Has anyone installed Poplog on Asus EEE or Xandros?
Aaron Sloman
email for someone trying to install Poplog on the remarkable ASUS
EEE, mini-laptop, which I understand runs Xandros linux.
Since Xandros is a version of debian, as is Ubuntu, I have suggested
she follow the instructions for installing poplog on Ubuntu provided
by David Brooks here
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/v15.61/
I.e.
Run the package manager by going to the 'System menu'. Select
'Administration' then 'Synaptic package manager' -- for which
you will have to type your password. Then when the package
manager starts up, select 'Settings' then 'Repositories'. Click
in all the boxes for packages downloadable from the internet,
except for the source packages. After that you should be able to
download all the required packages either using synaptic, or
more easily using the command line as follows:
sudo apt-get install gcc build-essential tcsh \
libxext6 libxext-dev libx11-6 libx11-dev libxt-6 libxt-dev \
libmotif3 libmotif-dev
I suggested she follow those instructions, but don't know whether
that will lead to problems.
I don't know of any Xandros user who has installed poplog, so I
don't know whether the Ubuntu instructions have been tried on
Xandros.
I also don't know whether installing those packages is infeasible
because of the small amount of storage space on even the larger 4GB
EEE.
One problem we have already identified is that there is no 'setarch'
command on the EEE, which is available on other systems to overcome
some of the problems caused by security settings. If anyone knows
how to get hold of setarch for the EEE, or for Xandros, please
provide a pointer.
In the meantime I have advised her to disable the cause of the
problem temporarily by doing:
/sbin/sysctl -w kernel.randomize_va_space=0
That allows poplog saved images to run on fedora, for example.
without using 'setarch'.
Since poplog has a very small 'footprint' for what it provides I
would think it could be an ideal extension to the EEE for people
wanting to learn about AI programming and even for developing some
applications including AI games.
It will be even more usable on the new larger eee due to be released
soon with 20GB storage in the linux version.
Chris Dollin
> I have been trying, so far with limited success, to provide help by
> email for someone trying to install Poplog on the remarkable ASUS
> EEE, mini-laptop, which I understand runs Xandros linux.
Yes.
I have one; I believe I have run the pop11 image (copied from
my FC5 box), but doing a full install is pending.
> I also don't know whether installing those packages is infeasible
> because of the small amount of storage space on even the larger 4GB
> EEE.
I've stuffed a 4Gb SD card in the SD slot to hold java, eclipse,
etc etc.
> One problem we have already identified is that there is no 'setarch'
> command on the EEE, which is available on other systems to overcome
> some of the problems caused by security settings. If anyone knows
> how to get hold of setarch for the EEE, or for Xandros, please
> provide a pointer.
Do we /know/ that we /need/ it?
> It will be even more usable on the new larger eee due to be released
> soon with 20GB storage in the linux version.
More disc is nice. More RAM would be nice.
What I found stunningly impressive is the 2Gb eee pc running
Google Earth at a very respectable speed (note: needs a hackette
to avoid a glitch).
--
Far-Fetched Hedgehog
"I just wonder when we're going to have to sit down and re-evaluate
our decision-making paradigm." /Sahara/
Aaron Sloman
Chris Dollin <e...@electrichedgehog.net> writes:
> Aaron Sloman wrote:
>
> > I have been trying, so far with limited success, to provide help by
> > email for someone trying to install Poplog on the remarkable ASUS
> > EEE, mini-laptop, which I understand runs Xandros linux.
>
> Yes.
>
> I have one; I believe I have run the pop11 image (copied from
> my FC5 box), but doing a full install is pending.
That is very encouraging. The person who asked for help first tried
a full install. That failed for several reasons. One was that it
seems she did not have gcc so re-linking was not possible.
Another was that she had none of the required X11 libraries
installed (libX11.so, libXt.so, libXext.so and the optional
libXm.so). Because the first three were missing, an attempt to link
with X11 but without motif would not have worked.
Another problem was that the installation script detected that
/sbin/sysctl kernel.randomize_va_space
produced the result = 1, so it attempted to use setarch, and found
that that did not exist. This means that attempts to run saved
images will mostly fail (mostly because the effect is random!)
I have also failed to find setarch for eee or xandros on the web. So
I have recommended that she run this command to make setarch
unnecessary
/sbin/sysctl -w kernel.randomize_va_space=0
until we either find setarch or find a way to change poplog so that
it doesn't need setarch. (I suspect that will require changing the
way poplog uses malloc in running saved images -- but that's beyond
my know-how).
Like you I thought of giving her a version linked on another
machine, so I prepared this package, which contains basepop11 linked
without X, and a set of saved images
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/poplog-v15.6102-nox.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x axs/staff 1692235 2008-04-24 13:55:36 pop/basepop11
-rw-r--r-- axs/staff 231694 2008-04-24 13:55:36 pop/basepop11.map
-rw-r--r-- axs/staff 0 2008-04-24 13:55:36 pop/basepop11.stb
drwxr-xr-x axs/staff 0 2008-04-24 14:02:30 lib/psv/
-rw-r--r-- axs/staff 110240 2008-04-24 14:00:28 lib/psv/startup.psv
-rw-r--r-- axs/staff 401120 2008-04-24 14:00:34 lib/psv/prolog.psv
-rw-r--r-- axs/staff 1613536 2008-04-24 14:00:40 lib/psv/clisp.psv
-rw-r--r-- axs/staff 650976 2008-04-24 14:00:46 lib/psv/pml.psv
However, when she untarred that then tried running basepop11 she got
"Floating point exception".
So I suggested that she follow the instructions for Ubuntu in
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/v15.61
and try again, namely:
First extend the set of package repositories as follows:
Run the package manager by going to the 'System menu'. Select
'Administration' then 'Synaptic package manager' -- for which you
will have to type your password. Then when the package manager
starts up, select 'Settings' then 'Repositories'. Click in all the
boxes for packages downloadable from the internet, except for the
source packages. After that you should be able to download all the
above packages either using synaptic, or more easily using the
command line as follows:
sudo apt-get install gcc build-essential tcsh \
libxext6 libxext-dev libx11-6 libx11-dev libxt-6 libxt-dev \
libmotif3 libmotif-dev
(or, if short of storage space, do it in three stages using apt-get
with just the first line, to see if the prelinked basepop11 works,
and then with the second line to get basic X functionality without
motif.)
She says she does not really need the X facilities, as her main
requirement is to use pop11, prolog and Ved, for work on Natural
Language Processing.
> I've stuffed a 4Gb SD card in the SD slot to hold java, eclipse,
> etc etc.
I'll pass that on.
> > One problem we have already identified is that there is no 'setarch'
> > command on the EEE, which is available on other systems to overcome
> > some of the problems caused by security settings. If anyone knows
> > how to get hold of setarch for the EEE, or for Xandros, please
> > provide a pointer.
>
> Do we /know/ that we /need/ it?
See above. Can you run saved images without it? What do you get when
you run:
/sbin/sysctl kernel.randomize_va_space
> > It will be even more usable on the new larger eee due to be released
> > soon with 20GB storage in the linux version.
>
> More disc is nice. More RAM would be nice.
>
> What I found stunningly impressive is the 2Gb eee pc running
> Google Earth at a very respectable speed (note: needs a hackette
> to avoid a glitch).
That is impressive. I presume you have a good web connection too!