on an Epic running SFR.
I do not have a ld-linux.so.3 file on my NC w/ CM7 125
I have many other errors that show up:
Downloading the latest ipkg-opt package from the Optware package feed:
Connecting to ipkg.nslu2-linux.org (140.211.169.161:80)
wget: can't open 'ipkg-opt_0.99.163-10_arm.ipk': File exists
(NOTE the above file 'ipkg-opt_0.99.163-10_arm.ipk' does not exist
(on my NC - from a find / -name ipkg-opt_0.99.163-10_arm.ipk)
Updating the Optware package database:
ERROR: Failed to update the local Optware package database
Updating the Optware package database:
/data/optware-bootstrap-0.0.1.shar: ipkg-opt: not found
ERROR: Failed to update the local Optware package database
Any ideas?
The actual file it needs is /data/opt/lib/ld-linux.so.3 - you need to create a symlink in /lib in order to see it. But I think that file comes from the optware installer - if the installer is failing, you won't have it there either. It sounds like you may have bits of a previous install that failed, and it's preventing the install from running properly. Try looking at the log in /data/tmp for more info. After that, try rm -rf /data/tmp/* to clean up the old install and trying again.
Thank You for any pointers.
I deleted everything in /data/tmp first last attempt - like you suggested.
Same result
I have it down to only this error now when I run it (optware-bootstrap-0.0.1.shar):
Updating the Optware package database:
optware-bootstrap-0.0.1.shar: ipkg-opt: not found
ERROR: Failed to update the local Optware package database
ipkg-opt should be in /data/opt/bin. Check to see if it's there... if not, something went wrong in one of the previous steps - probably somewhere around "Downloading the latest ipkg-opt package from the Optware package feed". See if wget is actually downloading anything, where it's putting it, and what it's doing with it afterwards.
If it is there, try running it manually. If you see /data/opt/bin/ipkg or /data/opt/bin/ipkg-opt but it claims it's not there when you run it, it may be a library linking error. Mine was looking for /lib/ld-linux.so.3 but it was actually installed at /data/opt/lib/ld-linux.so.3. mount -o remount,rw followed by ln -s /data/opt/lib/ld-linux.so.3 /lib/ld-linux.so.3 fixed that. I also had to run
ln -s /data/opt /opt
ln -s /data/tmp /tmp
before things started working.
By the way:
ntfsprogs - NTFS filesystem libraries and utilities
Could that be of any use? At the moment, it's not possible to mount NTFS storage on the NC
i would love to know how you guys get to this point even. When i try to install the very fist line of the script is an error and then nothing at all happens .... something about not finding busybox or something of that nature.
So you guys are getting WAY farther than I've been able to.
Tkx Tonygoes.
It is there in /data/opt/bin but it reports /data/opt/bin/ipkg: not found
I cannot find a ld-linux.so.3 on my NC at all.
I did the other links et al fro your comments also
obsid:
Try post 12 above:
and I had some other suggestions from someone:
might try thses FIRST the script seems to do it but may not actually get it done.
mount -o remount,rw / /
mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mmcblk0p5 /system
you should also if tried before do this: rm -rf /data/tmp/
then do the items in post #12 above
NOTE for me the ln -s to ld-linux.so.3 does not work as I do not have that file on my system
I ran the Snowball Mod without a hitch. I then tried to run the update but it won't run for some reason. The window flashes some text quickly but then closes so I'm not even really sure why it's not working. Anyone run into this or have any ideas. Thanks in advance!
I haven't had the time to try out the snowball mod, yet -- so I can't offer any advice. But, I would post the issue in the development thread, that's where the most help will be.
Swyped from my B&N Nook Tablet.
Try running it from a command line to keep it up and be able to read any text.
Also, there is a log.txt, if you post that, it can be more helpful.
Yeah I was goin to but I don't have enough posts. I was hoping someone would see it here.
Well... if you post your log.txt and start it from a command-line window rather than double clicking the update.bat, then we can take a look at what's up.
Log file says:
Snowball is reporting: v2.0.2
NO PACKAGE AVAILABLE
Command line:
Snowball is reporting: v2.0.2
There does not appear to be a package for the version snowball is reporting.
Are you sure you're not reapplying an update?
Perhaps you are accidentally trying to apply an "outdate"?
Thanks a lot!
There is no v2.0.2 update package in the zip folder. I renamed v2.0.1 to v2.0.2 and ran. Not sure if this was a good thing to do or not. Any help or direction would be appreciated. Thanks.
No write permissions
Tried to install snowball mod from a macbook pro by just running the snowball.sh. Started up and the B&N stuff was all there, although it looked like it ran without a hitch.
Looked at the log file in the snowball-mod folder and saw a lot of "Read-only file system" business. The first few lines being:
unzip: can't open nook-update-package.zip, nook-update-package.zip.zip, nook-update-package.zip.ZIP^M
rm failed for nook-update-package.zip, Read-only file system^M
Installing nook-update-package...
cd: can't cd to /mnt/media/nook-update-package^M
sh: Can't open install^M
rm failed for /mnt/media/nook-update-package, No such file or directory^M
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you suggest I get around that?
conundrum768 said:
I haven't had the time to try out the snowball mod, yet -- so I can't offer any advice. But, I would post the issue in the development thread, that's where the most help will be.
Swyped from my B&N Nook Tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We need 10 legit posts before we are allowed to post in the dev forum
Robotronik said:
Tried to install snowball mod from a macbook pro by just running the snowball.sh. Started up and the B&N stuff was all there, although it looked like it ran without a hitch.
Looked at the log file in the snowball-mod folder and saw a lot of "Read-only file system" business. The first few lines being:
How do you suggest I get around that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh... this is weird... /mnt/media should not be read-only... although, I suppose, perhaps if you had it USB mounted, it might end up read-only.
Ensure that you have Automatic USB mounting turned off before you run the script.
You can actually push this update via wifi if you mod the update.bat (or update.sh for linux users) file.
Just turn on ADB Wifi (I prefer adbWireless app) and add the following to your bat file:
Code:
echo Waiting for device...
[B]adb connect XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:XXXX[/B]
adb wait-for-device
...
adb shell "chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/update-package.sh ; su -c /data/local/tmp/update-package.sh" >> log.txt
if exist reboot adb reboot
[B]adb connect XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:XXXX[/B]
echo INSTALLATION SUCCESSFUL
Use your IPort given to you by your ADB Wifi app in place of XXXs. Then just run the .bat!
Run from cmd if you don't want the output to vanish right away.
cfoesch said:
Ensure that you have Automatic USB mounting turned off before you run the script.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, that got me a little further. Now:
Extracting nook-update-package...
