[WEBTOP] GenTop2-20120509 (Beta) - Next Generation Gentoo Webtop Replacement

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Gendol

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Apr 22, 2012
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[size=+1]Introduction[/size]

What is GenTop2?

GenTop2 is a full-fledged Gentoo Linux able to replace the original Motorola Webtop. It is faster, fully-customizable and gives you the power of a complete Linux system on a mobile phone. It is a peek into the future of mobile computing!

Thanks goes to kholk, who did the original GenTop, otherwise I would have long given up.

Why use Gentoo Linux as WebTop?

  • Programs are fully optimized for the ARMv7a CPU contained in the Atrix.
  • Thus the whole system is faster and more responsive.
  • No shackles put around the WebTop by Motorola.
  • You can install any program (which compiles on ARM).
  • All software (except X11) is fully up-to-date.
  • You remember old times with desktop computers having far slower CPUs and less RAM than your phone and you wonder what you can do with this pocket computer.

Why NOT use Gentoo Linux as WebTop?

  • Gentoo is huge because it must install all development files.
  • The system and all programs must be compiled on the phone. How crazy is that?
  • Firefox could not be built. But, there is a smaller replacement.
  • Why bother using a phone, when you already have a notebook?

Working and Installed Applications

  • X11 via WebTop or HDMI (with hdmi-hack)
  • Xfce4 with thunar file manager
  • midori web browser with Flash player
  • claws-mail client
  • audacious
  • evince (pdf viewer)
  • ssh daemon
  • rxvt terminal
  • aiw Android In-A-Window!
  • Sound output via Android media system.
All are very light-weight Linux applications perfect for a small system.

Not Working:
  • webtop-panel (system status bar on top)
  • non-flash video playback ? :)

Installable as binary packages:
  • firefox (renamed to Aurora due to trademark stuff), approx 30 MB.
  • thunderbird (renamed to Earlybird due to trademark stuff), approx 44 MB.
  • libreoffice, approx 250 MB.
  • abiword, pidgin, emacs, texlive,
  • and many more, drop a note for more wishes here. However KDE is just too large.

[size=+1]Installation Instructions[/size]

Prerequisites:

  • Motorola Atrix
  • [size=+2][highlight]BACKUP.[/highlight] This will break your device![/size]
  • Okay hopefully it won't. A full restore will of course overwrite the webtop.
  • root privileges.
  • unlocking is not necessary.
  • adb and Linux knowledge.
  • webtop2sd is not supported (!)
  • CM7 is NOT supported

GenTop2 Space Requirements, Disk Speeds and a Note About WebTop2SD

Gentoo is very large because packages contain all development files. This cannot easily be changed, therefore one must work around the space limitation of the /osh partition in some way.

I did some "disk" performance measurements using bonnie++ (see [1] for full info). Here the through-put results in short: /data (ext3) 20,800 KB/s read and 6,200 KB/s write, /sdcard (fat32) 21,500 KB/s read and 8,000 KB/s write, /sdcard-ext (ext3) 12,300 KB/s read and 4,200 KB/s write, /sdcard/loopback.img (ext3) 16,150 KB/s read and 4,400 KB/s write.

One way to go would be to require webtop2sd, however, GenTop2 does not support webtop2sd because the read/write speed of the internal sdcard is much faster than on the external sdcard. Thus I tried to install as much on the /osh partition as possible and move directories onto other partitions as necessary, leaving symlinks behind. WebTop2SD also requires dpkg for some reason, which Gentoo does not have.

Therefore, it's pretty unavoidable that you do some space management yourself.

I have decided to utilize the /preinstall partition for /var. I'm not fully sure that this partition is unused on every Atrix released, but I guess in most cases it contains only provider specific bloatware that people don't want anyhow. On my Atrix it contained some car racing game, which I find hilarious to play on a mobile phone.

