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

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.xandros.com/viewtopic.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.

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.

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.

Last edited by cartoon_nate (2007-10-31 8:24:44 pm)

timbobsteve wrote:

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

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

okachi wrote:

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.

okachi wrote:

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.

okachi wrote:

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.com/-1868:-Window-not … 60577.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.

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.

RichIOM wrote:

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.

i get these errors or reload

http://xnv4.xandros.com/4.0/upkg-i386/d … kages.bz2: MD5Sum mismatch
http://xnv4.xandros.com/4.0/upkg-i386/d … kages.bz2: MD5Sum mismatch
http://xnv4.xandros.com/4.0/upkg-i386/d … kages.bz2: MD5Sum mismatch

I get the following error when trying the unsupported repository:

W: Conflicting distribution: http://xnv4.xandros.com unsupported4.0-xn Release (expected unsupported4.0-xn but got sarge)
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://xnv4.xandros.com unsupported4.0-xn/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/xnv4.xandros.com_4.0_upkg-i386_dists_unsupported4.0-xn_main_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://xnv4.xandros.com unsupported4.0-xn/contrib Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/xnv4.xandros.com_4.0_upkg-i386_dists_unsupported4.0-xn_contrib_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: Couldn't stat source package list http://xnv4.xandros.com unsupported4.0-xn/non-free Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/xnv4.xandros.com_4.0_upkg-i386_dists_unsupported4.0-xn_non-free_binary-i386_Packages) - stat (2 No such file or directory)
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

i am getting those same errors when i start up synaptic.  i just reverted back to the default sources.list for now, but would like to know if there is a different way of adding the repos that would work.  would it be better if i added them through synaptic?