Monday, November 7, 2011

Bodhi Linux ARM Repository Online

Five months ago I did a post announcing that we are working to bring Bodhi to ARM devices. I've been rather quiet about this part of our project since then. We are still finalizing the direction this part of our project is headed in, but for now we have landed on the choice of Debian Wheezy as our core. Our repository is currently online and you can easily install our Enlightenment packages on top of your Debian Wheezy ARM install by following these steps:

Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following line (yes squeeze is correct):

deb http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/ squeeze stable

Save and close the file and then run:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install bodhi-desktop

Let apt work it's magic and you will soon have our customized Enlightenment desktop installed on your system (there are even some extra E modules in the repo). Our goal is to get our ARM packages as polished and stable as our x86 release on a variety of hardware.
 
I've recorded a short demo video of these packages running in a Debian chroot on my Nokia N900:


As you can see, still a little rough around the edges - but we will be improving these in the coming months. If you wish to help us test packages be sure to leave us some feedback on our forums.

Finally, we will not be officially supporting ArchOS Gen8 devices as we had hoped. The number of lacking closed source drivers they require make it impossible for us to achieve the level of polish on these devices we would like to see. Note the steps above work for installing Bodhi packages on your ArchOS after installing Debian.

~Jeff Hoogland

54 comments:

  1. Nice nice nice. Can't wait to try it out (altought I need to buy an ARM device first haha(.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Does power management subsystem and battery indicator works in some rate?

    ReplyDelete
  3. CPU and battery gadget work so long as the hardware has the properly supported kernel modules.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You think I could boot this up on a BeagleBoard-xm?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yep. Just install Debian first and then add out repo as indicated above.

    ReplyDelete
  6. HP Touchpad!
    Please!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I actually just picked up a touch pad. I have our packages running in a chroot, still working at getting them booting natively.

    ~Jeff

    ReplyDelete
  8. sorry...not a computer geek, but...can you install and run Bodhi Linux on a MIPS based tablet? (Velocity Cruz T10x series...possibly an Ingenic JZ4760 processor...any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
  9. If it can boot Debian in can run the Bodhi packages yes.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well I kind of have it working on the Acer Iconia A500 Tab. Although it's just a mod to the Gen8 image, it works pretty smoothly. http://forums.bodhilinux.com/index.php?/topic/3653-acer-iconia-a500-tab-partially-working/

    ReplyDelete
  11. I was sorry to see you're no longer working with the Archos gen8 tablet. I've installed your rootfs.img file on mine, and independently worked out that the bodhi repository in it was wrong. It's running rather nicely now.

    However, I can't work out how to install Flash on the device - apt-get doesn't work (package not found), nor does the bod file on the site (clicking on install now gives an error and downloading and running gives lots of errors, followed by a claim that it's installed but it isn't) and rpm doesn't work because there's no bash shell of course.

    Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Flash is a closed source technology that does not provide packages for Linux ARM.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yep, I subsequently found that out. I initially assumed that because flash kind of works on Android there were ARM packages, but further investigation revealed that that flash player is running in a JVM, not natively. Oh well.

    Thanks for the swift response though.

    ReplyDelete
  14. can I configure a PC TABLET eGalax Ekoore et10ta with Touch controller with Bodhi? - you think

    ReplyDelete
  15. I have put the repository that is described here but when I try to
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install bodhi-desktop

    it tells me that it cannot download all dependencies and stops. What to do?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Please open a request support thread in the ARM section of our forums.

    ReplyDelete
  17. is it possible to install it on an adam notionink device? If you haven't tried that for some reason, is there a guide of installing it on a generic android device? And, is it possible to roll back to android if something goes wrong?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do not own a notionink and neither does anyone else I know. Installing on EVERY arm device is a different process.

      Delete
  18. Impression I7 tablet?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hi:

    Thanks for your efforts!!

    I have a ancient smartq v7 that runs (out of the box. ie with the stock ROM) android, windows CE and debian, really bizarre. Did I understood correctly: if I run the above mentioned comments I will have a brand new fantastiq up-to-date bodhi linux on it??

    Regards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you have Debian Wheezy on the device and add the repo as detailed above things should work splendid yes - let us know how it works out :D

      Delete
    2. Hi again:

      Bad luck, I don't think Wheezy to be the instaled version... I couldn't upgrade at all. Would you be so kind as to redirect me to some place with instructions to build by myself such version?

      Regards.

      Delete
  20. Question: will Bodhi Linux run on the Sylvania ARM WM8500 7" netbook". If so, where can I find a cookbook to get this "net brick" to be useful and run Linux?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bodhi will run on any ARM device that supports debian. Every ARM device is different though, so we can't provide guides for everything.

      Delete
    2. i have had debian working via sdhc stck but not native on hard drive but it is possible on this wm8500 7" though it took me while to understand it was simple in the end just copy two sets of files to two partitions. but one was not to be extracted. once done that it can go to hard drive but u have to change some files simple edit as to where you put stuff ect.. but i was keeping both wince & linux at the time...will try again later date...:-)

      Delete
    3. here's a link to the explanation.
      http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1349626-p-3.html

      Delete
  21. OK, a new occasion to publish my ignorance. Any one out there who has any version of LINUX running on an Apple device (I piced up an old 3g 8gigger, and why not?
    Qrazydutch

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've heard of people getting various forms of Linux running on Apple devices - can't speak to how functional they are though.

      Delete
  22. Hello, Is posible install bodhi linux in the Zenithink C71 Tablet

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can use Bodhi's ARM branch on any device that allows you to boot Debian Wheezy.