Anyway, the /preinstall partition is 300 MB and perfect for /var if reformatted to support many small files. The /var/db/pkg/ directory contains lots and lots of small files describing the installed packages. See the installation instruction for the mkfs line.

I also decided to require some extra ext3 partition for further program, data and portage files. It is needed anyhow to install further programs, which is what most people want to do. The /data partition would be the obvious choice and for that reason the first GenTop2 put files in /data/osh/. However, /home/ is also on /data by default and it gets pretty annoying when your home directory is full.

The only alternative to /data is either a partition on an external sd-card or a loopback mounted file-partition on /sdcard/, both are not as fast as /data (/cache cannot be used as it must be wipeable). So there really isn't much choice left except for external storage.

The main GenTop2 tarball puts 630 MB in /osh (leaving 145 MB free) and 178 MB in /preinstall (with 150 MB free), which must be mkfs formatted.

The portage GenTop2 tarball puts 1460 MB into /mnt/gentoo/ of which 475 MB are data files from /osh/usr/ and 810 MB are the portage tree.

[size=+1]Steps to install GenTop2:[/size]

There are some complications involved when using faux123's kernel, because it only contains ext4 filesystem modules and explicit mounting of ext3 will fail. The ext4 module will however mount ext3 filesystem without problems.

use adb shell and get root:
Code: 
$ su
# cd /osh
# mv etc etcx
# reboot
Reboot. The above will disable the webtop.

Download http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/GenTop2-20120509.tar.gz (275MB) and put it onto /sdcard via USB or adb push.

use adb shell to overwrite the existing WebTop:
Code: 
(first we delete /osh)
# cd /
# ls bin
bin: No such file or directory
(this tests whether the old webtop is disabled)
# rm -r osh/*
# ls osh
(should be empty)

(next we disable and reformat /preinstall)
# mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 /system
# mv /system/bin/load_pia.sh /system/bin/load_pia.sh.disabled
# umount /preinstall
(depending on your ROM this might fail. ignore this problem if the following format works)
# mke2fs -m 0 -i 2048 -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p17
# mount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p17 /preinstall
(for faux kernel: replace ext3 -> ext4 in above line)

(now we unpack the main tarball)
# df
(/osh and /preinstall should be almost empty)
# cd /
# tar xvzf /sdcard/GenTop2-20120509.tar.gz
# sync
(begin extra for faux kernel: we change ext3 -> ext4)
# sed -i s/ext3/ext4/ /osh/ubuntu.sh
(end extra for faux kernel)
# sync
# reboot
Once rebooted you will get an X11 login on the HDMI connection or you can access the phone via ssh.

Account Passwords:
root / atrix
adas / atrix

To make GenTop2 more useful and to compile/install further packages you currently must have an external sd-card (or someone must devise a method to use a loopback device).

I have partitioned my external sdcard using a desktop computer into the following two partitions:

/dev/block/mmcblk1p1 (remainder)
/dev/block/mmcblk1p2 (4.0 GB, formatted ext3)

Advanced: (Actually most of this stuff is advanced.) You can also use the new GenTop to partition the external sd-card. Open a terminal, and use something along the lines of:
Code: 
# fdisk /dev/block/mmcblk1
(partition it, see further description of fdisk on the net)
# mkfs.ext3 -m0 /dev/block/mmcblk1p2

The boot-up script /osh/ubuntu.sh will mount /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 to /mnt/gentoo. This place is referenced by /usr/portage, /var/tmp and /preinstall/usr and will enable emerge if you install the second GenTop2-portage-20120509.tar.bz2 tarball.

Download http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/GenTop2-20120509-portage.tar.bz2 (124MB) to /sdcard/ using any method.