Archive: nook-update-package.zip
creating: nook-update-package/data/
unzip: can't set permissions of directory 'nook-update-package': Operation not permitted
unzip: exiting
Installing nook-update-package...
sh: Can't open install
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More permissions issues...
Still posting here because I don't have the 10 total posts to go in the Dev forum...
Anyway, I did the factory reinstall, and reran the snowballmod update. It said the root was still there, so I commented out that check from the snowball.sh, reran the package and everything went swimmingly.
Now, for the update:
The terminal spits out this:
Waiting for device...
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
7 KB/s (46 bytes in 0.006s)
Snowball is reporting: v2.0.2
.zipte-package-v2.0.2
There does not appear to be a package for the version snowball is reporting.
Are you sure you're not reapplying an update?
Perhaps you are accidentally trying to apply an 'outdate'?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where the log file gives me:
Snowball is reporting: v2.0.2
NO PACKAGE AVAILABLE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The file "update-package-v2.0.2.zip" is in the directory. In the "update.sh" file replaced all instances of "${VERSION}" with "v2.0.2" and it seemed to work fine.
same
Robotronik said:
Still posting here because I don't have the 10 total posts to go in the Dev forum...
Anyway, I did the factory reinstall, and reran the snowballmod update. It said the root was still there, so I commented out that check from the snowball.sh, reran the package and everything went swimmingly.
Now, for the update:
The terminal spits out this:
Where the log file gives me:
The file "update-package-v2.0.2.zip" is in the directory. In the "update.sh" file replaced all instances of "${VERSION}" with "v2.0.2" and it seemed to work fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I AM HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM.MYBE..I need help some plz make a better howtos for dummies m
The first thing you need to do, if you have no clue what you're doing, is post the contents of the log file in the snowballmod folder.
The ".zipte-package-v2.0.2" seems to be related to adb shell "snowball-ver" returning DOS formatted text, even though you're in a *nix. I really did not expect this to happen with the linux and osx versions of adb, but apparently, they perform the same as cygwin... (cygwin I expected, after all, the adb.exe is a windows program). I will fix the update scripts to take that into account.
Code:
unzip: can't set permissions of directory 'nook-update-package': Operation not permitted
This message is reported by unzip when it is run by a non-root user on the /mnt/media partition.
You do _NOT_ have to run snowball-update though if you've installed snowball-mod fresh with the most recent version.
robtlebel said:
I AM HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM.MYBE..I need help some plz make a better howtos for dummies m
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The changes made to the script were posted here:
Robotronik said:
Now, for the update:
The terminal spits out this:
Waiting for device...
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
7 KB/s (46 bytes in 0.006s)
Snowball is reporting: v2.0.2
.zipte-package-v2.0.2
There does not appear to be a package for the version snowball is reporting.
Are you sure you're not reapplying an update?
Perhaps you are accidentally trying to apply an 'outdate'?
Where the log file gives me:
Snowball is reporting: v2.0.2
NO PACKAGE AVAILABLE
The file "update-package-v2.0.2.zip" is in the directory. In the "update.sh" file replaced all instances of "${VERSION}" with "v2.0.2" and it seemed to work fine.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the same issue with the name of the update file being called incorrectly: ".zipte-package-v2.0.2". With that output the script is looking for a file of that name and it's not finding it. I just changed the value of the variable ${VERSION} to v2.0.2 (since that was what was being reported by Snowball as my current version) and all worked after that.
Easy to fix temporarily:
-open "update.sh" in a text editor
-go to line 66 and change
VERSION=`awk '//{ print $2 }' snowball.version`
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
to
VERSION=v2.0.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
or whatever version yours shows to be running (v2.0.1, etc). Something tells me it might be important to input the correct current version number in
-save and close the file and rerun it.
EDIT: or wait until cfoesch fixes the scripts
Scripts should be updated. I changed the awk program from just "//{ print $2 }" to "//{ sub('\r', '', $2); print $2 }" ... this means that it works both ways... *insert your favorite "both ways" joke here*
It should also detect if you haven't turned off automount, and warn you about it. If the nook ends up rebooting, then it would tear the USB mount and could cause file corruption. I got around it by putting things in /data rather than /mnt/media, but then realized, if it has to reboot, then it could cause trouble. So better, to just warn them that automount was on, and quit out.
It also detects better if something went wrong in the installation process, and should report that installation has failed, rather than successful under all cases.
Things may have gotten broken in the process, so keep up the bug reports.
I just can't stop Nookin' Around.........god i need to sleep
I decided to check out the update.sh script (can only go so far currently since I have the latest update).
At least for me, (Ubuntu Linux 11.10) I figured something out about the $OSTYPE call to set the $adb variable. I could echo $OSTYPE in the terminal and got a response, but could not echo it in any scripts. Ended up finding the "uname -o" call and that seems to have gotten it to work, although the printout is different.
snowball-update# echo $OSTYPE
linux-gnu
snowball-update# uname -o
GNU/Linux
Changed lines 7 & 8 and seems to have worked:
case `uname -o` in
GNU*|linux*|Linux*)
Now this last part is probably something on my end but: update.sh: 62: ./adblinux: Permission denied
Thanks again for the work (and everyone else involved in rooting/hacking these things )
Indeed. $OSTYPE seems to be specific to bash, and not all sh implementations.
If you don't mind could you do this command and give me the output? "ls -l /bin/sh" and "sh --version" Those two commands should explain exactly which implementation of sh you have. (For instance, on the NT with snowball-mod, the sh is a minimal implementation, and does not support $OSTYPE. But on most OSes I've seen sh is actually a statically linked bash, as it is the most widely used shell scripting language.)
The case on that you provided though could be a poor choice, as GNU*) would match GNU/freebsd, or GNU/openbsd, or GNU/anykernel. Sure it is unlikely, but it is possible.
The permissions issue is not entirely your end, but it is an expected artifact of extracting from a zip file. Although, is suppose performing a chmod 755 on it prior to use would be a good idea in general.
Well, a week into my Nexus 5 and the dates on backups got to me. "Was that the one before or after I pooched my phone?"
I was doing rough conversions at first, then convinced myself that there was a reasonably fixed offset between "real time" and what TWRP was labeling things. @helicopter88 let me know that there was a missing ability in the chip, so I looked for a run-time solution. Unfortunately, adjtimex wouldn't take a large enough offset.
Since the reasonably useless date stamps on backups were, well, reasonably useless, I did write a little script that converted the dates on the backups to something that matched my local time, given the offset.
Looks like @Dees_Troy has saved me a bunch of coding inside TWRP as there is a going-forward fix in the TWRP sources now. Since he found the magic file where the offset is stored, you don't have to try to "guess" it from looking at your clock and your phone's (though $ date && adb shell date will get you the information you need).
For those backups you already have, here's how you can get the dates and times fixed up on them.
