Installing Xfce4 on debian sd card on a non wifi version board

saand · December 21, 2012, 06:52:34 AM

Hi All,
I am trying to install a graphical user interface on the SD card with pre built image i have.
The SD card i have is 2g. so i also cant just use the 4g image someone previously posted

I have followed this link
http://olimex.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/running-debian-with-xfce4-on-a13-olinuxino/

however i do not have the wifi version of the A13 board, i also dont have a usb to ethernet or wifi adaptor.

I believe another way to get the files on is using just a USB drive and fetch the files from another linux computer. I built the kernel using an ubuntu machine i have.
I tried downloading the packages using apt-get on the ubuntu machine then copying the deb files across then installing. However there are many dependencies which didn't make it across so it doesn't work.

Does anyone know how to do this or any other way i can get Xfce4 onto the SD card.

I looked at this
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-basico.en.html#s-dpkg-scanpackages

however i am a novice when it comes to linux so am unable to follow it too well.

If anyone can give me some options and novice level step by step instructions ill try it out then put it on the wiki for everyone.
Thanks

jwischka · December 21, 2012, 07:51:44 AM

Quote from: saand on December 21, 2012, 06:52:34 AM
Hi All,
I am trying to install a graphical user interface on the SD card with pre built image i have.
The SD card i have is 2g. so i also cant just use the 4g image someone previously posted

I have followed this link
http://olimex.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/running-debian-with-xfce4-on-a13-olinuxino/

however i do not have the wifi version of the A13 board, i also dont have a usb to ethernet or wifi adaptor.

I believe another way to get the files on is using just a USB drive and fetch the files from another linux computer. I built the kernel using an ubuntu machine i have.
I tried downloading the packages using apt-get on the ubuntu machine then copying the deb files across then installing. However there are many dependencies which didn't make it across so it doesn't work.

Does anyone know how to do this or any other way i can get Xfce4 onto the SD card.

I looked at this
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-basico.en.html#s-dpkg-scanpackages

however i am a novice when it comes to linux so am unable to follow it too well.

If anyone can give me some options and novice level step by step instructions ill try it out then put it on the wiki for everyone.
Thanks

See also:

https://www.olimex.com/forum/index.php?topic=518.msg1978#msg1978

Follow the steps, and instead of doing

apt-get install wpasupplicant

do

apt-get install xfce4

It must be said, xfce will be tight on a 2GB card. It would be best to go to 4, if you can.

saand · December 21, 2012, 10:50:51 AM

Jwischka, thanks for that.
Looks like that link and method will solve my problem. Shall try it out soon.

I was wondering why you had made your images for 4g, it all makes sense now.

saand · December 23, 2012, 11:32:17 PM

hi jwischka
I tried the method you referenced but had some issues

I was able to do the following

-------------------------------------------------
apt-get install qemu-user-static
cp -a /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static /mnt/usr/bin/

mount -t proc proc /mnt/proc
mount -t sysfs sysfs /mnt/sys
mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev

chroot /mnt /bin/bash
--------------------------------------------------

I was unable to do the next step of
apt-get update
it looked for the UK server with a few error messages, the first of was
Err http://ftp.au.debian.org wheezy InRelease

then it had failed to fetch ....

I tried the AU server as well (i am in Australia) with the same results

I tried progressing without the update by typing
apt-get install xfce4

however it had the message
E: Unable to locate package xfce4

the actual steps listed in the link below which i am using to install a GUI lists a few different commands
http://olimex.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/running-debian-with-xfce4-on-a13-olinuxino/

it involves getting aptitude as below
# apt-get install aptitude

6. for installing X window type:

# aptitude install xfce4 xfce4-goodies lightdm

when i tried this 2nd operation using aptitude it responded with
Segmentation fault

Any help with this would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Scott

jwischka · December 23, 2012, 11:35:50 PM

Scott -
Do you have an internet connection on the computer you are using to do this? It appears that it isn't able to find where the package repository is. You might also cause the US servers (remove the au).

Quote from: saand on December 23, 2012, 11:32:17 PM
hi jwischka
I tried the method you referenced but had some issues

I was able to do the following

-------------------------------------------------
apt-get install qemu-user-static
cp -a /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static /mnt/usr/bin/

mount -t proc proc /mnt/proc
mount -t sysfs sysfs /mnt/sys
mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev

chroot /mnt /bin/bash
--------------------------------------------------

I was unable to do the next step of
apt-get update
it looked for the UK server with a few error messages, the first of was
Err http://ftp.au.debian.org wheezy InRelease

then it had failed to fetch ....