Use adb shell or a terminal on the desktop
Code: 
$ su
# cd /
# tar xvjf /sdcard/GenTop2-20120509-portage.tar.bz2

Note: If you trust your network connection, you can also download and unpack simultaneously (without saving) it using:
Code: 
$ su
# cd /
# wget -O - http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/GenTop2-20120509-portage.tar.bz2 | tar xvj

[size=+1]Installing further software[/size]

How do I install applications in Gentoo?
- Read http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=1
- Read http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=3

I have set up a portage overlay "atrix-overlay" which unmasks many packages and includes some custom patches required for compilation on arm. It is included in the main tarball and automatically synced alongside "emerge --sync". Most updates will now be performed via this overlay.

See https://github.com/gendol/atrix-overlay for details.

Furthermore, for large binary packages like firefox, thunderbird and libreoffice I have set up a binary package repository with the same USE flags as the atrix-overlay. These are built using cross-compilation on my desktop computer.

See http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/packages/

To force installation from binary packages use emerge -G <package>. See the list of "Installable as binary packages" above.

[size=+1]Miscellaneous Questions[/size]

Why no thumb instructions?
- I did a speed test of cryptography functions and thumb instructions were approximately 10% slower than usual ARM code.

Where was GenTop2 compiled?
- Most of the system was fully compiled on my own Atrix. Larger binary packages are compiled on my desktop using cross-compiling.

Why is X11 not up-to-date?
- The only xorg driver I could get working is the one on the original Webtop, and that requires an older version of X11.

Why is udevd not running?
- If you look at logcat there are lots of the following messages, some of which are due to udevd. Disabling udevd reduces (but does not eliminate) these messages and probably also some unnecessary background process that draws battery.
NetlinkEvent: NetlinkEvent::FindParam(): Parameter 'UDEV_LOG' not found
NetlinkListener: ignoring non-kernel netlink multicast message
NetlinkListener: ignoring non-kernel netlink multicast message

[size=+1]Reinstalling the old WebTop[/size]

Some people on the forums struggled to reinstall the old webtop for some reason. It shouldn't be that difficult and I created a tarball of the original Webtop WT-1.2.0-133_38. These instructions were not tested by me:

Download http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/WT-1.2.0-133_38.tar.gz to /sdcard/ using any method.

Use adb shell or a terminal to disable mounting of webtop:
Code: 
$ su
# cd /osh
# mv etc etcx
# reboot

Use adb shell to unpack original tarball into /osh:
Code: 
# cd /
# ls bin
bin: No such file or directory
(this tests whether the webtop is disabled)
# rm -r osh/*
# ls osh
(empty)
# cd /
# /sdcard/WT-1.2.0-133_38.tar.gz
# sync
# reboot

[size=+1]Downloads[/size]


Old Downloads


Changelog

From 20120428 to 20120509:
  • Added atrix-overlay for pulling in updates using layman.
  • Reorganized /etc/portage/ to symlink into atrix-overlay files.
  • Removed mplayer from default install.
  • Added xarchiver, leafpad and some customization for the terminal.
  • Reorganized directory structure to use /preinstall.

From 20120424 to 20120428:
  • Readded resolutions to xorg.conf like in original webtop. Nevertheless you can switch using Xfce's settings dialogs.
  • Installed Flash: copied libflashplayer.so and emerges nss nspr.
  • Readded lots of the original .desktop files and corresponding icons. These launch Android apps.

[1] http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/docs/atrix-bonnie.html
 

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E

exwannabe

Senior Member
Apr 8, 2011
93
28
This is a very agressive aproach. /osh dose have some Moto magic sauce in it. How well can you drive the screnn with a stock X system? Most of the cutesy features from WT I can live w/o, but the "phone"app really is usefull. Seams like this would be worth the effort to figure out.

If I was using a less "pure" setup (spinning up X and the phone app in Motos osh) then bringimng up the desktop in Gentoo, how would that compare to oither the same concept with other distros?

Please post on. I think this is the first time somebidy has run a non /osh X. Would love to see if it really can be done.
 