Edit -- Shell scripts made up for on-phone use:
sh birthday.sh while on the phone will give you offset and your phone's birthday (Yes, Korean time, of course!)
Code:
[email protected]:/ # sh /data/media/0/twrp-dates-tool/birthday.sh <
1386550085
Mon Dec 9 09:48:05 KST 2013
sh spew-twrp-rename.sh /path/to/TWRP/BACKUPS will write the commands to move the directories to the terminal (stdout)
The "spew" script finds the offset itself.
It will rewrite both old (20th century) dates and current ones, but only time-shift the older ones.
It will also convert spaces in the file names to underscore characters.
See attached files (.txt added to allow upload)
No, there isn't a "zip" for this -- checking that the right things are being done with your backups before they can't be undone is important
Read on only if you want to do this using perl.
Now, you can adb pull /data/system/time/ to get two files, ats_1 and ats_2 that have the offset in milliseconds as a 64-bit unsigned integer. Pick one or the other, get the human-readable output trim off the last three digits, and there is your offset (within a second). Mine drifts a second each week or so, but hey, this is a lot closer than 1970 something!
Once you have the offset, this script will take a list of files and spit out the commands to rename them, if they match a TWRP-format date in the 1970s. (Edit $offset to match yours.)
Code:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use Date::Parse;
use Date::Format;
my $offset = 1386550084; # Edit this to match your offset
my $line;
my ($year,$mo,$day,$h,$m,$s);
my $twrp_time;
my $new_time_string;
my $before;
my $after;
LINE:
while ( defined ( $line = <> ) ) {
chomp $line; chomp $line;
next LINE unless $line =~ m/((197\d)-(\d\d)-(\d\d)--(\d\d)-(\d\d)-(\d\d))/;
$before = $`; $after = $';
$twrp_time = str2time("$2/$3/$4 $5:$6:$7 GMT");
$new_time_string = time2str("%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S%z", $twrp_time + $offset);
$before =~ s/ /_/g;
$after =~ s/ /_/g;
print "mv '$line' ${before}${new_time_string}${after}\n";
}
Output looks like
Code:
mv '1970-02-22--23-02-13 omni_hammerhead-userdebug 4.4.2 KOT49H 128' 2014-01-30_155017-0800_omni_hammerhead-userdebug_4.4.2_KOT49H_128
mv '1970-02-23--13-50-29 omni_hammerhead-userdebug 4.4.2 KOT49H 128' 2014-01-31_063833-0800_omni_hammerhead-userdebug_4.4.2_KOT49H_128
mv '1970-02-23--15-22-06 omni_hammerhead-userdebug 4.4.2 KOT49H 126' 2014-01-31_081010-0800_omni_hammerhead-userdebug_4.4.2_KOT49H_126
mv '1970-02-23--16-10-01 omni_hammerhead-userdebug 4.4.2 KOT49H 126' 2014-01-31_085805-0800_omni_hammerhead-userdebug_4.4.2_KOT49H_126
mv '1970-02-25--17-11-08 omni_hammerhead-userdebug 4.4.2 KOT49H 127' 2014-02-02_095912-0800_omni_hammerhead-userdebug_4.4.2_KOT49H_127
which you can copy and paste into a shell on your device, or other places you have your TWRP backups backed up.
.
Whoa! Nice one man! A bit of extra work is just fine rather than renaming each of the backups! Thanks a bunch
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
good work bro.
Possible a zip file to flash for this ?
tks
jonata said:
Possible a zip file to flash for this ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me look into what options there are in toolbox/busybox for the date parsing. As this was a quick-and-dirty solution, I didn't dive into trying to get it to run on the device.
Umm,, huh?
NEXUS 5
dave2metz said:
Umm,, huh?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be clear, the perl scripts run on something that has perl installed, like your laptop or desktop. The output runs just fine over adb shell to rename files on your phone. It also works just fine to rename the backup copies that you are keeping on your Mac, Linux, FreeBSD box. For Windows without Cygwin or similar, you'd want to change "mv" to "move"
Edit -- shell scripts for on-phone use added to lead post
So open in terminal on phone and run ?
sent from my hammerhead
Yes, or over "adb shell" which makes cut-and-paste a lot easier.
Posted from whatever phone booted today.
Mine has it on the box!
Sent by mobile telephone.
EDIT: I bring you the new OFFICIAL way of installing X11 applications, I've been neglecting this thread way too much and need to give it some love.
The old instructions (OLD METHOD) are no longer needed as of April on the rc and rc-proposed channels, this should work on all channels however (tested up to latest devel-proposed image)
NOTE: You still need a writable image for the first parts of this, after you install the tools, it can go back to read-only.
1) Open Terminal
2) Install the following packages: libertine libertine-tools python3-libertine-chroot
3) Open the Ubuntu Store and install the scope: libertine-scope
4) Open the Libertine application that's now available in your launcher and follow instructions, it will set up a Ubuntu Vivid chroot in your home directory, install the components needed, and drop you at the package management screen. From here, you can update and add PPAs to the container via the Settings Icon -> Manage Container, Install packages via the plus icon, etc.
5) Favorite the Libertine XApps scope by swiping up on the home screen and hitting the star, then open the scope and you'll see any applications you installed there.
If you cannot install your container via the Libertine application (I know that it didn't have support for chroot until recently, not sure if that version has landed yet), you can install your container via the teminal, so open your terminal but DO NOT sudo su. All Libertine-container-manager commands MUST be done as phablet.
To create a container (this line will likely change when Xenial drops as Libertine will be switching to LXC on Xenial):
Code:
libertine-container-manager --create -i <container id> -n <friendly name (this shows up in the Libertine app)> -t chroot
Using this command, the system will build the new libertine container, wait until it's finished and then you can continue by using the installed Libertine application.
Onscreen Keyboard in Libertine Applications
THIS CAN FINALLY BE DONE! The only con to it, is that it is mostly unusable in applications that open dialog boxes along the bottom of the screen, the XMir window does not scroll up like native applications do to give a better viewing window. (I have been told that this will change in OTA-12 when the keyboard support drops for Libertine/Puritine apps)
To install on-screen keyboard:
Open Libertine and add ppa:brandontschaefer/maliit to your container. Then hit update in Manage Containers. Once done, install the following, maliit-inputcontext-gtk2, maliit-inputcontext-gtk3, maliit-framework. After that, setup is complete in your container, now we need to do some extra work outside the container to make it pass the GTK_IM_MODULE variable we need over to Libertine. To do this, add this line to your .bashrc or if you have a writable image, you can add this to the systemwide profile (not sure if this will be replaced on OTA though):
Code:
export GTK_IM_MODULE=maliitphablet
Restart the tablet OS, Open an application such as Libreoffice Writer and BEHOLD!
