226 replies to this topic

[timbobsteve]

Summary:

Be careful when adding additional software to the Eee version of the Xandros OS. It is not considered compatible with Debian packages Bellow is a link to a stickied post in the Xandros Forums with a list of additional community repositories. Only use the Xandros 4 repositories

Full Story

Xandros is a fork of Debian. This means that the people at Xandros took the Debian distribution source code and recompiled and tweaked it to suit their needs (which is to sell commercially). As a result of the forking process Xandros is not considered to be Debian compatible. What this means is that downloading packages or adding the Debian software archives to the Xandros operating system will, eventually, break something important. Now, I understand that the Eee version of Xandros is further modified, but it's closest blood relative is Xandros Desktop Edition 4 (Xandros 4). What this means is that the safest way to keep your system stable is to only install packages that have been built for Xandros specifically.

Now, the official word from Xandros is that adding Debian repositories will break Xandros. This is true in some instances and while a package may appear to install, it does not guarantee that it will run, or break your system. In order to add additional software to the Eee Xandros Distribution you will need to use Xandros packages... and the Xandros Networks (Xandros' name for a software repository) is only available to Xandros Desktop 4 and Xandros Server 4 customers.... which makes it very hard for us. Fortunately many Xandros users noticed this and started to build repositories of their own that were considered to be compatible with Xandros. Bellow is a link to a forum post in the Xandros Support Forums that lists a bunch of community repositories that you can add and download software from. I have copy'n'pasted some of them here (the forum probably contains even more)


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deb http://xnv4.xandros.com/4.0/pkg/ xandros4.0-xn main contrib non-free
deb http://xnv4.xandros.com/4.0/upkg-i386/ unsupported4.0-xn main contrib non-free
deb http://dccamirror.xandros.com/dccri/ dccri-3.0 main
deb http://www.archlug.org/apt/ xandros4 archlug
deb http://www.archlug.org/apt/ xandros4 xorid/andrew
deb http://www.archlug.org/apt/ xandros4 xorid/matty
deb http://www.archlug.org/apt/ xandros4 xorid/uploads

NOTE: Not all sources listed in the forum are for Xandros 4. Some are for previous versions of Xandros. DO NOT USE THESE!

http://forums.xandro...pic.php?t=22296

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If you absolutely MUST use the debian repositories for packages, consider user apt-pinning so that you don't hose your system.

Quote

As a general tip, if you choose to take the risk to use unsupported repositories you should use pinning. Here is a post from the xandros forum regarding using debian repositories with xandros.

http://forums.xandro...pic.php?t=14236

Pinning gives specific repositories priority so that a package available from xandros will never be overwritten by a debian package, even if the debian package is newer. This is especially important for libraries. Say you have official asus package A using official asus lib B. You install debian package C which requires the same library of higher version number B1. You apt-get install and B gets overwritten with B1. Now you launch program A which uses library B but library B is now different and say the developers dropped support for something. A problem like this could even happen just by adding mixed repos and doing an apt-get upgrade.

My suggestion (I've never tried this) is that you set up your repos with official asus at highest priority and xandros desktop 4 at second. if you absolutely need something not available add debian etch as 3rd priority, but beware there is still some risk.

Edited by timbobsteve, 31 October 2007 - 08:34 PM.

[okachi]

Excellent, just what I was looking for. Thanks!

M

[cheesemp]

I've been using debian repos for a while. Not installed anything to complicated though. Just wine, g++ and a few libs.

[okachi]

cheesemp, are you using the Debian 4.0 repos, or tracking unstable?

M

[ssnyder]

As a general tip, if you choose to take the risk to use unsupported repositories you should use pinning. Here is a post from the xandros forum regarding using debian repositories with xandros.

http://forums.xandro...pic.php?t=14236

Pinning gives specific repositories priority so that a package available from xandros will never be overwritten by a debian package, even if the debian package is newer. This is especially important for libraries. Say you have official asus package A using official asus lib B. You install debian package C which requires the same library of higher version number B1. You apt-get install and B gets overwritten with B1. Now you launch program A which uses library B but library B is now different and say the developers dropped support for something. A problem like this could even happen just by adding mixed repos and doing an apt-get upgrade.

My suggestion (I've never tried this) is that you set up your repos with official asus at highest priority and xandros desktop 4 at second. if you absolutely need something not available add debian etch as 3rd priority, but beware there is still some risk.

[RichIOM]

Does the EeePC have a package manager at all like Apt? If so is it a Gui type?

[timbobsteve]

yes it does. I think the default app frontend is Xandros Networks.... but apt is in the command line. Synaptic may also be available.... or whatever KDE alternative is.

[cheesemp]

Yes synaptic - its really easy to use - just mark the packages you want and hit apply. Theres also a text based GUI but I forget its name.

My sources file for those interested:

deb http://update.eeepc.asus.com/p701/ p701 main
deb http://update.eeepc.asus.com/p701/en/ p701 main
deb http://update.eeepc.asus.com/p701/tw/ p701 main

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main non-free contrib
deb http://non-us.debian.../debian-non-US/ stable/non-US main contrib non-free

I'll probably reinstall Xandros this weekend as I think switching to the Xandros repos will be useful in the long run. The wine I've installed can't seem to use opengl for directx and I expect its the debian/xandros mismatch causing the problem.

[cartoon_nate]

Wow.. this is an extremely misleading thread. Xandros 4.0 is based off Debian.. true... but it's based off Sarge. Xandros EEEPC is based on ETCH. In fact, you're better off installing off Debian Etch repos or Xandros Server 2.0 repos.

I should also mention: avoid installing anything KDE based.. it's better to leave that alone because anything KDE is extremely customized and will probably break the system. As such anything that an XFCE or GNOME etch user would install is "intelligent fair game".