G

Gendol

Member
Apr 22, 2012
16
82
exwannabe said:
This is a very agressive aproach. /osh dose have some Moto magic sauce in it. How well can you drive the screnn with a stock X system? Most of the cutesy features from WT I can live w/o, but the "phone"app really is usefull. Seams like this would be worth the effort to figure out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, the approach is radical, but not as aggressive as you may think. All the "magic sauce" in /osh lives in /osr/usr/local/ and all of that is retained. The only problem is that some dynamic link libraries are missing, but most of these problems can be fixed.

They actually had to be fixed because the GenTop2 does need to send some magic signals to Moto's PortalApp/DockService to work correctly. This is done using the /usr/local/bin/rmtest tool via the "fbcp" instance of dbus.

Other than /osh/usr/local/, /osh is really just Debian.

With the phone app, you mean the green phone button? I just tested that, it can be added. The phone button is nothing but a .desktop mime file, which calls one of the magic apps /usr/local/bin/androidlauncher. And it popups up in the aiw display.

I even tested the HD Media Center laucher and that too worked without problems. That really should be included in the next GenTop2 tarball.

exwannabe said:
If I was using a less "pure" setup (spinning up X and the phone app in Motos osh) then bringimng up the desktop in Gentoo, how would that compare to oither the same concept with other distros?

Please post on. I think this is the first time somebidy has run a non /osh X. Would love to see if it really can be done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I guess I don't understand what you mean with a non /osh X. GenTop2 does run X11 and you really need to replace the system libaries to get a well-working Gentoo.

Greetings,
Gendol
 
C

crnkoj

Senior Member
Feb 16, 2011
1,844
398
Great job! Does this work with cm rom's aswell or only with blur based ones? As another fact, we could use distcc or crosscompile distcc to compile most of the stuff, actually even a crosscompile binhost would be doable for several packages. One more thing, we could probably use an .img file on the internal sdcard partition, that would be ext3/4 formatted instead of using the external sdcard (but probably its better and safer to sue the external card, due to the flash wear)

edit: so i tried it on my atrix with nottachtrix rom installed, it starts fine and seems to work rather well, i only saw two to me rather annoying bugs:
1. somehow the X server thinks that my tv (1080p lg) has a virtual size of 1366x768 and will not allow to use the 1920x1080 resolutions that are in the TV's EDID and that the system puts into the xorg.conf file aswell as it shows in the Xorg.0.log
2. the atrix's screen stays on all the time in the "normal mode" and if one uses the mouse on the gentop its moving and functioning on the atrix's screen aswell (ie you can launch apps by accident with the mouse in android)
I do not know if these are issues with nottachtrix or something else, but for me on the "normal webtop" 1080p worked on this same TV.
here the xorg log: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24268926/Xorg.0.log
 
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G

Gendol

Member
Apr 22, 2012
16
82
I don't know about CM7, you'll have to try to replace the Linux system like moto does it.

The X11 screen size defaults to WebTop resolution 1366x768, but you can change that to 1920x1080 by editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf. The first thing to try is to comment out all Modelines and let EDID detection do the work. But for that a monitor must be present, so you need to Zap (Ctrl+Alt+Bckspace) your X, and that brings up the dual input problem.

I also use nottach's ROM. The dual input problem happens when something in motorola's magic communication goes wrong. I have not been able to figure out how in particular moto disables input on the touchscreen. For me it works most of the time. I also have all the Modelines in xorg.conf enabled, because they fit my monitor.

I didnt really focus on Flash, yet. But as it works on the original Webtop, you should just be able to copy the plugin files.

Gendol
 
V

Vazay

Senior Member
Sep 20, 2011
215
65
Can't get Midori working .. Got network (via ping), but no web browsing :confused:

EDIT: Solved by disabling proxy settings inside Midori
 
Last edited:
S

snik38

Member
Dec 4, 2010
26
0
Hello! I am a bit newbie in linux and i have 2 questions
1) Could someon please tell me how to install GenTop2-portage-20120424.tar.bz2 tarball?
2) Is there any way to install synaptic so i can install other linux apps?
 