Notes
You can also manage your container via the terminal with libertine-container-manager. To get a root shell without installing mate terminal (You can't get a root shell via this method (installing a term), Proot acts like fakeroot all over your container's rootfs), you can use the following:
- l-c-m exec -c bash (This command does not mount any user directories (/home/phablet will not exist) and is best used for making changes to the container's rootfs)
or if you only need a user shell:
- DISPLAY= libertine-launch <containerid (default is vivid)> bash (This mounts user directories, but is no different than if you installed something like mate-terminal and ran it. The reason we are passing an empty DISPLAY variable is because libertine-launch will refuse to start if DISPLAY isn't set, even it if doesn't exist.)
- DPI Hacks: To change the DPI of applications in Libertine, you need a new way to make the .Xdefaults file as only the XDG User directories get mounted inside the libertine container, not your entire Home. To do this, install your favorite editor inside of the libertine container (I find nano to be the easiest for new users), and open Terminal, then follow these instructions:
1) Open your editor to ~/.local/share/libertine-container/user-data/[my container id, default = vivid]/.Xdefaults and fill it with the following:
Code:
Xft.dpi: 175
or what your preferred DPI is. On the Nexus 7 flo the comfortable DPI is 175 with an application font size of 14 (I use Liberation Sans which comes from Libreoffice).
- You can make your applications look great still, you don't have to be stuck with the default Raleigh GTK style. Download and install LXAppearance in your container and add ppa:noobslab/themes then start installing themes. Enjoy! The Ubuntu Touch Themes are wonderful and FlatPlat works well with the system UI as well.
Some cons to this:
- It requires at least 3GBs available in your internal storage (wherever your home folder resides) to store a full, non-touch Ubuntu Vivid container.
Pros:
- It survives OTAs, the only thing able to break this would be a change to XMir, PRoot, or Libertine. Which is landing in the images shortly by default so there's not much of a chance to break this.
- Nothing you do will break your UTouch system. Unlike the old method, this only installs the items needed to run the container, which are to become standard inside the images very soon.
OLD METHOD
--------------------
EDIT: I have not tested this in stable, rc, rc-proposed yet. Only the dev-proposed channel.
So there is some questioning I see going on about how to run things like Firefox efficiently and well. So I figured I'd write up a little something for it.
First you'll want to set your DPI in ~/.Xdefaults, as I have a Nexus 7, mine looks similar to this:
Xft.dpi: 240
Note that you may need to do some additional tweaking.
Now that you have Xdefaults made, install the ubuntu-pocket-desktop and matchbox-window-manager packages (along with the program you wish to use, for this tutorial, I'll use libreoffice).
Create a file in /bin called wm-wrapper.sh (or whatever you choose here, just remember the name), fill it with:
Code:
#!/bin/bash
matchbox-window-manager -use_titlebar no -use_dialog_mode const-horiz &
exec [email protected]
and save it, then chmod a+x it.
EDIT: For this next part, I recommend copying the .desktop to ~/.local/share/applications to avoid them being overwritten on package updates.
Now, navigate to /usr/share/applications/ and open the .desktop file for the application you are wanting to run. Add the following lines under [Desktop]:
Code:
X-Ubuntu-Touch=true
X-Ubuntu-XMir-Enable=true
Change the Exec line so that your wrapper (in my case wm-wrapper.sh) is in front of the executable, such that the line becomes (or similar):
Code:
Exec=/bin/wm-wrapper.sh libreoffice %U
Save it, then search for your application in the Unity Scopes. Open it up and you should see your application running as an XMir app easy. For future applications, you will simply need to do the changes to it's .desktop file.
EDIT: A helpful redditor gave me this tip to enable sending touch events over to Xmir. Setting the GTK_TEST_TOUCHSCREEN environment variable to 1 will apparently remove hover events and the like (events that are not normally sent with a touch screen, but with a mouse). I have not had time to take a look at this yet however so YMMV.
Thanks man, gonna try this on my n4 later today. ?
thumbzzzz said:
Thanks man, gonna try this on my n4 later today.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem, Like I said, not sure if it works on other channels, but it works great on the dev-proposed channel. You will also want to close applications using their menu items as closing the Xmir root window will cause the application to terminate without asking to save anything. Libreoffice can get around this via Document Recovery though.
I had been working on this for a good solid week testing applications and different ways to get X11 applications working so I could make it a full workstation, so I figured why not post my findings since the Ubuntu forum doesn't seem to get much love.
Thanks for the matchbox tip! It works quite nicely, especially, it brings a nice onscreen keyboard with it. I use the following setup now:
~/.local/share/applications/gedit-mb.desktop
Code:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=GEdit in Matchbox
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Icon=/usr/share/gedit/logo/gedit-logo.png
X-Ubuntu-Touch=true
#X-Ubuntu-XMir-Enable=true
Exec=/home/phablet/bin/matchbox-wrapper.sh gedit
~/bin/matchbox-wrapper.sh
Code:
#!/bin/bash
export DISPLAY=:1
Xmir $DISPLAY &
sleep 1
# xlogo
# xeyes
# x11vnc -forever -nopw -quiet -display $DISPLAY &
matchbox-window-manager &
sleep 1
matchbox-keyboard &
[email protected]
~/.matchbox/kbdconfig
Code:
# http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/223110/what-are-the-keyboard-shortcuts-for-matchbox-window-manager
<ctrl><alt>p=prev
<ctrl><alt>n=next
<ctrl><alt>d=!matchbox-desktop
<ctrl><alt>x=!xterm
<ctrl><alt>f=!firefox
Together with the Xft.dpi setting (I use 220) this gives me a quite usable editor. If you have any other tips ShadowEO, I'd love to hear them!
One thing I'd like to figure out is how to modify the DPI for the Mir GDK Backend. Currently GTK3 applications started with the backend are way to small.
ShadowEO said:
One thing I'd like to figure out is how to modify the DPI for the Mir GDK Backend. Currently GTK3 applications started with the backend are way to small.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have a specific example? Which application are you looking at?
doniks said:
Do you have a specific example? Which application are you looking at?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, for some reason I wasn't subscribed to this post (weird.)
Anyway the specific application I was looking at was gedit, when started with the native GDK Mir backend, it is almost unusable with touch as the elements are so small. GDK_SCALE doesn't work and neither does any of the GTK dconf settings for scaling.
Also, I have switched to using rc-proposed, so any more changes I do will likely be able to be installed without worrying about the snapshot channel.
Also messing with some touch-screen specific .gtk2.0-rc entries seem to help, but since I reformatted, I don't quite have those offhand at the moment. I'll have to look them up again.
Hi!
Thanks a lot for all these useful explanations! Finally I was able to run Firefox on my bq E4.5 (rc-proposed)! But I have a few questions:
1) I don't have any on-screen keyboard
2) it works like with a mouse (no touch scrolling for instance)
Is there something I can do about that?
takri said:
Hi!
