[3MX Ultra2] Suggestions for Ultra3

[FezzFest]

3MX is getting more and more perfect. But a lot of things are broken too.
This is a thread to make suggestions for 3MX Ultra3.

What can be better, what bugs have you discovered, did you find a workaround or a solution. That's what should be posted here.

[FezzFest]

Let's start:

1. Xarchiver

There are two filetypes that doesn't seem to work well.
ZIP and TAR. I think we have to recompile it without faulty parameters, or remove it completely and let the user unzip & untar from command line.

More info: http://linuxlaptopforum.ark2webdesign.co.uk/index.php?topic=821.0

2. Apply the tweaks for a faster Bon Echo

There are a number of things that can be done for a faster web experience.
Remove AdBlock Plus add-on, install no-script, and apply the tweak in post #1.

More info: http://linuxlaptopforum.ark2webdesign.co.uk/index.php/topic,168.0.html

3. Update SkipStone browser

SkipStone browser is great. It's fast and it loads pages fine. However the current version in 3MX is 0.9.7. The latest version on the website is 1.0.1.

More info: http://www.muhri.net/skipstone/page.php3?node=download

4. Add xap-install or 3mx-install

The installer is slow and some parts do not work. Please include xap-install or 3mx-install script into 3MX.

[Mado]

I would love it if Samba could be included and the script to dim the screen....
:-)

[higgybees]

I would second Samba, I find that I only use one browser and I dont mind iceweasel or bon echo.
With samba something like linneighborhood or something similar. I also liked the script to start or stop your own network that as appeared in the 3mx forum.

It would be nice to have our own repos linked to apt get as well. Fred

[kloak]

I'd like to see apt-get, and makefile.....oh yes and cron, because I believe we can expand 3mx vastly with all those included....I'd also like to see a few gtk+ apps that edit some conf files, giving us a gui control panel....I'll get to making one im just focused on hardware stuff at the moment.........We also need to make sure the kernel is making best and every possible use of everything....i know thats a given but its always worth looking into, the Chinese did not explore the full potential of the components the stamped on this thing, And they rushed their OS development (if you can call it that, in both cases).....Just my 2 cents, Other than that 3MX is coming along great, The mimetype's could be better linked up to launch programs but thats not hard to do, just tedious.

[FezzFest]

I think aptitude is going to ask for too much space. I also think a lot of things of this system are going to be broken after an aptitude update, because we can't use Etch repos (it would downgrade a lot of programs) but Lenny requires 2.6 kernel.

I agree about the control panel or GTK conf editing programs however. Personally I don't care that I have to use the terminal, but I think there are a lot of people that don't know how to use it properly.

[kloak]

I wish I knew more about 3mx's development......what's it based on exactly? .....Debian?

[FL410]

Since this is my very first post, first of all: Wicknix, thank you very much for your great little distro! I really love my cheap little second hand Trendtac now that I have 3MX Ultra2 installed.

My biggest wish for 3MX Ultra3 would be KeePassX (http://packages.debian.org/lenny/keepassx). Having this cross platform password manager on my Trendtac would really make it the perfect travel companion for me. I've tried installing KeePassX in Ultra2 using mkxap but didn't quite make it. I'm an advanced Windows user at best and my only (very limited) Linux experience so far has been as a PuppyLinux user. I have no commandline experience whatsoever so I was happy to get as far as producing KeePassX.xap and .info files (eventually..). Unfortunately that wasn't enough because of dependency issues. (If anyone could produce a working KeePassX for Ultra2 or provide me with a (very detailed) 'How-To' to do it myself I'd be very grateful.)

[FezzFest]

@FL410:

It may be possible to use this piece of software, but it's only in the Debian Lenny repo's. To ensure compatibility, we have to use software from the Etch repositories. This does not mean it's impossible to run, but there's quite a good chance it just won't be able to run this program.

[FezzFest]

Hmm. I just found some mPlayer-on-TrendTac files on my development PC.
What's the current status of the custom mPlayer build for the TrendTac?

[wicknix]

Wow! Too many questions to answer, but i just want to say thanks to everyone who enjoys 3MX, and i'm very surprised at the amount of interest there is for an Ultra3 release!

To answer a few questions:
apt-get will never be part of 3MX. To put it simply, it will break the system by upgrading/downgrading packages/libraries. If you want apt/dpkg etc install one of my debian etch.img's.

Samba i still can't figure out. Hoping somebody else can.