V

Vazay

Senior Member
Sep 20, 2011
215
65
snik38 said:
Hello! I am a bit newbie in linux and i have 2 questions
1) Could someon please tell me how to install GenTop2-portage-20120424.tar.bz2 tarball?
2) Is there any way to install synaptic so i can install other linux apps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

1) use ADB and first post

2) Gentoo Portage - it's command line but very easy
 
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Reactions: snik38
N

nalorite

Member
Mar 15, 2011
30
1
Hmm, anyone using this with webtop over HDMI? I get the login screen, but the webtop touchpad thingie doesn't come up so it's impossible for me to log in.
 
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Reactions: ltdanno360
G

Gendol

Member
Apr 22, 2012
16
82
Yes. The touchpad thingy is also an open end. I have no idea why it doesnt come up. The GenTop2 tries to do everything in the same way as the original one, but for some reason that doesnt appear.

I guess the touchpad is some Android program part of DockService or PortalApp, which drive the Webtop switch. But I havent debugged how to activate it.

@snik38
To extract a .tar.bz2 you use tar xvjf ...

Gendol
 
N

NickLatech

New member
Aug 27, 2007
3
0
three items one that caused some grief, but other than that this has lots of cool potential!

I have a stock rom with root.

1. resolution was pretty screwed up. I did try to adjust the resolution, but it was locked into one setting.
2. flash isnt installed on the browser so many websites where disabled.
3. I could not get AIW to start.

I see you answered #1 in a previous post. But I think all three of those items are minimum requirements to replace webtop. BTW great job again! Its seemed much faster than the webtop app.
 
Alaq

Alaq

Senior Member
Jan 21, 2011
1,100
343
U.S.
When my phone turns on and gets to the preparing sd, it takes forever. Does this happen to anyone else?
 
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  • 61
    G
    Gendol
    [size=+1]Introduction[/size]

    What is GenTop2?

    GenTop2 is a full-fledged Gentoo Linux able to replace the original Motorola Webtop. It is faster, fully-customizable and gives you the power of a complete Linux system on a mobile phone. It is a peek into the future of mobile computing!

    Thanks goes to kholk, who did the original GenTop, otherwise I would have long given up.

    Why use Gentoo Linux as WebTop?

    • Programs are fully optimized for the ARMv7a CPU contained in the Atrix.
    • Thus the whole system is faster and more responsive.
    • No shackles put around the WebTop by Motorola.
    • You can install any program (which compiles on ARM).
    • All software (except X11) is fully up-to-date.
    • You remember old times with desktop computers having far slower CPUs and less RAM than your phone and you wonder what you can do with this pocket computer.

    Why NOT use Gentoo Linux as WebTop?

    • Gentoo is huge because it must install all development files.
    • The system and all programs must be compiled on the phone. How crazy is that?
    • Firefox could not be built. But, there is a smaller replacement.
    • Why bother using a phone, when you already have a notebook?

    Working and Installed Applications

    • X11 via WebTop or HDMI (with hdmi-hack)
    • Xfce4 with thunar file manager
    • midori web browser with Flash player
    • claws-mail client
    • audacious
    • evince (pdf viewer)
    • ssh daemon
    • rxvt terminal
    • aiw Android In-A-Window!
    • Sound output via Android media system.
    All are very light-weight Linux applications perfect for a small system.

    Not Working:
    • webtop-panel (system status bar on top)
    • non-flash video playback ? :)

    Installable as binary packages:
    • firefox (renamed to Aurora due to trademark stuff), approx 30 MB.
    • thunderbird (renamed to Earlybird due to trademark stuff), approx 44 MB.
    • libreoffice, approx 250 MB.
    • abiword, pidgin, emacs, texlive,
    • and many more, drop a note for more wishes here. However KDE is just too large.