Thanks a lot for all these useful explanations! Finally I was able to run Firefox on my bq E4.5 (rc-proposed)! But I have a few questions:
1) I don't have any on-screen keyboard
2) it works like with a mouse (no touch scrolling for instance)
Is there something I can do about that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could try the touchegg package for multi touch gestures, I haven't gotten around to testing it yet. As for keyboard, you can use onboard for most applications or if the application is a QT application, it will pop up the system keyboard (behavior was exhibited by calibre)
ShadowEO said:
You could try the touchegg package for multi touch gestures, I haven't gotten around to testing it yet. As for keyboard, you can use onboard for most applications or if the application is a QT application, it will pop up the system keyboard (behavior was exhibited by calibre)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot for your answer. Sorry I don't know much yet about all this so my questions might be silly!
1) I installed touchegg but I don't know how to make it work
2) I have no keyboard in any app I installed (caja, gedit, firefox, ...)
Another question: I have a bq E4.5 and although I have 3.5G of free space on my internal memory the space available for apt-get-ed apps is much smaller (I have 50M left after installing just those few apps above). So no way to try libreoffice or other heavier app. Do you know if there is a solution for that?
Thank you very much!
takri said:
2) I have no keyboard in any app I installed (caja, gedit, firefox, ...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you use the matchbox setup I described above then you should have a keyboard.
Another question: I have a bq E4.5 and although I have 3.5G of free space on my internal memory the space available for apt-get-ed apps is much smaller (I have 50M left after installing just those few apps above). So no way to try libreoffice or other heavier app. Do you know if there is a solution for that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This website describes a tweak to put the apt cache on an external SD card. It's in German, but the command lines should be clear enough. Let us know how it goes.
https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Ubuntu_Touch/Terminal/#Freien-Speicher-beobachten
You would need to run touchegg in the wrapper. Sadly wth keyboard, the only applications that will get the system keyboard are QT based applications. GTK+ and other applications will require onboard to be installed. I messed around with trying to install maliit-context-gtk2 to get the system keyboard to show in all apps, but that broke the keyboard completely.
Remember XMir is better used with a physical keyboard since it doesn't trigger the Ubuntu keyboard for everything.
You can also make the system img bigger if using MultiROM: you simply run e2fsck -fp /path/to/Ubuntu.IMG and resize2fs <target size> /path/to/Ubuntu.IMG.
ShadowEO said:
You would need to run touchegg in the wrapper.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've played around with this a bit, but I can't get touchegg to work. I start an xmir application, then log in via ssh from my desktop. After setting the DISPLAY variable, I can start more X applications ok. After starting touchegg I see an output like this:
Code:
Reading config from "/home/phablet/.config/touchegg/touchegg.conf"
Try to make a multitouch gesture. If everything goes well the information about the gesture must appear
[+] Avaliable gesture:
Name -> Flick
[+] Avaliable gesture:
Name -> Drag
[+] Avaliable gesture:
Name -> Pinch
[+] Avaliable gesture:
Name -> Rotate
[+] Avaliable gesture:
Name -> Tap
[+] Avaliable gesture:
Name -> Touch
I assume that I am supposed to see some more output when a touch gesture is recognised by touchegg, but nothing ever shows up.
I can see touch events with either xinput or evtest
Code:
$ xinput test "xmir-fake-touch-pointer:0"
motion a[0]=36317 a[1]=42290
button press 1
motion a[0]=36590 a[1]=41730
motion a[0]=36645 a[1]=41275
motion a[0]=36536 a[1]=40469
motion a[0]=36263 a[1]=39524
motion a[0]=35935 a[1]=39034
motion a[0]=34897 a[1]=38019
motion a[0]=33532 a[1]=36934
motion a[0]=32713 a[1]=36303
motion a[0]=31839 a[1]=35778
motion a[0]=31293 a[1]=35533
motion a[0]=30856 a[1]=35323
motion a[0]=30638 a[1]=35253
motion a[0]=30419 a[1]=35148
motion a[0]=30255 a[1]=35078
motion a[0]=29928 a[1]=34903
motion a[0]=29873 a[1]=34868
motion a[0]=29873 a[1]=34868
motion a[0]=29873 a[1]=34868
button release 1
Code:
$ evtest /dev/input/event0
Input driver version is 1.0.1
Input device ID: bus 0x0 vendor 0x0 product 0x0 version 0x0
Input device name: "elan-touchscreen"
Supported events:
Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
Event type 1 (EV_KEY)
Event type 3 (EV_ABS)
Event code 47 (ABS_MT_SLOT)
Value 0
Min 0
Max 9
Event code 48 (ABS_MT_TOUCH_MAJOR)
Value 0
Min 0
Max 31
Event code 53 (ABS_MT_POSITION_X)
Value 0
Min 0
Max 1343
Event code 54 (ABS_MT_POSITION_Y)
Value 0
Min 0
Max 2239
Event code 57 (ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID)
Value 0
Min 0
Max 65535
Event code 58 (ABS_MT_PRESSURE)
Value 0
Min 0
Max 255
Properties:
Property type 1 (INPUT_PROP_DIRECT)
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Event: time 9936.473027, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 57 (ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID), value 1159
Event: time 9936.473088, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 48 (ABS_MT_TOUCH_MAJOR), value 12
Event: time 9936.473088, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 58 (ABS_MT_PRESSURE), value 27
Event: time 9936.473118, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 53 (ABS_MT_POSITION_X), value 338
Event: time 9936.473118, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 54 (ABS_MT_POSITION_Y), value 1059
Event: time 9936.473149, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 9936.509709, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 48 (ABS_MT_TOUCH_MAJOR), value 11
Event: time 9936.509709, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 58 (ABS_MT_PRESSURE), value 43
Event: time 9936.509709, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 53 (ABS_MT_POSITION_X), value 351
Event: time 9936.509739, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 54 (ABS_MT_POSITION_Y), value 1061
Event: time 9936.509739, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 9936.512791, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 58 (ABS_MT_PRESSURE), value 46
Event: time 9936.512791, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 53 (ABS_MT_POSITION_X), value 357
Event: time 9936.512791, type 3 (EV_ABS), code 54 (ABS_MT_POSITION_Y), value 1063
Some websites point to synclient for the configuration of touchegg, but that doesn't seem to work in Xmir:
Code:
$ synclient
Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?
Does anyone else have more luck with touchegg?
While researching it, I stumbled over references to xSwipe, but I haven't looked into that any further.
ShadowEO said:
You would need to run touchegg in the wrapper. Sadly wth keyboard, the only applications that will get the system keyboard are QT based applications. GTK+ and other applications will require onboard to be installed. I messed around with trying to install maliit-context-gtk2 to get the system keyboard to show in all apps, but that broke the keyboard completely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to reiterate, the matchbox-keyboard works fine for me!
