Bodhi's ARM Branch Moves to ARMHF

After doing some research and testing for the last week I have arrived at the conclusion that Bodhi's ARM branch will best serve our users by moving our core from Debian Wheezy ARMEL to utilize Debian Wheezy ARMHF. I'm not going to get into the technical difference between the two platforms here - just know that in general ARMHF is faster.

With this change however, there are some slight changes to our ARM repo details. If you have Debian Wheezy ARMHF installed on a device and wish to add the Bodhi repo to your sources the line you want to add is:

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

Then you just install our bodhi-desktop package as before.

With regards to our officially supported ARM devices, you can find download links to our brand new ARMHF images for the RaspBerry Pi and Genesi Smartbook on our ARM downloads page. Our RaspBerry Pi build is built directly on top of Raspbian and incorporates all of their changes and improvements.

~Jeff Hoogland

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HOWTO: Clone all Programs Installed via Apt

Today I would like to share a nifty trick for cloning your application selections installed via the apt-get package manager. It is as simple as running two commands. First on the system you wish to clone, open a terminal and run this command (which is on pastebin due to blogger formatting issues).

Next, simply copy the package-list to the system you wish to setup a copy on. Finally open a terminal and run:

xargs apt-get install -y < package-list

In the same directory you copied the package-list file too. Please note that this trick only works when your two systems in question have exactly the same sources/operating system version.

Cheers,

~Jeff Hoogland

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Bodhi Linux RaspBerry Pi Beta

Edit/Update: You can find the latest release here -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

A little over six weeks ago I posted a very early image of Bodhi for the RaspBerry Pi. Today I am happy to let everyone know that I have published what I consider to be a "beta" quality image:

Bodhi for Pi: http://bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

The download comes in the form of a compressed .IMG file, which can be extracted and then written to an SD card (2GB minimum). The first thing worth noting in this release is that the default username/password are different:

Username: pi

Password: bodhilinux

As for changes, this release is now utilizing Terminology as it's default terminal emulator and PCManFM file browser has been replaced with the native EFM (Enlightenment File Manager). The issues our first image had with networking and flash drives should also be resolved with this release. Also worth noting is that the AppCenter is now configured to work by default in the Midori web browser - but the synaptic interface runs fairly slow on the Pi hardware.

Finally - if you have any issues with this image please open a support request in the RaspBerry Pi section of our user forums. That is a much better place to trouble shoot than the comments section on this post.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Bodhi Linux ARM Alpha Release for RaspBerry Pi

Edit/Update: You can find the latest release here -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

I've been busy with lots of different Bodhi things of the late. The latest of my many projects has been getting the Bodhi desktop functional on the RaspBerry Pi:

This first release while having some rough edges does give you a fully functional Enlightenment desktop on top of a Debian Wheezy ARMEL base. I am providing two different downloads which you can find on our source forge page here. The first is an easy to use .img file that can be written to 4GB or larger SD card.

If you dislike .img files I've also provided tar files that contain the boot partition (which should be written to a vfat partition at the start of an SD card) and the root file system (which should be written to the second partition on a card that is extX).

The default logins for this image are:

bodhi/bodhi

root/raspberry

The "bodhi" user has sudo rights by default.

If you hit any snags or find bugs with this image please let us know in the RaspBerryPi section of our user forums (not the comment section of this blog!) so we can improve this release.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Bodhi Linux ARM Release Candidate for Genesi

Edit/Update: You can find the latest release here -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

Early this year I posted about our beta release of Bodhi on ARM for the Genesi Smartbook. Today I would like to finally follow up that beta release with something that I consider "release candidate" quality. The hardware is 99% functional with this release including the ability to suspend the system. Other small improvements include functional "plug and play" for flash drives and a mostly functional AppCenter!

There are three different downloads provided that you can find here. It is recommended you use one of the provided .img files (and check the md5sum after such a large download!). For developers interested in seeing the raw file system you can also download it in .tar.xz form.

The default login information for this release image are:

genesi/bodhilinux

If you run into any issues please let us know in the Genesi section of our forums.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Bodhi Linux ARM Beta Release for Genesi Smartbook

Edit/Update: You can find the latest release here -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

Much to my fiancée's dismay my little Genesi Smartbook has been occupying much of my time of the late. In fact, just six days ago I posted about how to get an early build of a Bodhi ARM file system for the Smartbook.

Today I am happy to announce a more functional release for the Genesi. Audio now works and permissions have been sorted out so the normal user can shutdown the system. Beyond these bug fixes this release (and future releases) are coming in an easier install media. We will now be providing two different .img files for the Smartbook, you can find them for download here.

One of the images is a live image. Use this one if you want to simply run Bodhi from your SD card. The second is an installer image. Simply boot it up, follow the on screen prompts and Bodhi will be installed to the internal SSD of the Smartbook. IMG files allow for simply loading these images onto an SD card with a single command:

sudo dd if=myfile.img of=/path/to/sdcard bs=1M

You can also load the image onto your card via a GUI if you are into that sort of thing. Please note this command may take five minutes or longer to complete. Once you get the system online the user name is "bodhi" with password of "bodhi". Sudo is setup for this user by default.