    [size=+1]Installation Instructions[/size]

    Prerequisites:

    • Motorola Atrix
    • [size=+2][highlight]BACKUP.[/highlight] This will break your device![/size]
    • Okay hopefully it won't. A full restore will of course overwrite the webtop.
    • root privileges.
    • unlocking is not necessary.
    • adb and Linux knowledge.
    • webtop2sd is not supported (!)
    • CM7 is NOT supported

    GenTop2 Space Requirements, Disk Speeds and a Note About WebTop2SD

    Gentoo is very large because packages contain all development files. This cannot easily be changed, therefore one must work around the space limitation of the /osh partition in some way.

    I did some "disk" performance measurements using bonnie++ (see [1] for full info). Here the through-put results in short: /data (ext3) 20,800 KB/s read and 6,200 KB/s write, /sdcard (fat32) 21,500 KB/s read and 8,000 KB/s write, /sdcard-ext (ext3) 12,300 KB/s read and 4,200 KB/s write, /sdcard/loopback.img (ext3) 16,150 KB/s read and 4,400 KB/s write.

    One way to go would be to require webtop2sd, however, GenTop2 does not support webtop2sd because the read/write speed of the internal sdcard is much faster than on the external sdcard. Thus I tried to install as much on the /osh partition as possible and move directories onto other partitions as necessary, leaving symlinks behind. WebTop2SD also requires dpkg for some reason, which Gentoo does not have.

    Therefore, it's pretty unavoidable that you do some space management yourself.

    I have decided to utilize the /preinstall partition for /var. I'm not fully sure that this partition is unused on every Atrix released, but I guess in most cases it contains only provider specific bloatware that people don't want anyhow. On my Atrix it contained some car racing game, which I find hilarious to play on a mobile phone.

    Anyway, the /preinstall partition is 300 MB and perfect for /var if reformatted to support many small files. The /var/db/pkg/ directory contains lots and lots of small files describing the installed packages. See the installation instruction for the mkfs line.

    I also decided to require some extra ext3 partition for further program, data and portage files. It is needed anyhow to install further programs, which is what most people want to do. The /data partition would be the obvious choice and for that reason the first GenTop2 put files in /data/osh/. However, /home/ is also on /data by default and it gets pretty annoying when your home directory is full.

    The only alternative to /data is either a partition on an external sd-card or a loopback mounted file-partition on /sdcard/, both are not as fast as /data (/cache cannot be used as it must be wipeable). So there really isn't much choice left except for external storage.

    The main GenTop2 tarball puts 630 MB in /osh (leaving 145 MB free) and 178 MB in /preinstall (with 150 MB free), which must be mkfs formatted.

    The portage GenTop2 tarball puts 1460 MB into /mnt/gentoo/ of which 475 MB are data files from /osh/usr/ and 810 MB are the portage tree.

    [size=+1]Steps to install GenTop2:[/size]

    There are some complications involved when using faux123's kernel, because it only contains ext4 filesystem modules and explicit mounting of ext3 will fail. The ext4 module will however mount ext3 filesystem without problems.

    use adb shell and get root:
    Code: 
    $ su
# cd /osh
# mv etc etcx
# reboot
    Reboot. The above will disable the webtop.

    Download http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/GenTop2-20120509.tar.gz (275MB) and put it onto /sdcard via USB or adb push.

    use adb shell to overwrite the existing WebTop:
    Code: 
    (first we delete /osh)
# cd /
# ls bin
bin: No such file or directory
(this tests whether the old webtop is disabled)
# rm -r osh/*
# ls osh
(should be empty)

(next we disable and reformat /preinstall)
# mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mmcblk0p12 /system
# mv /system/bin/load_pia.sh /system/bin/load_pia.sh.disabled
# umount /preinstall
(depending on your ROM this might fail. ignore this problem if the following format works)
# mke2fs -m 0 -i 2048 -j /dev/block/mmcblk0p17
# mount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p17 /preinstall
(for faux kernel: replace ext3 -> ext4 in above line)

(now we unpack the main tarball)
# df
(/osh and /preinstall should be almost empty)
# cd /
# tar xvzf /sdcard/GenTop2-20120509.tar.gz
# sync
(begin extra for faux kernel: we change ext3 -> ext4)
# sed -i s/ext3/ext4/ /osh/ubuntu.sh
(end extra for faux kernel)
# sync
# reboot
    Once rebooted you will get an X11 login on the HDMI connection or you can access the phone via ssh.

