Related
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.
With the latest software update of my Sony Z5P I faced a really annoying issue, which essentially prevents me from listening to the music with the device. Symptoms are as following: during headphones connect or disconnect, or even slight movement of the jack in the audio port, volume randomly goes all way up or down and, the most annoyingly, music pauses and Voice Search is activated. Very frustrating.
I searched for the possible fixes in the Internet and found that there are dozens of posts on various web resources, regarding exactly the same issue. The issue exists on a very broad range of phones, tablets and Android versions. There are a lot of solutions too, generally "Try to install app X" or even "disable Google Search", but nothing worked for me (and probably for majority of users). And I didn't wanted to disable Voice Search, because it's a useful feature.
Looking into the problem further, I discovered that the issue is caused by the wrong detection of a headphones by Android. The system decides that it's not headphones, but a headset, that is the headphones with a mic and hardware buttons to control audio. The system even places an icon to the upper bar and there is a "Headset is plugged in" notification in the drawer.
Due to a hardware difference between connectors of headphones and a headset, every time it is slightly moved in port generates random electric signals which Android mistakenly recognizes as commands from a hardware remote control. If you are listening to the music while walking or especially running, the chances are pretty high, that connector is moving slightly. And the music become constantly interrupted by Voice Assistant or its volume is being decreased or increased. That's really, really disturbing.
One particular useful post which I found was this one. From it I learned there is a /system/usr/keylayout directory in Android filesystem, with files handling hardware buttons. Other useful insight is a link to the small Chris Boyle's app for keypresses debug (he even made a blog post about it). With this knowledge and this small useful tool I started to dig into my phone's system.
Using Key Test app mentioned above I figured out that any slight jack movement generates keypresses with scan codes 226 and 582 (HEADSETHOOK and VOICE_ASSIST) and occasionally 114 and 115 (VOLUME_DOWN and VOLUME_UP). That's what I should find in the system.
At first I should state that to make my solution work, you will need a rooted phone. All dirty hacks need root privileges. For Sony Z5 Premium rooting I assembled a dedicated guide, although it should work with most recent Sony devices. If you have a phone from some other OEM, please search this forum, there are plenty of rooting guides.
Okay, you have a topic problem, your phone is rooted and your adb works. That's how I fixed my phone.
At first you should check contents of your phone's /system/usr/keylayout directory and inspect individual files. It's easier to do on a computer, so copy this folder (maybe with some file manager like ES File Explorer) to your internal or external storage (for example to /sdcard) and then transfer by MTP to the computer (in Windows use File Explorer, the directory is in the This PC\Xperia Z5 Premium Dual folder or something like this).
Once you have keylayout directory on your computer, use some text editor tool which can search multiple text files for a particular text (I use Notepad++, but if you are on a Unix-like OS, you may use grep as well). You should search you files for this text strings:
Code:
HEADSETHOOK
and
Code:
VOICE_ASSIST
On the latest Z5 Premium firmware (Android 6.0.1, build .224) these particular strings were found in the Generic.kl and msm8994-tomtom-snd-card_Button_Jack.kl files. While the former is a generic keymapping file of all Android devices, the latter is specific to Z5P, because of it's name, which suggests that it is somehow related to MSM 8994, which is a partnumber of Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC. In fact, this file is obviously handles headset keypresses, and its contents are:
Code:
key 226 HEADSETHOOK
key 115 VOLUME_UP
key 114 VOLUME_DOWN
key 582 VOICE_ASSIST
key 260 VENDOR_1
Your phone may have file with some other name but contents should be similar. What worked in my case is a changing the codes in this file to some different values which are not used elsewhere. I changed mine to this:
Code:
key 995 HEADSETHOOK
key 996 VOLUME_UP
key 997 VOLUME_DOWN
key 998 VOICE_ASSIST
key 999 VENDOR_1
And that's how I placed modified msm8994-tomtom-snd-card_Button_Jack.kl back into its original place in the phone. This is particularly tricky and you absolutely need rooted phone to do this.