A good rule of thumb is that if you try to apt get install it and it doesn't replace too too much then you are in the clear.

Edited by cartoon_nate, 01 November 2007 - 12:24 AM.

[RichIOM]

Fantastic so it's a bit like Ubuntu for installing stuff then?

[okachi]

Quote

deb http://xnv4.xandros.com/4.0/upkg-i386/ unsupported4.0-xn main contrib non-free

I get MD5SUM mismatch errors with that repo -- not sure if it's a temporary thing.

As someone else said, the the Eee's distro is a bit more modern than Xandros 4.0 or 4.1. Also, I'm not sure about using the Debian Etch repos; I installed AbiWord and it segfaults when you start typing. I also installed ZSNES and that doesn't run properly either.

Early days, but I reckon we'll need a dedicated package repository for the Eee. And even if ASUS or Xandros don't create one, it's something we, as a community, can do ourselves. It wouldn't be too hard -- we get some source .debs for popular programs, kit up an Eee with the GCC toolchain and header packages, and build binaries for the native Eee OS.

Unfortunately I don't have much more time with my review unit, but when I get my very own Eee I'll start snooping around :-)

M

[RichIOM]

Does the Eee not already have it's own Repo's?

Surely overtime more software will be added to those. If you stick with the default repo's you can then be sure what's compatible.

What's currently available from the standard Repo?

[okachi]

Yep, the Eee has its own repos, but only containing the software pre-installed with the machine. A few updates are available for Skype and co. Maybe ASUS or Xandros will start to populate the repo with more programs, but it's no big deal if not -- after all, they want to keep the device simple and easy to support. There's nothing to stop us from making our own repo though!

M

[RichIOM]

Main software I'd like to work on it would be:

Gimp
MonoDevelop + Mono Framework
Remote Desktop with RDP for remoting to Windows Desktops
OpenVPN
OpenOffice
and Something fun like Mame

If anyone fancies confirming any of the above I'd appreciate it.

Edited by RichIOM, 01 November 2007 - 10:59 AM.

[cartoon_nate]

Quote

As someone else said, the the Eee's distro is a bit more modern than Xandros 4.0 or 4.1

.
A bit different? Erm... completely different. Etch is relatively new. In fact, it's new enough that backporting from Feisty is not too too taxing and backporting from Gutsy is also doable. Sarge is much older, Pretty much every single dependency is different. Don't touch Xandros 4.1 with a 10 foot poll.

Quote

Also, I'm not sure about using the Debian Etch repos; I installed AbiWord and it segfaults when you start typing. I also installed ZSNES and that doesn't run properly either.

I just installed AbiWord from etch, Having no problems. Can you give me the output of apt-cache policy abiword?

In fact, I've installed both beep-media-player and rox-filer with no problems, I too tried using ZSNES but I'm pretty sure that it's not working properly because it's trying to span to a term that doesn't exist. Binary compatibility, though, is definitely not the problem. If anything, a patch and a recompile should fix it so that it works "out of the box." Perhaps bugging the ZSNES dev team would be most helpful as a command-line param should probably get it to work.

Quote

Early days, but I reckon we'll need a dedicated package repository for the Eee. And even if ASUS or Xandros don't create one, it's something we, as a community, can do ourselves. It wouldn't be too hard -- we get some source .debs for popular programs, kit up an Eee with the GCC toolchain and header packages, and build binaries for the native Eee OS.

An EXCELLENT idea okachi. I would definitely help out :). Yes, etch apps might have good compatibility but we want to be also tweaking the ui so it fits on screens properly. We also should push hard upstream devs to start supporting the eeepc from both a binary and ui point of view. At the very least, lets push for better support for the 800x480 resolution upstream.

Here's an example of me bugging the upstream folks: http://www.nabble.co...0-t3960577.html
Obviously, now that the eee pc is released, more people posting would cause the upstream devs to think more about getting their app to work better at such a resolution without any custom patches.

The main reasoning: even if Xandros can patch pidgin themselves, If upstream fixes the issue, Xandros won't have to and thus all eee pc users will benefit from more frequent updates. Additional reasoning: even ubuntu eeepc users will benefit :).

I'm really really busy myself until Jan at which point I have more time to do what I can. In the summer, I did work at Xandros but I'm now back at school so time is at a premium. I guess one of these days I'll introduce myself proper on the introductions forum.

I intend to help with the following up on these soon to-be-created repos:
Miro
A constantly up=to-date Pidgin
OpenArena
Zsnes
Maybe more....

I encourage you all to get your hands dirty with these apps before... they really shouldn't be too too bad to get in.

[joey3002]

am i editing /etc/apt/sources.list or another file?

then once i edit it, how do i view a list of programs to install?

thanks

[RichIOM]

You could either open up terminal and type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install <program name> (if you know what you want)

Or

Locate the Synaptic Package Manager which I'm led to believe exists on the EeePC.

This will list all the available packages (software) to download.

[tulsa_sr5]

Okachi, i'mm getting the same errors with the repositories listed up top. Got the errors yesterday too. I just tried the etch repositories and get other errors there
E: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/dpkg/status (2)
E: Unable to lock the download directory

[loungeact]

Quote

You could either open up terminal and type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install <program name> (if you know what you want)

Or

Locate the Synaptic Package Manager which I'm led to believe exists on the EeePC.

This will list all the available packages (software) to download.

Just type sudo bash, then synaptic.

I followed the hack to add repo for gimp so im not sure which of the packages im seeing are from asus repos but its a start.

By the way hi all.

[howie]

thanks for the info
igot ktorrent of of there
and it runs awesome once
i forwarded the port on my firewall

h