I tried the AU server as well (i am in Australia) with the same results

I tried progressing without the update by typing
apt-get install xfce4

however it had the message
E: Unable to locate package xfce4

the actual steps listed in the link below which i am using to install a GUI lists a few different commands
http://olimex.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/running-debian-with-xfce4-on-a13-olinuxino/

it involves getting aptitude as below
# apt-get install aptitude

6. for installing X window type:

# aptitude install xfce4 xfce4-goodies lightdm

when i tried this 2nd operation using aptitude it responded with
Segmentation fault

Any help with this would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Scott

saand · December 23, 2012, 11:51:07 PM

wow, that was a quick response. thanks

The symptoms suggest it cant get to an internet connection, i checked to make sure there is internet connection to this PC.
I am sending this response using it.

I also did another check that apt-get on my machine worked by running apt-get update to my ubuntu machine

Note: I am using ubuntu 11.10 if that makes any difference

Below is a copy of the error message both with the AU server and the US server

------------------------------------------------

root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# apt-get update
Err http://ftp.au.debian.org wheezy InRelease

Err http://ftp.au.debian.org wheezy Release.gpg
Could not resolve 'ftp.au.debian.org'
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/InRelease

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/Release.gpg Could not resolve 'ftp.au.debian.org'

W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# nano /etc/apt/sources.list
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# apt-get update
Err http://ftp.debian.org wheezy InRelease

Err http://ftp.debian.org wheezy Release.gpg
Could not resolve 'ftp.debian.org'
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/InRelease

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/Release.gpg Could not resolve 'ftp.debian.org'

W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/#
--------------------------------------------------------------

jwischka · December 23, 2012, 11:54:43 PM

Hmm. I'll have to think about that. Can you ping ftp.debian.org from inside the chroot?

Quote from: saand on December 23, 2012, 11:51:07 PM
wow, that was a quick response. thanks

The symptoms suggest it cant get to an internet connection, i checked to make sure there is internet connection to this PC.
I am sending this response using it.

I also did another check that apt-get on my machine worked by running apt-get update to my ubuntu machine

Note: I am using ubuntu 11.10 if that makes any difference

Below is a copy of the error message both with the AU server and the US server

------------------------------------------------

root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# apt-get update
Err http://ftp.au.debian.org wheezy InRelease

Err http://ftp.au.debian.org wheezy Release.gpg
Could not resolve 'ftp.au.debian.org'
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/InRelease

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/Release.gpg Could not resolve 'ftp.au.debian.org'

W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# nano /etc/apt/sources.list
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# apt-get update
Err http://ftp.debian.org wheezy InRelease

Err http://ftp.debian.org wheezy Release.gpg
Could not resolve 'ftp.debian.org'
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/InRelease

W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/Release.gpg Could not resolve 'ftp.debian.org'

W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/#
--------------------------------------------------------------

saand · December 24, 2012, 12:08:47 AM

no prob, take your time

Ping results from inside the chroot
--------
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# ping www.google.com.au
ping: unknown host www.google.com.au
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# ping ftp.debian.org
ping: unknown host ftp.debian.org
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/#
-------
ping works perfectly fine from another terminal on the same machine which isn't in chroot of the sd card

Note: i have not setup any networking info on this sd card image, the defaults are being used.
the SD card is purely made from instructions at this link
https://www.olimex.com/wiki/Build_Bootable_SD_Card_with_Debian
i have not made any other changes other than the instructions you pointed me to

i suspect you might be interested in the network setup so below is the ifconfig results from inside the chroot

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 50:e5:49:a7:af:ce
inet addr:192.168.0.3 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::52e5:49ff:fea7:afce/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:17102 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:14271 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:5
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:21962064 (20.9 MiB) TX bytes:1408392 (1.3 MiB)
Interrupt:42

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:829 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:829 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:63975 (62.4 KiB) TX bytes:63975 (62.4 KiB)

jwischka · January 08, 2013, 05:18:13 PM

Scott -

Hopefully you've fixed this by now, but an idea:

1) Inside the chroot, do the following:

groupadd -g 3003 aid_inet
usermod -a adm,sudo,aid_inet olimex

Are you able to access the internet after doing that?

Quote from: saand on December 24, 2012, 12:08:47 AM
no prob, take your time

Ping results from inside the chroot
--------
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# ping www.google.com.au
ping: unknown host www.google.com.au
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/# ping ftp.debian.org
ping: unknown host ftp.debian.org
root@scott-H61M-S2P-B3:/#
-------
ping works perfectly fine from another terminal on the same machine which isn't in chroot of the sd card

Note: i have not setup any networking info on this sd card image, the defaults are being used.
the SD card is purely made from instructions at this link
https://www.olimex.com/wiki/Build_Bootable_SD_Card_with_Debian
i have not made any other changes other than the instructions you pointed me to

i suspect you might be interested in the network setup so below is the ifconfig results from inside the chroot

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 50:e5:49:a7:af:ce
inet addr:192.168.0.3 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::52e5:49ff:fea7:afce/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:17102 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:14271 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:5
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:21962064 (20.9 MiB) TX bytes:1408392 (1.3 MiB)
Interrupt:42

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:829 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:829 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:63975 (62.4 KiB) TX bytes:63975 (62.4 KiB)