First, place the file into the phone's memory with a guaranteed write access. /sdcard usually is a such place:
Code:
adb.exe push msm8994-tomtom-snd-card_Button_Jack.kl /sdcard/
Then login to the phone's shell and become superuser (root):
Code:
adb.exe shell
[email protected]:/ $ su
[email protected]:/ #
After that make /system mounted as a read/write filesystem:
Code:
[email protected]:/ # mount -o remount,rw /system
And copy the modified file back in place. After that reboot:
Code:
root[email protected]:/ # cp /sdcard/msm8994-tomtom-snd-card_Button_Jack.kl /system/usr/keylayout/
[email protected]:/ # reboot
Once the file was updated and the phone rebooted, I checked keypresses with Key Test again. These keypresses were generated as before, with the same scan codes, but this time key codes were registered as KEYCODE_UNKNOWN and did not any harm. The system cannot recognize them and doesn't react to them in any sensible way.
That's it. Be informed, that if you plan to use a real headset, with this hack its keys will not work at all.
tl;dr
- Enable ADB and root access for ADB
- In ADB shell:
Code:
$ su
# mount -o remount,rw /system
# sed -i "s/\(key.*HEADSETHOOK\)/#\1/g" /system/usr/keylayout/Generic.kl
# sed -i "s/\(key.*VOICE_ASSIST\)/#\1/g" /system/usr/keylayout/Generic.kl
# reboot
I have issue with screen rotation, it does not work anymore even with screen rotation is enabled. My device 7T Pro is rooted.
History:
I was having issue with HDMI mirror, the second display was always flipped either portrait or landscape.
I tried multiple tutorials that sets device properties like the following:
```
adb shell setprop persist.demo.hdmirotation portrait
adb shell setprop persist.demo.hdmirotationlock false
adb shell setprop persist.demo.singledisplay true
```
However, it does not solve the issue. When I removed these props, the HDMI issue resolved, but the device wouldn't rotate any more.
Any one would help, thanks in advance
akhalifah said:
I have issue with screen rotation, it does not work anymore even with screen rotation is enabled. My device 7T Pro is rooted.
History:
I was having issue with HDMI mirror, the second display was always flipped either portrait or landscape.
I tried multiple tutorials that sets device properties like the following:
```
adb shell setprop persist.demo.hdmirotation portrait
adb shell setprop persist.demo.hdmirotationlock false
adb shell setprop persist.demo.singledisplay true
```
However, it does not solve the issue. When I removed these props, the HDMI issue resolved, but the device wouldn't rotate any more.
Any one would help, thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you need to restore "build.prop" file located at system folder
Found any solution? Even with my rooted device and these settings it won't work.
I managed to get myself stuck in a boot loop by editing build.prop on my android 6.0 Nexus 7 tablet. I added the linero.sf.hwrotation=0 at the end of the file and saved it and then when I rebooted, it made no difference. I then changed the permissions on the build.prop file to 666 then now after the Google logo it gets stuck on a blank screen.
My device is rooted and I have twrp. So I'm thinking hopefully I can boot into recovery mode then could I somehow reset the permissions? Can someone kindly guide me through what I need to do? What should the permissions be? Why was that line not working in the first place? Should I remove that hwrotation line?
Thanks
The permission should be 0744
jwoegerbauer said:
The permission should be 0744
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I booted into TWRP recovery mode and used the file manager to chmod the build.prop file to 0744 and rebooted it. Now it seems to be working.
Any ideas why my hwrotation setting is being ignored? only thing I can think of is that maybe it isn't supported on android 6.0? because most of the guides that are about that seem to refer to android 4.
ahmed123 said:
Any ideas why my hwrotation setting is being ignored? only thing I can think of is that maybe it isn't supported on android 6.0? because most of the guides that are about that seem to refer to android 4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to make it persistent.
Example
Code:
# possible values: 0 = Landscape, 90 = Portrait, 180 = Reverse Landscape, 270 = Reverse Portrait
persist.ro.sf.hwrotation=180
jwoegerbauer said:
Try to make it persistent.
Example
Code:
# possible values: 0 = Landscape, 90 = Portrait, 180 = Reverse Landscape, 270 = Reverse Portrait
persist.ro.sf.hwrotation=180
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just tried that, still no difference. The boot google logo and android animation is still in portrait for some reason. When android starts up then you can see it flip to landscape which is the user setting part that I applied.