Prerelease: Easy Mer
 

MAY 2009 UPDATE: Mer 0.13 Replacement desktop experiment underway! Please see this post for more details! This post has Mer 0.13 root filesystems to download:

Both of those posts have more details, along with some warnings and "what doesn't work" info.

MARCH 2009 UPDATE: See this post for the newest image files, and use the instructions below with the new files instead.

ORIGINAL POST

Hey all,

I've tweaked the Mer 0.8 rootfs to run well in OS2008, and I posted my notes in my blog.

You need the new Easy Debian scripts to play with it.

It comes with Midori and I've configured Adobe Flashplayer, Prism, OpenJDK6, and Leafpad.

You can download the rootfs for a partition or the image file (see above for new files).

Once you've downloaded the image file to an SD card (in this example, /media/mmc2), you open a terminal, and enter:

You then have to edit your /home/user/.chroot file to have the following line:

You'll be able to run a root Ubuntu / Mer terminal by running
at a terminal (or put that in Personal Menu) and you run applications by typing What I want to know is, what do people want from this project? Do you want a mostly-empty image file that you can fill up yourself (pretty much what we have here), or do you want some key applications?

I also would like to know what I should do about the fact that Midori (the fast, Webkit-based browser that comes with Mer 0.8) doesn't do Java (nor does Fennec, it seems). Firefox is really heavy for the tablets, and Prism is really bare bones, so does anyone have a really lightweight browser that will do Java? Maybe Epiphany? Kazehakase? Something else?

Here's the screenshot from a few posts below:

Screenshot of Mer Midori using Mer Liberty theme in OS2008:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3560/...f2d8dac5_o.png

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

I just thought of something else; what about LXDE?

Should I set up an Ubuntu-style LXDE desktop for some Ubuntu desktop-on-desktop action?

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

I think the above should be,

And for this to work, the existing easy-debian image, if any, needs to be unmounted.

As for the image file, it'd be nice if you populate it with the apps that you currently distribute with easy-debian... adding Abiword as well!!!

--denis

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

I've found a two-step way to get the mer theme to work in the chroot.

• Edit /home/user/.gtkrc-2.0 and comment out any theme-related lines. Add the following line:
  
  
  Code:

  ---

  include "/usr/share/themes/liberty/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"

  ---

• Start the sapwood theme server (as user, not root) inside the chroot. I have no idea why it doesn't share the running sapwood server in Maemo; probably Nokia's version is proprietary somehow.
  
  
  Code:

  ---

  /usr/lib/sapwood/sapwood-server &

  ---

If you want to maintain a consistent theme throughout, then you need to install the same theme in OS2008 and the chroot. So far, this seems to be limited to the Titan theme, since the Liberty theme isn't available for OS2008 and Titan is the only third-party OS2008 themes in the Mer repository at the moment.

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

Maybe I should make multiple images... I don't know... At the moment, there isn't any discernable improvement for tablet users in any of the other Easy Debian apps that I didn't include. Does anyone need OpenOffice 3.0 as opposed to 2.4? And Firefox really is a resource hog; it is often just plain unpleasant to use.

LXDE is pretty much the same in Ubuntu and Debian. It would be fun to have a different desktop environment for Easy Mer / Ubuntu.

I'm curious to see how neatojones' E17 stuff turns out...

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

hey Qole,

First off, thanks for the easy debian package, it's a very nice piece of work. I think Midori alone may be good enough for many (haven't personally needed Java support as of yet), and keeping an emptier (or smaller) image file would also be achieved.

-CM

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

Hello Qole,
Thank you for your hard work.

If you intend to include OpenOffice I think would be better to include ver 3 instead of 2.4.

I use your Easy-Debian Turbo and I like to keep it updated.
Abt 1 week ago I updated 2.4 to 3 and everything was messed up.
I could't start OpenOffice at all.
I tried to uninstall and reinstall, but the new packages were only for 3 so again , no luck.
So I had to download Easy Debian again and update all packages exept Open Office.
So please try to accomodate Open Office 3.

Thank you again.:cool:

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

I did try Abiword on easy-mer... and like you reported earlier it appears a bit flaky. With foreign-language docs, when I try to set the language it typically freezes Abiword -- if not induce a crash... I am not sure the language locale stuff in Ubuntu is set right.

--denis

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

The locale stuff is complicated in Ubuntu. You need to follow the instructions in my blog post to get the locale set correctly...

As root, in Ubuntu (replace en_GB with your Maemo locale):

Re: Prerelease: Easy Ubuntu / Mer
 

Screenshot of Mer Midori using Mer Liberty theme in OS2008 (using theme instructions above):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3560/...f2d8dac5_o.png