Oh, and one thing I wanted to share: The firefox extension Grab and Drag allows a more natural touch screen style drag-to-scroll.
I completely forgot the matchbox keyboard while writing that reply, I'm not sure what's going on with touchegg as I haven't had a chance to play with it on Ubuntu touch. It could be that XMir isn't actually passing that much information about touch events.
matchbox-window-manager struggle
I am on the new Aquarius m10 Ubuntu tablet.
Tried to run tome applications and realized the X11 and Mir problem.
Came across your solution! Thank you for sharring!
Well, I dont seem to be able to install matchbox-window-manager
It shows a lot of missing dependencies and I am not abble to install them manually either..
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
matchbox-window-manager : Depends: libmatchbox1 (>= 1.7-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libstartup-notification0 (>= 0.2) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libxsettings-client0 but it is not going to be installed
Any light?? Thank you very much
eskizon said:
I am on the new Aquarius m10 Ubuntu tablet.
Tried to run tome applications and realized the X11 and Mir problem.
Came across your solution! Thank you for sharring!
Well, I dont seem to be able to install matchbox-window-manager
It shows a lot of missing dependencies and I am not abble to install them manually either..
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
matchbox-window-manager : Depends: libmatchbox1 (>= 1.7-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libstartup-notification0 (>= 0.2) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libxsettings-client0 but it is not going to be installed
Any light?? Thank you very much
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mhm, not sure. You do have set it to read-write and you did an apt update, right?
doniks said:
Mhm, not sure. You do have set it to read-write and you did an apt update, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for sharing this info! I also own the M10 ubuntu tablet and try to run some X11 apps.
I am able to apt-get matchbox-window-manager. But it won't start and says it can't find the display.
Running either:
Code:
matchbox-window-manager
matchbox-window-manager -d :0
as a normal user or root always returns: "can't open display! check your DISPLAY variable.".
ubuntu-pocket-desktop is up to date and I also set the DPI in ~/.Xdefaults.
What could be the reason it can't find the display? What could I try?
Tazard4 said:
What could be the reason it can't find the display?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't have an X server running. At least not at :0.
What could I try?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Follow the instructions in the original post or in my post #4.
Bumping this thread as I've edited the OP with the official instructions for running Legacy X Applications on Ubuntu Touch. As well as information about getting the system maliit-based OSK showing in X Applications (It's not that great though, you still may have better luck with matchbox-keyboard/on-board, but not sure how you'd even start those in Libertine.)
Hey everyone,
I am looking for a way to activate sleep mode of my chromebook manually in order to save battery without having to log out or power off all the time (it's connected to an external display, so closing the lid doesn't trigger it).
So far I found out that calling "powerd_dbus_suspend" from the shell does the trick, but as you can imagine, using the shell and actually typing the command every time is not really a solution.
Is there a way to create a chrome os app that executes this program call, so I can put it in my shelf and just click it to activate sleep?
I'm not really good at .json, maybe there's a way? Or any other suggestions?
Thanks alot!
Markus
I would like to know it too. Anyone?
Sneets said:
Hey everyone,
I am looking for a way to activate sleep mode of my chromebook manually in order to save battery without having to log out or power off all the time (it's connected to an external display, so closing the lid doesn't trigger it).
So far I found out that calling "powerd_dbus_suspend" from the shell does the trick, but as you can imagine, using the shell and actually typing the command every time is not really a solution.
Is there a way to create a chrome os app that executes this program call, so I can put it in my shelf and just click it to activate sleep?
I'm not really good at .json, maybe there's a way? Or any other suggestions?
Thanks alot!
Markus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Run a tiny web server like lighttpd in the shell on a weird port, restrict to localhost. Set up index.php to run system (whatever);
Then bookmark the 127.0.0.1: xxxx URL
Which system call invokes power_dbus_suspend?
Thanks Parrotgeek1. Working off your excellent suggestion I installed a lightweight local server on ChromeOS (Web Server for Chrome with the 200 OK! icon) and built a small framework app that is served from local storage. I'm all set up to call chrome.app.??? from my JavaScript. Which API provides the power_dbus_suspend capability? I looked through the Power and System APIs and I don't see anything. - Thanks!
Sneets said:
Hey everyone,
I am looking for a way to activate sleep mode of my chromebook manually in order to save battery without having to log out or power off all the time (it's connected to an external display, so closing the lid doesn't trigger it).
So far I found out that calling "powerd_dbus_suspend" from the shell does the trick, but as you can imagine, using the shell and actually typing the command every time is not really a solution.
Is there a way to create a chrome os app that executes this program call, so I can put it in my shelf and just click it to activate sleep?
I'm not really good at .json, maybe there's a way? Or any other suggestions?
Thanks alot!
Markus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried this simple extension? Keep Awake
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/...lb?utm_source=chrome-app-launcher-info-dialog
What I do is have the shell tab pinned, and press [up arrow] for the command then hit [enter]. Probably not ideal if you use the shell a lot as you have to step through recently used commands.
Re: Pkt_Lnt's post
Thanks Pkt_Lnt. That app only deals with disabling the normal sleep behavior, not causing it, and in particular not causing it when an external monitor is connected. I'm looking for something like Sneets has requested, to invoke a powerd_dbus_suspend command that will force the system to sleep (and turn off an external monitor). Per Parrotgeek1's comment, I've got a little app now sitting on the shelf that is all set to call some system command to invoke powerd_dbus_suspend, only I'm looking for what command to call, from JavaScript.
I managed to find a way to do something similar with the Secure Shell app. During the process of figuring it out, I also found that I was able to create a homescreen shortcut on my Android tablet which when tapped sends a shell command to the Chromebook.
This method might be overkill somewhat, but, anyway, what I did was as follows:
Installed Secure Shell extension; setup sshd on the Chromebook (by making a symlink in /etc/init/ pointing to /usr/share/chromeos-ssh-config/init/openssh-server-conf); rebooted; added public key from ConnectBot (Android app) to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys in order to test connection; setup Android homescreen shortcut to send shell command; created profile in Secure Shell app on Chromebook to connect to [email protected]/my local IP address; generated keys on Chromebook (in ~/.ssh); added generated public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys; imported newly-generated private/public key pair within Secure Shell app (one by one); created bookmark link to [email protected] profile in shelf, and, finally, added required command to profile in Secure Shell.
It works well! It looks like any command can be added to the 'Arguments' field in Secure Shell, with the syntax:
Code:
-- thecommand
Although I guess commands that need sudo would require a connection to [email protected], instead of chronos. (-t argument lets you use sudo, but then sending a line break/ENTER seems to be needed)
The window opened with the click does hang around - I haven't figured out if it's possible to avoid this - but it does at least seem to persistently remember the size and position to which it's set.
