Desired packages in duh.org builds?

[Todd Vierling]

Well, since I've broken the fourth wall (figuratively speaking) by
adding Java to the build, might as well add more stuff. Tomorrow's
build will definitely include rdesktop and tigervnc (a derivative of
tightvnc, building the viewer component only). Those tools will be in
the stateful partition with the other "dev" tools (under /usr/local).

Note: With the trackpad driver still acting kinda funny, rdesktop
works, but it's not possible to right-click on anything via the
trackpad. That is a bit of a killer for using rdesktop for what I
wanted, but it might work for simple tasks (or you can just use a real
mouse). Alt-click gets sent as-is, not as an emulated right-click.
(For a short while on the 0.9.131 branch, the trackpad appeared to
work correctly, but it went strange again in 0.9.135; I'm
investigating.)

I'm not going to fill the duh.org images with hundreds of assorted
packages, but I'm open to suggestions for useful _base_ packages to
include in the builds. Think common, simple tools, not big
applications.

The floor is open. Discuss. :)

[Deidre Elizabeth]

Codec for video and esp sound.  My Radio station, WGTS, from my local area, broadcasts over the net but Chrome OS won't play their links.  They are listed in shoutcast.com as trandmitting in aac format, not mp3.  Other christan shoutcast station will play who transmit in mp3 format but only at a bitrate of 96 kb/s.  My station is at 64 kb/s.  Got something in your tool of tricks for this?  :-*

[Dennis Lockhart]

I'm using a usb mouse now but the trackpad is still killing me, it throws me off when typing. Do you know how to turn it off? I guess it's something similar to an initcrl command but I can't/don't know how to find documentation on it.

--
DennyL@GMail

[John Mora]

Here you are:

http://chromeos-cr48.blogspot.com/2011/01/kill-trackpad.html

HTH

[Deidre Elizabeth]

All trackpads, no matter how cleverly designed, will always be a waste of space.  a trackball mouse with a scroll wheel is the most awesome tool in the worl to have with a computer. laptop/netbook manufacturers really should get this through their heads and stop selling them with these trackpads in the first place....  it's a waste of space, time, money, tech, etc...

[Todd Vierling]

I've always been partial to the "eraserheads" that are the hallmark of
ThinkPads. My first netbook -- a couple years before that term
existed, when it was essentially a US-rebadged Japanese-import
mini-notebook by JVC -- had one. I could flick that thing around the
screen with pretty great accuracy.

[Dennis Lockhart]

I agree, I deal with a ton of Lenovo(IBM) ThinkPads at work (school) and am very partial to the eraserhead design. It would ideally be optimum to be able to toggle the trackpad on/off via a key combo or at least a shell command but I guess the xorg.conf solution suggested by John will work for now - Thanx John, et all.

--
DennyL@GMail

[Caleb Eggensperger]

I prefer trackpads. I don't think it's an issue of manufacturers not understanding trackballs, but of trackpads being more popular.

[Glapoes]

I prefer trackpads as well, with the exception for certain tasks or, obviously, games.  I decapitate eraserheads due to sucking at their use and also tending to bump it while typing.

[Todd Vierling]

No promises there; the non-Flash media player is still in fledgling
state and I know very little about it. I know that it's possible to
wrap stream URLs into a Flash-based player though, probably the
simplest way to do so in the short term, so l keep the suggestion in
mind.

[sara]

just because you feel that way does not mean everyone else does. i have a laptop, a netbook, and the cr-48 of course, and i use the trackpad for all three. only exception is when i plug in a graphic tablet for design work, and i really don't think a trackball could compare with the graphic tablet. @_@

[jordan]

Would it be possible to add mplayer or some separate media player
altogether?

[Todd Vierling]

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 12:49 AM, jordan <eatsle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Would it be possible to add mplayer or some separate media player
> altogether?

I can see what's feasible to integrate. At first it would have to be
an external app, but it's possible that one of the ones provided by
gentoo has a working NPAPI browser plugin. (thinking perhaps VLC, as
it's relatively self-containes; Totem is a bit more heavyweight and
would pull in a lot of GNOME bits)

One drawback is that the graphics driver for the Cr-48 is not making
full use of its acceleration capabilities at the moment. You've
probably noticed this while using YouTube. So video playback may end
up being quite choppy for now.

[klobster]

VLC works pretty flawlessy with ubuntu on the cr-48.

On Jan 6, 7:04 am, Todd Vierling <t...@duh.org> wrote:

[Todd Vierling]

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 3:32 PM, klobster <imha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> VLC works pretty flawlessy with ubuntu on the cr-48.

Yes, but Ubuntu != Chromium OS. I can build VLC, sure, but the browser
plugin is the sticky bit for cros...