I did build the ingenic mplayer sources awhile back. Horrid performance and it wouldn't play streaming radio (choppy), wouldn't play .flv or .wmv so i scrapped it and decided to stick with xine (default media player) as it plays those fine.

Development of 3MX itself is tricky to answer. It's part celinux, part debian etch and part openembedded all placed together by hand. For the most part it's about 95% binary/library compatible with debian etch.

Keypass i'll put on my long list of stuff to cross compile. It may build, it may not. We shall see.

Skipstone is just a gtk front end to xulrunner and gecko. It won't be rebuilt (by me anyway). It was not easy nor fun to get working.

Thanks for the heads up on xarchiver (i never use it as i use mc to unzip/untar etc so i didn't notice).

Cheers.

[FL410]

@FezzFest
Thanks for the info! I thought I'd read somewhere to use the Lenny repo's. I've been doing a lot of surfing/reading on this device and distro lately so I must have I been mixing things up.

@Wicknix
Thanks for putting KeePassX on your list! I'm keeping my fingers crossed..

I understand it's not been possible so far to get CUPS working in Ultra. Would it be possible to have some kind of PDF printer without using CUPS?

[kloak]

ya know, my bad on on the apt-get and compiler , I think I better understand what 3mX is now, It's ment to be configured and used, I'm having trouble merging the idea it's linux with the fact it's basically a ROM, I'm very familiar with this concept, I've got a few HTC kaisers, What is common to do in these situations is have 2 OS's , One to use, One to service the other. Which is what you've done with deb. I had no idea how much went into the development of 3mx, I Assumed it was a offshoot!! Any reason we're using the old kernel ? I'm only asking because, Almost all hardware that can be plugged into a usb port has kernel drivers for 2.6, I feel badly because I have to balance my hardware modification ambitions with my desire to help 3mx along, I don't know if you've looked into this or not yet, But I believe our problems viewing deeply script webpages, and running flash has to do with the display driver, and display frame buffer locking up the CPU's buffer, I realize with 512mb of ram we'll never have Adobe AIR.....But Flash 8 or maybe even 7 would be very possible on this hardware, as it exceeds the recommended requirements for both. I think we deserve a victory, These machines have to give us a inch, We need web-application support, as it would greatly expand the capabilities of our machines to participate in cloud computing.

anyway my suggestion for software to include is:

cron (Because it's vital to be able to run scripts/commands on a timer)


I'll have more suggestions later, When I better research what's possible.


Also:
Lib/binary incompatibility, is a problem...I've personally been having problems adding A GUI to my 'control panel' I was building for 3mX , I'm having trouble pinning down what gtk+ version and controls will actually work...it seems 2.10 is supported but...I think it's been slimmed down, because my GUI won't display properly.....I'm thinking about just scrapping that whole thing, And using the webserver and perl built in to approach UI based configuration for 3mx on html and perl....Any suggestions?

[FezzFest]

Any reason we're using the old kernel ?

Most of the TrendTac's hardware is not supported. I don't know if Ard or anyone else is still trying to get it working. The project's webpage is not updated since 4 januari 2009. Look here: http://projects.kwaak.net/twiki/bin/view/Epc700/KernelPort26

I realize with 512mb of ram we'll never have Adobe AIR.....But Flash 8 or maybe even 7 would be very possible on this hardware, as it exceeds the recommended requirements for both.

We only have 128MB RAM. We can use a SWAP-file, but only on SD-card and I don't think USB1 is fast enough to have any performance icreases.

I agree about the fact however that this machine can do lots more than what we currently use.
The 400MHz MIPS cpu must be fast enough to run Android or some other kind of mobile phone OS. In fact our TrendTac is just a mobile phone with a keyboard and a bigger screen (however the resolution matches perfectly with modern smartphones). But we need a working 2.6 kernel and perfectly optimized software.

[kloak]

Excellent! Excellent! I was thinking of using swapfiles along these same lines, They are a little better than PDA's because there's much much more room to work with...There is always kernel drivers from the component manufacturer's, I'll be trying android once I get my lid modified, It's got that touch sensor, So I flipped the screen around, removed the hinges and I'm modifying some HTC slide and TILT hardware to basicly turn it into a giant HTC TyTn II lol. Android is a possibility, but sort of....useless without a touchscreen. Shoot me for saying it, I know for a fact Windows Mobile 6 and Windows CE 5.0 works on these MIPS processors too....I really need my shit to get here, I don't wanna risk bricking the only laptop I Got, So I've ordered spares.