UPDATE: gnash and mplayer partly working even with VNC!
xorg is
slow.
add a decent-sized GUI like xfce, and choke it all with the VNC and things really creep.
I've been experimenting with different window managers and tried
dwm (tutorial
here, you'll need it to use the GUI as key combos are neccesary to open programs or a terminal.)
it's tiny, and fast (and unfortunately not really user friendly with a soft keyboard.) even with the VNC, it's a lot faster than the full desktop managers.
fast enough to let gnash play short videos from youtube dropping some frames, or lame online flash browser games just to show it kind of works.
fast enough to use mplayer on files on the sdcard, with much less framedropping than gnash.
hulu force closes iceweasel testing gnash on that site, and mplayer is having issues with alsa permissions and so remains soundless, but can probably be reconfigured.
don't get me wrong, the VNC still chokes video enough to make it unpleasant to watch, but the minimal window manager is a step in the right direction towards getting flash in a usable state on this device.
if anyone's motivated besides me, sdl 1.3 has official support for android built in, supposedly.
I tested scummvm (compiled with sdl into an apk) and sdl definitely is functional, with accelerator functions supported for the gpu!
it could be used with the ndk to make single-window apps for android which run debian programs... at least in theory.
been looking into it a while, just thought I'd throw the info out there for other programmer types to poke at.
if you want to test dwm but not have to figure out how to install it:
Code:
echo "#!/bin/sh xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
export XKL_XMODMAP_DISABLE=1
dwm&" > /root/.vnc/xstartup
that will set it up to autostart with the VNC.
if you want some program to run on startup, like thunar file manager for example, or iceweasel,
add the program name followed by & on another new line after dwm&
like:
Code:
echo "#!/bin/sh xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
export XKL_XMODMAP_DISABLE=1
dwm&
thunar&" > /root/.vnc/xstartup
enjoy the possibilities!