[harningt]

On Jan 5, 7:34 pm, Todd Vierling <t...@duh.org> wrote:
> Well, since I've broken the fourth wall (figuratively speaking) by
> adding Java to the build, might as well add more stuff. Tomorrow's
> build will definitely include rdesktop and tigervnc (a derivative of
> tightvnc, building the viewer component only). Those tools will be in
> the stateful partition with the other "dev" tools (under /usr/local).

Thanks for the stateful partition trick, fixes the problem of not
wanting to touch the read-only image and be out-of-luck for official
image updates.

The inclusion of the vncviewer is an excellent item. It seems to not
operate correctly unless you put it in full-screen... keyboard inputs
go to the console that constructed the window... not the window
itself. I've also noticed this with apps loaded for X11 forwarded
from another Linux machine. Oddly, gvim and some X11 apps seem to
accept input...
Any thoughts / fixes?

A useful item to put in would be keepassx to help manage passwords
across many devices. Now... not sure it would work right, though...
the X11 problem would probably make it useless (remotely launching
keepassx brings up the UI, but I cannot change input focus or even get
anything to get typed in).

GCC and the like would be nice, but probably a little heavy.

[Todd Vierling]

On Wednesday, February 23, 2011 10:30:56 PM UTC-5, harningt wrote:

The inclusion of the vncviewer is an excellent item.  It seems to not
operate correctly unless you put it in full-screen... keyboard inputs
go to the console that constructed the window... not the window
itself.  I've also noticed this with apps loaded for X11 forwarded
from another Linux machine.  Oddly, gvim and some X11 apps seem to
accept input...
Any thoughts / fixes?

Sounds like the same problem that was posted in this group about Skype. The Chrome OS window manager was never meant to handle "traditional" X11 apps, so I'm not surprised that there are issues there. I don't yet know of a fix.

A useful item to put in would be keepassx to help manage passwords
across many devices.  Now... not sure it would work right, though...
the X11 problem would probably make it useless (remotely launching
keepassx brings up the UI, but I cannot change input focus or even get
anything to get typed in).

Have you tried LastPass? (lastpass.com)

GCC and the like would be nice, but probably a little heavy.

It's not possible, either. The problem is that all binaries are built on a separate build system, and none of the build infrastructure (such as /usr/include) exists on Chrome OS.

[Vchat20]

One thing I would much like to see, in an addon package for official builds, is Kismet (specifically the server which does all the heavy work). I had tried myself to get it working and it seemed like it was a very good candidate for only installing to /usr/local, but had some library issues I couldn't sort.

[Niels Olson]

Bump for kismet, and emacs/slime while I'm thinking of it.

On Thursday, February 24, 2011, Vchat20 <vch...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One thing I would much like to see, in an addon package for official builds, is Kismet (specifically the server which does all the heavy work). I had tried myself to get it working and it seemed like it was a very good candidate for only installing to /usr/local, but had some library issues I couldn't sort.
>
>
>

> --
> From the "Cr-48 Test Pilots" Google Group.
> To unsubscribe, send mail to:
> cr-48-test-pil...@googlegroups.com
> On the Web: https://groups.google.com/group/cr-48-test-pilots
>

--
Niels Olson
niels...@gmail.com
h/c: (410) 212-1281
http://nielsolson.us

This message may contain private information for persons named above.
Please don't share that information with anyone without a need to
know. If you received confidential information without a PGP wrapper,
assume it was compromised, delete it, tell the sender, and try to tell
the victim. Please don't send someone else's private information if
you're not reasonably certain the recipient has a need to know and
that the message will be kept private. Plain email is not private. In
some cases, such as health information protected under the US HIPAA
law or information protected under the US Privacy Act, plain email may
be illegal. If you must relate a person's identity to their private
information in email, use Hushmail or insist your recipients provide
you their PGP public key. My public key is here:
http://nielsolson.us/contact.html.

[Todd Vierling]

On Thursday, February 24, 2011 7:12:56 PM UTC-5, Vchat20 wrote:

One thing I would much like to see, in an addon package for official builds, is Kismet (specifically the server which does all the heavy work). I had tried myself to get it working and it seemed like it was a very good candidate for only installing to /usr/local, but had some library issues I couldn't sort.

I can't guarantee that this would be happy running on an official build. The official builds are missing a lot of infrastructure, and it may be that it has to be rolled in to a full OS image.

[Todd Vierling]

On Thursday, February 24, 2011 8:01:07 PM UTC-5, Niels wrote:

emacs/slime while I'm thinking of it.

OK, adding a vi-compatible editor (I was able to get vile running) is one thing, but this is starting to get out of hand - why do you need a full-blown Emacs on a Cr-48? There is a builtin emacs-key-compatible clone for basic editing, qemacs.

It _may_ be possible to do, but I've seen issues in the past with compiling the elisp core under a cross-compiler (which the Chromium OS build system uses).