I posted up some further details at http://nolirium.blogspot.com/shell-command-shelf-shortcut-chromeos.html
Impressive! But a bit more than I'm looking to do
@Nolirum - I read your blogspot doc and your procedure's pretty impressive. Frankly it's a little beyond me and beyond what I'm looking for. If you ever run across a way to invoke powerd_dbus_suspend a little more directly please post here as well. You clearly have a strong grasp of the issues!
Nolirum said:
I managed to find a way to do something similar with the Secure Shell app. During the process of figuring it out, I also found that I was able to create a homescreen shortcut on my Android tablet which when tapped sends a shell command to the Chromebook.
This method might be overkill somewhat, but, anyway, what I did was as follows:
Installed Secure Shell extension; setup sshd on the Chromebook (by making a symlink in /etc/init/ pointing to /usr/share/chromeos-ssh-config/init/openssh-server-conf); rebooted; added public key from ConnectBot (Android app) to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys in order to test connection; setup Android homescreen shortcut to send shell command; created profile in Secure Shell app on Chromebook to connect to [email protected]/my local IP address; generated keys on Chromebook (in ~/.ssh); added generated public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys; imported newly-generated private/public key pair within Secure Shell app (one by one); created bookmark link to [email protected] profile in shelf, and, finally, added required command to profile in Secure Shell.
It works well! It looks like any command can be added to the 'Arguments' field in Secure Shell, with the syntax:
Code:
-- thecommand
Although I guess commands that need sudo would require a connection to [email protected], instead of chronos. (-t argument lets you use sudo, but then sending a line break/ENTER seems to be needed)
The window opened with the click does hang around - I haven't figured out if it's possible to avoid this - but it does at least seem to persistently remember the size and position to which it's set.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This really is impressive! Thanks for the extremely detailed explanation.
I was able to follow along completely and get the SSH argument "powerd_dbus_suspend" working.
However, I got to thinking. I was wondering if this could be extended to use an alias stored in ~/.bashrc?
After doing some research of my own and using various parameters and arguments, I was unsuccessful.
The goal is to have a linux app (through crouton) be run using xiwi with just a single bookmark by utilizing an alias.
Any thoughts?
UPDATE:
Of course just a few moments later I figured this out! Rather than dealing with an alias stored in ~/.bashrc and ensuring ssh had access, typing the entire alias command as an argument worked. Now I can run Steam directly from a shelf bookmark. All it took was replacing "powerd_dbus_suspend" with "-- sudo enter-chroot xiwi steam" in the argument.
Thanks again!
DandyRandyMarsh said:
This really is impressive! Thanks for the extremely detailed explanation.
I was able to follow along completely and get the SSH argument "powerd_dbus_suspend" working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem! I think it's perhaps overly detailed if anything. Might be easier to follow if I cut it down a bit.
DandyRandyMarsh said:
Now I can run Steam directly from a shelf bookmark. All it took was replacing "powerd_dbus_suspend" with "-- sudo enter-chroot xiwi steam" in the argument.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice!
Adding crouton single app shortcuts is a cool idea which I hadn't considered. Does it work OK for you with sudo in the command, even straight after booting up? ...You didn't have to setup sudoing without a password via sudoers.d or anything?
Inspired by your post I added xiwi to my chroot to try it out. I seem to remember experiencing quite unbearable lag and slowness when running a full desktop via xiwi in the past, but with single apps there doesn't seem to be any noticeable performance hit (this is on an armv7 Asus Flip, with the chroot on a slooow USB drive).
In order to not have to enter my sudo password, in the argument I put:
Code:
-t -- echo mypassword | sudo -S sh /media/removable/3/bin/enter-chroot xiwi firefox
Maybe I'm missing something? Is there a better way, perhaps?
Anyway, since I have rootfs verification switched off, I also tried saving a similar command to a file in /usr/bin, and putting the filename in the argument instead. This works, too, and I suppose could potentially be useful e.g. in the case of needing to run a more convoluted sequence of commands with a shortcut.
Nolirum said:
Adding crouton single app shortcuts is a cool idea which I hadn't considered. Does it work OK for you with sudo in the command, even straight after booting up? ...You didn't have to setup sudoing without a password via sudoers.d or anything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not entirely familiar with exactly how my process worked, but I do not have any sudo password required within shell.
Here's the list of steps I followed allowing me to use sudo commands in the SSH Arguments box.
As a side note, this is the crouton installation I am running on an ASUS c302.
sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -r trusty -t unity,touch,xiwi,extension
Setup Bookmarks that Run Shell Commands
1. Installed Secure Shell extension
2. Open crosh with Ctrl+Atl+T
3. Enter Command: shell
4. Enter Command: sudo su -
5. Enter Command: sudo /usr/share/vboot/bin/make_dev_ssd.sh --force --remove_rootfs_verification
6. Enter Command: reboot
7. Let Chrome OS reboot
8. Open crosh with Ctrl+Atl+T
9. Enter Command: shell
10. Enter Command: sudo su -
11. Enter Command: mount –o remount rw /
12. Close current crosh window
13. Open a new crosh with Ctrl+Atl+T
14. Enter Command: shell
15. Enter Command: sudo ln -s /usr/share/chromeos-ssh-config/init/openssh-server.conf /etc/init/openssh-server.conf
16. Enter Command: sudo initctl reload-configuration
17. Enter Command: sudo initctl start openssh-server
18. Enter Command: cd ~/.ssh/
19. Enter Command: ssh-keygen
“Enter file in which…” *LEAVE BLANK*
“Enter passphrase” *LEAVE BLANK*
“Enter same passphrase” * LEAVE BLANK*20. Enter Command: cat /home/chronos/user/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> /home/chronos/user/.ssh/authorized_keys
21. Enter Command: cp -a /home/chronos/user/.ssh/id_rsa* /home/chronos/user/Downloads
22. Close current crosh terminal and open Secure Shell extension
23. Select [New Connection]
24. Click Import… and select “id_rsa”
25. Click Import… again and select “id_rsa.pub”
26. Enter chronos as the username and localhost as the hostname
27. Enter a shorthand name replacing the text in the top cell “[email protected]”
28. Click Enter. If prompted, enter “yes” to continue connecting
29. Bookmark the page that is open which should end in, "#profile-id:_ _ _ _"
DONE. Now time to add some commands to automate.
Open Secure Shell and select the connection created. In the arguments box, start with two dashes -- and follow it your desired shell command.
Examples:
-- sudo startunity
-- sudo startgnome
-- sudo enter-chroot xiwi steam
-- sudo enter-chroot xiwi wine microWord
Next Steps... Getting Custom Shelf Icons
Now here I am running into some issues. Rather than have all these icons be the same, I was hoping to customize them.