    Account Passwords:
    root / atrix
    adas / atrix

    To make GenTop2 more useful and to compile/install further packages you currently must have an external sd-card (or someone must devise a method to use a loopback device).

    I have partitioned my external sdcard using a desktop computer into the following two partitions:

    /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 (remainder)
    /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 (4.0 GB, formatted ext3)

    Advanced: (Actually most of this stuff is advanced.) You can also use the new GenTop to partition the external sd-card. Open a terminal, and use something along the lines of:
    Code: 
    # fdisk /dev/block/mmcblk1
(partition it, see further description of fdisk on the net)
# mkfs.ext3 -m0 /dev/block/mmcblk1p2

    The boot-up script /osh/ubuntu.sh will mount /dev/block/mmcblk1p2 to /mnt/gentoo. This place is referenced by /usr/portage, /var/tmp and /preinstall/usr and will enable emerge if you install the second GenTop2-portage-20120509.tar.bz2 tarball.

    Download http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/GenTop2-20120509-portage.tar.bz2 (124MB) to /sdcard/ using any method.

    Use adb shell or a terminal on the desktop
    Code: 
    $ su
# cd /
# tar xvjf /sdcard/GenTop2-20120509-portage.tar.bz2

    Note: If you trust your network connection, you can also download and unpack simultaneously (without saving) it using:
    Code: 
    $ su
# cd /
# wget -O - http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/GenTop2-20120509-portage.tar.bz2 | tar xvj

    [size=+1]Installing further software[/size]

    How do I install applications in Gentoo?
    - Read http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=1
    - Read http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=3

    I have set up a portage overlay "atrix-overlay" which unmasks many packages and includes some custom patches required for compilation on arm. It is included in the main tarball and automatically synced alongside "emerge --sync". Most updates will now be performed via this overlay.

    See https://github.com/gendol/atrix-overlay for details.

    Furthermore, for large binary packages like firefox, thunderbird and libreoffice I have set up a binary package repository with the same USE flags as the atrix-overlay. These are built using cross-compilation on my desktop computer.

    See http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/packages/

    To force installation from binary packages use emerge -G <package>. See the list of "Installable as binary packages" above.

    [size=+1]Miscellaneous Questions[/size]

    Why no thumb instructions?
    - I did a speed test of cryptography functions and thumb instructions were approximately 10% slower than usual ARM code.

    Where was GenTop2 compiled?
    - Most of the system was fully compiled on my own Atrix. Larger binary packages are compiled on my desktop using cross-compiling.

    Why is X11 not up-to-date?
    - The only xorg driver I could get working is the one on the original Webtop, and that requires an older version of X11.

    Why is udevd not running?
    - If you look at logcat there are lots of the following messages, some of which are due to udevd. Disabling udevd reduces (but does not eliminate) these messages and probably also some unnecessary background process that draws battery.
    NetlinkEvent: NetlinkEvent::FindParam(): Parameter 'UDEV_LOG' not found
    NetlinkListener: ignoring non-kernel netlink multicast message
    NetlinkListener: ignoring non-kernel netlink multicast message

    [size=+1]Reinstalling the old WebTop[/size]

    Some people on the forums struggled to reinstall the old webtop for some reason. It shouldn't be that difficult and I created a tarball of the original Webtop WT-1.2.0-133_38. These instructions were not tested by me:

    Download http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/WT-1.2.0-133_38.tar.gz to /sdcard/ using any method.