Next on my ARM todo list is to get our App Center working and putting together a formal tutorial for getting Bodhi running on the HP Touchpad.

Finally, if you run into any issues please let us know in the Genesi section of our forums.

~Jeff Hoogland

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HOWTO: Bodhi Linux on Genesi Smartbook

Edit/Update: You can find the latest release here -> http://www.bodhilinux.com/downloads_mobile.php

I mentioned a short while ago that Genesi had become a Bodhi affiliate. They sent me one of their Smartbooks to get hacking at and today I would like to share my first batch of public files for it. The following is a short HOWTO for getting a Debian Wheezy file system with the Bodhi Enlightenment desktop running on your Genesi Smartbook.

First - Preparing the SD Card:

You will need an SD card that is at least 4GB. We need two partitions on this card, the first is a small EXT3 partition (at least 64MB) and then a second EXT4 partition that takes up the remainder of the card. Use your tool of choice to prepare the SD card, personally I prefer "GParted":

Second - Getting the Files:

Two archives contain everything you need to get Bodhi rolling on your Smartbook. Grab the latest rootfs and boot partitions from here.

Third - Extracting the Files:

Place the boot archive in the ext3 partition of your SD card and extract the files there. Place the rootfs archive in the ext4 partition of your SD card and extract the files there.

Thats it - you are all set! Simply place the SD card in your Smartbook and boot it up. In a few moments you should be greeted with an Enlightenment desktop. The default user information is:

Username: bodhi
Password: bodhi 

The bodhi account is configured to be able to use "sudo", but a root account is also in existence with a password of "bodhi".

Known Issues:

This is a early release for others wanting to help me test and debug things. It is fairly functional in it's current state, but please be aware of two issues with the first release I am aware of -

• Audio is non-functional
• Shutdown/Restart/Suspend cannot be done via Enlightenment Menu

If you figure out a fix for either of these please pass it along!

Installing to Internal Memory:

If you like the Bodhi image and want to install it to your internal system memory (typically much faster than an SC card) it is fairly easy to do so. By default the internal drive has two paritions, one located at /dev/sda1 and a second at /dev/sda2. Mount these while booted from the SD card and remove their current contents. Then simply extract the boot archive to /dev/sda1 and the rootfs to /dev/sda2. Finally, you will need to remove the default boot.scr the boot archive provides and rename the boot.scr.sda to simply boot.scr

Trouble Shooting:

If you encounter an issue getting Bodhi setup on your Smartbook please do not leave a comment here about it. Instead open a thread in the Genesi Section of our user forums.

Photos:

Finally here are a couple of slightly terrible photos of Bodhi booted on my Genesi.
 

Cheers,
~Jeff Hoogland

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HOWTO: Use APT without the Bloat

Today I would like to share a small tidbit with all the users of APT distros out there. One of the reasons Bodhi Linux is so light weight and snappy is because when I install all the base packages for Bodhi I install them with the minimal amount of extra dependencies.

For whatever reason a good deal of Debian packagers like to tack on a whole slew of "optional" dependencies to the packages they create. By default apt-get installs all of these extra dependencies on your computer. If you are like me and don't want all the extra bloat it is as simple as running apt-get with on extra argument:

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends foo 

In the above example "foo" is the name of the package you wish to install. Doing this can save a good bit of space on your system. For example:

sudo apt-get install abiword

VS

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends abiword

or

sudo apt-get install k3b

VS

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends k3b

~Jeff Hoogland

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The State of Linux on ARM

Linux was designed to be a platform with freedom in mind. This freedom created in the computer industry something all humans should have - the power of choice.

ARM is often touted as one of Linux's largest successes. Thanks to Google's Android platform it is true that a penguin powers at least half of the world's mobile devices today.

Is this a bit of a hollow victory though?

Even with Android being as rampant as it is, if you have been by my blog here before you know I am not a fan of it.  Earlier this year I described six reasons why I believe Android is fairly separated from Linux.

It appears I am not alone in my line on thinking here. Richard Stallman, the father of free software, himself appears to also agree (at least somewhat) with me:

"Google has complied with the requirements of the GNU General Public Licence for Linux, but the Apache licence on the rest of Android does not require source release. Google has said it will never publish the source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also being withheld. Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free software, pure and simple."

I said earlier Linux is all about choice though - so there have to be other mobile choices right? Well... There are some. In fact over a year ago I wrote why I was hoping for the Meego platform to take off.

Some thirteen months later it appears that the Meego project is waning in supporters though. While Nokia will be releasing the Meego powered N9 (not to mention the N9 is deb based, so its not fully Meego), they have basically abandoned free software for the long haul. The other partner behind Meego, Intel, appears to be splitting their focus as well.

So where does that leave Linux on ARM? As far as production devices go, it doesn't leave much of anything. Debian, Ubuntu and even Bodhi have ARM builds, but we have yet to see any of these options taken and mass produced successfully as of yet.

Only time will tell where Linux will end up in the world of mobile devices. It is fairly obvious though if you are a true free software supporter - You should not be one of the people hoping for Android to dominate.

~Jeff Hoogland

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