[Rob Bean]

Todd,

I would love to see irssi or a similar IRC client.

--

From the "Cr-48 Test Pilots" Google Group.
To unsubscribe, send mail to:
cr-48-test-pil...@googlegroups.com
On the Web: https://groups.google.com/group/cr-48-test-pilots

--
The world is full of tough guys.  It doesn't need me to be one, too.

[Will]

How about Aircrack-ng?......(just joking lol,don't yell at me Todd)

[Todd Vierling]

On Friday, February 25, 2011 5:32:51 PM UTC-5, Rob Bean wrote:

I would love to see irssi or a similar IRC client.

Just being devil's advocate for a moment... Have you given mibbit.com a whirl?

(There's a client coming in the next build, but it's neither ircII nor irssi type. Here's a hint: It's a diminutive bird whose big brother is a shade of violet.)

[Todd Vierling]

On Friday, February 25, 2011 6:12:52 PM UTC-5, Will wrote:

How about Aircrack-ng?......(just joking lol,don't yell at me Todd)

OK, I'm already a little hesitant about kismet, which I'm not even sure will cross-compile correctly. But aircracking anything beyond simple WEP tends to require a pretty big chunk of fast disk space for later computation...

[Rob Bean]

Finch ftw!  That'll suffice. I tried mibbit and some other one and even Freenode's web-based offering. Didn't like either one but Finch will suit a great number of wants.

--

From the "Cr-48 Test Pilots" Google Group.
To unsubscribe, send mail to:
cr-48-test-pil...@googlegroups.com
On the Web: https://groups.google.com/group/cr-48-test-pilots

[Steve Pirk]

Todd,

Did I mention mplayer? Afaik, it is the lowest resource media player out there. Being cli only is icing on the cake. It can also save the streamed content to disk.

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPlayer

-- steve

steve pirk - yensid -> my company -> pirk.com - me

"father... the sleeper has awakened..." paul atreides - dune

[Chubb]

I second this..  We really need the ability to play movies on locally this is a must for a long flight or bus ride and would complete what i need in a mobile device...

[Todd Vierling]

On Saturday, February 26, 2011 8:56:19 PM UTC-5, Chubb wrote:

I second this..  We really need the ability to play movies on locally this is a must for a long flight or bus ride and would complete what i need in a mobile device...

VLC and Mplayer are both on my to-do list. Both have compile issues to be worked out... thought if I can get VLC working, that can be made into a browser plugin(!) too.

[Glapoes]

Oh yes please.  VLC operability would solve the vast majority of people's concerns with opening media filess.

--

[Chacko]

Hi Todd,

If the Mplayer is amenable to be made into standalone static module, like some of the other ones you made available earlier, could you please provide that too, when you make this working?  You know some of us run latest dev channel, but use some of your standalone tools in own media space.  Thanks.

CqN

--

[Adamx]

I'm a fan of those too. Before I got my CR-48, I would always get really annoyed when working on my wife's laptop with a regular trackpad, having become very accustomed to the eraserhead on my Thinkpad. 

Not having to move your fingers away from the keyboard is a big plus.  

[Todd Vierling]

On Monday, February 28, 2011 4:41:16 PM UTC-5, CqN wrote:

If the Mplayer is amenable to be made into standalone static module, like some of the other ones you made available earlier, could you please provide that too, when you make this working?  You know some of us run latest dev channel, but use some of your standalone tools in own media space.  Thanks.

The major problem is the sheer number of library dependencies involved. With either mplayer or vlc, there's more than a dozen additional libraries just for base support -- and that doesn't even count adding various media types.

I've added a not-even-tested-yet VLC to my full OS images as of today, but I really don't have the time to shoehorn all those extra libraries into /usr/local to make them portable to official builds, I'm afraid.

[Rob Bean]

Would dropping additional UIs for VLC, such as qt, help at all? Or throwing out some of the lesser used codecs that aren't really for the web like Matroska?

If I had the RAM, I would attempt this myself, if only to ease your load a bit. Is it possible to build the OS with lower specs?

Lastly, how about the vorbis-tools? At least for playback. I have an MPD server running at home and ogg123 is all I need to stream from anywhere.
--
The world is full of tough guys. It does not need me to be one too.

Todd Vierling <t...@duh.org> wrote:

--

[Todd Vierling]

On Tuesday, March 1, 2011 7:31:58 PM UTC-5, Rob Bean wrote:

Would dropping additional UIs for VLC, such as qt, help at all? Or throwing out some of the lesser used codecs that aren't really for the web like Matroska?