    Use adb shell or a terminal to disable mounting of webtop:
    Code: 
    $ su
# cd /osh
# mv etc etcx
# reboot

    Use adb shell to unpack original tarball into /osh:
    Code: 
    # cd /
# ls bin
bin: No such file or directory
(this tests whether the webtop is disabled)
# rm -r osh/*
# ls osh
(empty)
# cd /
# /sdcard/WT-1.2.0-133_38.tar.gz
# sync
# reboot

    [size=+1]Downloads[/size]


    Old Downloads


    Changelog

    From 20120428 to 20120509:
    • Added atrix-overlay for pulling in updates using layman.
    • Reorganized /etc/portage/ to symlink into atrix-overlay files.
    • Removed mplayer from default install.
    • Added xarchiver, leafpad and some customization for the terminal.
    • Reorganized directory structure to use /preinstall.

    From 20120424 to 20120428:
    • Readded resolutions to xorg.conf like in original webtop. Nevertheless you can switch using Xfce's settings dialogs.
    • Installed Flash: copied libflashplayer.so and emerges nss nspr.
    • Readded lots of the original .desktop files and corresponding icons. These launch Android apps.

    [1] http://kristallsturm.de/GenTop2/docs/atrix-bonnie.html
    View
    7
    Lokifish Marz
    Lokifish Marz
    xdej said:
    If this happens, next step would be successful connection of any phone with ice cream sandwich, microUSB and microHDMI ports, to the Webtop.
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    Once I get back from the #bigandroidbbq and if things stay manageable with the campaign, I plan on trying to get the webtop devs together to make this happen. Will try to look into a couple different Linux flavors.

    No promises or ETA's though.
    View
    6
    S
    sublemon
    GenTop2 Wiki for Common Issues

    I found a lot of little gotcha's when installing GenTop2. Some of them were self inflicted, others have been around a while. Here is a Wiki I made that covers some of the issues I had and how to fix them without doing a re-install of your ROM or GenTop2 installation.

    http://xdaforums.com/wiki/GenTop2_Fixes
    • floating Motorola logo
    • unable to login as adas
    • no login screen
    • Midori is broken
    • Aurora(firefox) is broken
    • enabling swap space
    • running out of space
    • Citrix receiver
    • webtop-panel fix
    View
    6
    G
    Gendol
    [SIZE="+1"]Update: GenTop2-20120509[/SIZE]

    Major update with lots of new features like:
    - binary package repository with firefox, libreoffice and much more.
    - more complex install method, but uses space on /preinstall and does not fill up /data anymore.
    - various fixups of problems like resolution, flash, etc.
    - nicer black theme for urxvt
    - "un"-install: method to overwrite with original webtop.

    Some notes for older GenTop2 users:
    - I moved around many files to fit lots of stuff on /osh and /preinstall.
    - I also replaced many files in /etc/portage to create links to the new atrix-overlay.
    - Sorry, I cannot provide a direct upgrade method without destroying your individual changes.
    - However, the tarballs don't touch your /home directory.

    Best bet:
    - backup your /etc/portage files and /etc/make.conf and /var/lib/portage/world
    - Install the new GenTop
    - Delete files /data/osh/ (they are unused)
    - Restore the portage files without removing the atrix-overlay.
    - Restore world file and emerge world to reinstall all your custom programs.

    Gendol
    View
    4
    G
    Gendol
    Hello guys, quick update here.

    I'm really glad you all received this hacking project so enthusiastically. It was really only meant for me to use the phone is a reasonable way.

    In the last few days I've been working on getting firefox to build. It actually worked, because faux's kernel _does_ has swap (and zram). So it did build fine and works.

    On the other hand, I managed to set up a cross-compiling system for arm on my desktop and am awaiting the first few builds from that system.

    I guess you'll be greeted with a binary package repository with "larger builds" soon.

    Greetings,
    Gendol
    View

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