      Delete
  23. Failed to fetch http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/dists/squeeze/stable/binary-i386/Packages.gz 404 Not Found
    Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

    bt5 r2

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please read your error message - you clearly are trying to add our ARM repo to an x86 system.

      ~Jeff

      Delete
  24. W: Failed to fetch http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/dists/squeeze/stable/binary-armhf/Packages 404 Not Found

    E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
    root@omap:~# uname -a
    Linux omap 3.2.0-psp6 #1 Thu Mar 22 05:08:40 UTC 2012 armv7l GNU/Linux
    root@omap:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list
    deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
    deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free

    # add bodhi
    deb http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/ squeeze stable

    root@omap:~#

    ReplyDelete
  25. Hi,

    I've tried to install Bodhi on my ARM device which is currently running Debian Wheezy (It's a C71 tablet) but I get a broken package error:

    apt-get install bodhi-desktop

    I get:

    The following packages have unmet dependancies:
    bodhi-desktop: Depends: bodhi-quickstart but it is not going to be installed
    E: Broken packages

    If I do:

    apt-get install bodhi-quickstart bodhi-desktop

    I get:

    The following packages have unmet dependancies:
    bodhi-quickstart: Depends: ttf-ubuntu-font-family but it is not installable
    E: Broken packages

    I really would like to try Bodhi on this tablet as I think it could be the right one for a Linux tablet

    You can check the work that's being done to get Linux on the C71 here:

    http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/31075-linux-on-the-zt-280-c71/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for this heads up! I didn't realize our packager added Ubuntu dependencies to this package. I should have it sorted in the next 48 hours - sorry. Will drop a comment here when I get things sorted.

      Delete
    2. This package issue should be resolved now - let me know if you still have troubles (be sure to apt-get update before trying again).

      Delete
    3. Thanks Jeff:

      The dependancy problem has been resolved and I was able to install. However after selecting the profile Enlightenement SEGVs. After a couple of F1 (recovers) I get a desktop but without any modules. I can then add modules and every thing works fine, but when I login again I get the SEGV then again the desktop without modules.

      In xsession-errors I get:

      ESTART: 1.10500 [0.00000] - Load Modules
      /usr/lib/enlightenment/modules/wizard/linux-gnueabi-arm-ver-pre-svn-08/page_000.la: invalid ELF header

      (the same for page_020.la, page_025.la, page_080.la, page_200.la)

      I must say that I got the same behavior with the e17 debian package, but without the errors on .xsession-errors

      I compared .xsession-errors on the device withe the one of wheezy and bodhi running on a QEMU environment (which doesn't SEGV) and they are identical (including the ELF header errors).

      Any clues that would help me solve this problem would be greatly appreciated. I really liked what I saw on the QEMU environment and I'm eager to have Bodhi work on the C71 tablet.

      Xavier.

      Delete
    4. I'm not sure honestly - the ARM packages work here on the half dozen+devices I've tried them on without issues.

      Delete
  26. Have you got Raspberry-PI in mind?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep. Once the one I have on pre-order finally comes in we will be providing images for the Pi :)

      Delete
  27. Hi, I have a tablet superpad 2 with specs: Infotm X220 ARM11 1Ghz System Memory: (RAM)512MB DDR2Hard Drive:4GB NAND Flash (2GB for OS, 2GB available space).
    I want change the OS to Bodhi ARM, is it possible?

    can you help me?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Install Debian, add the repo, install the packages. Easy as that.

      Delete
    2. thanks Jeff, I will do it!

      Delete
  28. Great! Kudos!

    I have BeagleBoard-xM, so I am going to give this a try. Also I have not tried out Debian Wheezy ARM but I have run Ubuntu 11.10; Ubuntu 12.04 and rowboat Android on BeagleBoard-xM so this is an opportunity to try out another great product this week-end

    Don't forget tp write out a simple wise how-to on this in order to attract more users.

    Also announcement on beagleboard.org will be nice. Wll-done :)

    God blesses!!!

    Best regards,
    Sanyaade

    ReplyDelete
  29. Would this run well on the n810?

    ReplyDelete
  30. I tried this on my n810. I installed debian via easy-debian http://wiki.maemo.org/Easy_Debian. I loaded up debian and followed the instructions above. When I tried to install bodhi-desktop though, I got
    lots of errors about not being able to fetch the packages.
    Any advice?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Posting/debugging error messages is outside the scope of this comments section. Please open a support request in the ARM section of our user forums.

      Delete
  31. Have you try the Mk802. Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  32. Hi Jeff,

    I'm trying to install bodhi-desktop on a cheap Chinese tablet (Chuwi V8HD). Debian was installed using debian-kit (from play store). I've added the repos, ran apt-get update but when I tried to install the bodhi-desktop package, the following packages are shown as unmet dependencies:

    bodhi-profiles
    enlightenment
    places
    engage
    places
    elfe
    bodhi-close
    taskbar
    comp-scale

    Not sure if it's because of the particular debian installation?

    Thanks and great job!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you using an ARMEL install or ARMHF? You need the later for our current repos to work.

      Delete
    2. Hi Jeff,

      Apologies for the late reply, I've tried to install both armhf (wheezy, using Linux Deploy) and armel (I think it's lenny, using Complete Linux Installer).

      For armhf, I've used "deb http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/ debian stable" whilst for the armel, I've tried to use "deb http://packages.bodhilinux.com/bodhi/ squeeze stable".

      Neither of them seemed to work. I have to admit that I'm a noob with regards to apt-get pinning etc..

      Delete
    3. If you are having an issue please open a support request in the general ARM section of our user forums.

      Delete