It adds a dozen dependencies with _no_ UIs enabled and just providing some of the more commonly needed codecs: faad2 (for AAC), libdca (for DTS), ffmpeg, flac, libogg, id3tag, live (for RTSP), libmad (for MP3), libmpeg2 (stream splitter), libtheora, libvorbis, x264. The build I put together today (which I'll be exercising in the morning) has only the ncurses-based barebones UI, and it's actually impossible to enable the Qt UI due to a libjpeg version conflict with the rest of the system.

In my build, I did add Matroska and a few other codecs as well, but I'm betting that nearly everything in the list above covers formats that are of interest to most users.

[Todd Vierling]

Missed the latter part of your questions:

On Tuesday, March 1, 2011 7:31:58 PM UTC-5, Rob Bean wrote:

If I had the RAM, I would attempt this myself, if only to ease your load a bit. Is it possible to build the OS with lower specs?

A 64-bit Linux host install is a requirement. As for what you need to build, IMHO, you need at least 3GB RAM and two cores for a build not to take ~forever.

Lastly, how about the vorbis-tools? At least for playback. I have an MPD server running at home and ogg123 is all I need to stream from anywhere.

Sure, I'll look into that.

[Todd Vierling]

On Tuesday, March 1, 2011 11:29:24 PM UTC-5, Todd Vierling wrote:

On Tuesday, March 1, 2011 7:31:58 PM UTC-5, Rob Bean wrote:

Would dropping additional UIs for VLC, such as qt, help at all? Or throwing out some of the lesser used codecs that aren't really for the web like Matroska?

It adds a dozen dependencies with _no_ UIs enabled and just providing some of the more commonly needed codecs:

My apologies for the spam to those who are e-mail subscribed. I didn't really make it clear, but the above description was explaining why it's difficult to forklift VLC out of the full OS build. It's my goal to get it working within the OS first, and if I can get VLC and/or Mplayer separable into an installable package afterwards, that's a bonus.

[Rob Bean]

I appreciate the detailed explanation. Since many of us are think in terms of desktop analogues, it's not always clear why some software may be preferable, i.e. finch vs. Pidgin.

--
The world is full of tough guys. It does not need me to be one too.

Todd Vierling <t...@duh.org> wrote:

[Adamx]

How about Synergy? http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

[Thomas Harning Jr.]

On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 11:46 AM, Adamx <adam.i...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How about Synergy? http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
+1 on Synergy, it would make it usable as another machine on my work
desk that I can easily do web research/etc without having to mess with
another keyboard/etc.

--
Thomas Harning Jr.

[Todd Vierling]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2011 11:46:46 AM UTC-5, Adamx wrote:

How about Synergy? http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Yes, I saw the mumbling about this in the other group. No promises, but I'll try to take a look at it late next week. I need to wrap up taxes and other personal legal paperwork that's about to get a little tedious, so I'll be idle in the Cr-48 world for a short while.

[Chubb]

Todd, you might as well throw the adb and fastboot binarys in there.. It works fine, I just flashed a radio non my G2 with it..  I install it using the binarys off this site. Pocius.lt digital notes / How to make adb and fastboot work with Linux Mint (Ubuntu)  

[Adamx]

I'm pretty sure I can live without this one, but having python, with the python gdata libraries, so I can run google command line would be kinda neat. :)

[Steve Pirk]

I heard the chances of python in the official build were somewhere between slim and none ;-]

I just purchased the Minecraft beta, so JWS or local Java just got bumped up to the top of my list. I think my best bet at this point is to start with Todd's recommendation for the most stable on his site, and add Java manually. The taxes must be done ;-]

-- steve

On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 20:44, Adamx <adam.i...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm pretty sure I can live without this one, but having python, with the python gdata libraries, so I can run google command line would be kinda neat. :)

--

[Rob Bean]

Steve,

Todd's builds already include java. In fact, someone on this list even fired up Minecraft once. IIRC, they reported that the results were less than spectacular.

--

[Steve Pirk]

I was just reading that... oops ;-]

Yes, minecraft is slow on my Ubuntu system, so I will work on installing Todd's build in the am. A couple of youngsters I know want to test it on Linux, so we fired up a server. laaaaaag ;-]

The other gooides in the build will make it worth it, no worries.

-- steve

[Todd Vierling]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2011 10:15:33 PM UTC-5, Chubb wrote:

Todd, you might as well throw the adb and fastboot binarys in there.. It works fine, I just flashed a radio non my G2 with it..  I install it using the binarys off this site. Pocius.lt digital notes / How to make adb and fastboot work with Linux Mint (Ubuntu)  

These don't really need integration with the OS, so there's not really a reason to include them in a base build. Besides, the Android SDK has its own license agreement that I don't want to add to the legal babble at the top of the download pages.

[Todd Vierling]

On Wednesday, March 2, 2011 11:44:40 PM UTC-5, Adamx wrote:

I'm pretty sure I can live without this one, but having python, with the python gdata libraries, so I can run google command line would be kinda neat. :)

Added to to-do list.