Followed a strategy found on reddit, Change Shelf Icon for Website, but this only works if the site already had an "apple-touch-icon" set. Also, tried to inject the entire code myself which I couldn't get to work. Unfortunately, I think that since this bookmark is created from a Secure Shell, there are some issues.
I have already tried adding in code for this into the site, but it is having no effect. If someone could make this work then we're really looking good here.
DandyRandyMarsh said:
I'm not entirely familiar with exactly how my process worked, but I do not have any sudo password required within shell.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, I see what you mean. You are saying that you can sudo in the shell generally, without being prompted for a password, right?
Was that the default setup on your CB (after switching to Dev mode)? Or did you have to configure it manually for passwordless sudoing...
DandyRandyMarsh said:
Here's the list of steps I followed allowing me to use sudo commands in the SSH Arguments box.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice work summarizing the steps. :highfive: It's probably easier to follow, listed out like that. One slight addendum, perhaps - at step 29, it might be good to clarify the "add to shelf" procedure. Especially because of the following...
DandyRandyMarsh said:
Next Steps... Getting Custom Shelf Icon
Now here I am running into some issues. Rather than have all these icons be the same, I was hoping to customize them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Happily it turns out that, when you add shortcuts to the shelf on Chrome OS like this, a minimal app is created for each one, with its own manifest.json, and icon.pngs. Our shell shortcuts were getting created with blank pngs by default (the black box with P in the center).
So, all we need to do, is get some icons, find the right folder for our shelf shortcut apps, then copy our new icons into them!
For instance, here's how I made a nice shiny icon for my single app shelf shortcut to Firefox.
Prepared icons:
Created a temporary folder in ~/Downloads to store downloaded icons.
Prepared a set of icons in ~/Downloads/firefox. (I downloaded mine from findicons.com).
Six sizes are required - from 32px to 256. To avoid any manifest editing, saved them as *size*.png
e.g. 32.png; 48.png; 64.png; 96.png; 128.png; 256.png
Located folder to copy icons to:
It is easiest to do this directly after clicking "add to shelf"
EITHER:
To change dir into the most recently modified extension icon subfolder automatically, the following one-liner worked for me*.
Code:
shell
cd ~/Extensions/&&cd $(ls -v1td */ | head -1)/*/icons&&ls
A list of blank icons (*.png) should be visible. If so, the new icons can simply be copied over these, e.g..
Code:
sudo cp ~/Downloads/firefox/* .
*YMMV with this particular one-liner - sometimes there's an extra 'temp' folder in ~/Extensions, which stops it working as expected. If you get an error after running the command, simply use the slightly more manual method to locate the folder, as detailed below.
OR:
(slightly more manual method).
Code:
shell
ls -ltr ~/Extensions
Checked the date/times - the most recently added folder is at the bottom. Then,
Code:
cd themostrecentlyaddedfolder
(or, the folder modified at the date/time that the shortcut was "added to shelf"). Then,
Code:
cd */icons
ls
sudo cp ~/Downloads/firefox/* .
I then repeated the above with a new SSH argument and a set of Ubuntu icons, for a custom startxfce4 shortcut, too.
Then just did sudo restart ui, and enjoyed the shiny new shelf icons!
I am hopeful that these changes will get picked up by CrOS's sync, thus getting backed-up and restored automatically. At this point I am not sure if that will be the case, but I don't see why it wouldn't.
Another way?
Another way to approach this, since you're modifying system stuff anyway, might be to edit crosh at /usr/bin/crosh. It's a regular ol' dash/bash shell program, and you can create a shortcut to it on the shelf by opening crosh (ctrl-alt-T), then right click the top right of the browser and select More Tools --> Add to shelf...
Clicking the newly-created link (which looks like an "N") will launch /usr/bin/crosh in a tab. Changing the default behavior of /usr/bin/crosh could accomplish your goal to do whatever you want. With some experimenting, you might even be able to pass arguments to make it do different things depending on how it's opened (via ALT-CTRL-T vs from the shelf-- dunno if it can read the url used to call crosh), but at the very least you could do something like have it run whatever you want it to run if a second modifier key is held down (or if it isn't...), otherwise return to normal operation. A menu w/1 sec timeout could do this as well, ie--
Doing [THE THING YOU WANT] in 2 seconds (press SPACE for crosh)... /
Note there's no proof-of-concept here. Just throwing it out as an idea that I'm pretty sure would work... Someone might even create a neat extension that allows crosh to use scripts/plugins to execute different system operations beyond the stock ones that are built-in via single-clicks... If it worked, it might be a little simplier than via the SSH extension and you wouldn't have to run any extra daemons.
ft
This is probably harder, but a third way, which probably is the "right" way is to see how the crosh extension works and learn about opening the hterm.Terminal instance chrome.terminalprivate object directly, sending it output, and closing it in the same way crosh does it. There's a file in the crosh extension at js/crosh.js that shows the basics of how it's done:
var terminal = new hterm.Terminal(profileName);
And then you can do stuff with it. You could then create an extension that could handle multiple shelf-icons (say by appending ?COMMAND=ls to the URL to do different shell commands(. The security implications for this would probably be huge obviously.
Update: More on embedding hterm is here.
Nolirum said:
I managed to find a way to do something similar with the Secure Shell app. During the process of figuring it out, I also found that I was able to create a homescreen shortcut on my Android tablet which when tapped sends a shell command to the Chromebook.
I posted up some further details at http://nolirium.blogspot.com/shell-command-shelf-shortcut-chromeos.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice post - Some good food for thought, changing up the contents of crosh etc directly is an interesting idea.
fattire said:
Another way to approach this, since you're modifying system stuff anyway, might be to edit crosh at /usr/bin/crosh. It's a regular ol' dash/bash shell program, and you can create a shortcut to it on the shelf by opening crosh (ctrl-alt-T), then right click the top right of the browser and select More Tools --> Add to shelf...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting! ....Aaaaand, now I've broken crosh. lol. Lucky I had my SSH shortcut setup... (actually, we can still get into the VTs with CtrlAltF2 etc anyway).
Some good potential for experimentation with this, definitely.
fattire said:
This is probably harder, but a third way, which probably is the "right" way is to see how the crosh extension works and learn about opening the hterm.Terminal instance chrome.terminalprivate object directly, sending it output, and closing it in the same way crosh does it. There's a file in the crosh extension at js/crosh.js that shows the basics of how it's done:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, very interesting. Now you come to mention it, an approach such as this does seem like it might be do-able without too much messing around (maybe)...
Any possible method we can get e.g. an extension to 'talk' to the shell is worth looking into I think; as you say, if we can cut out the middleman (ssh) and maybe do it more elegantly, that might be pretty useful indeed.