Successful Allwinner Imports (EDITx1)

[hlavery]

Here is a list of applications I have imported using roberts' "import" script which run directly and without modifications on the Hackberry and so probably other Allwinner a10 devices.   Simply "import foo" in your tce/optional directory and "tce-load -i foo/foo.tcz" to run.

-dropbear (passwd is set with "busybox passwd", else get obscure error message)
-openssh-client (scp!)
-cpufrequtils (set cpu speed; default slows down a lot when idle)
-mc
-htop
-links/lynx/elinks
-nano
-ace-of-penguins
EDIT:  and now some sound:
-alsa-base, alsa-utils, and mpg321and mplayer (tunes!) /EDIT

and browsers:
-dwb (probably best of the lot, download function works correctly, follows links)
-luakit (good, download function not working correctly)
-arora
-midori
-surf

-iceweasel (aka firefox)..load with tce-load -ic iceweasel

EDIT: once "imported", any of these browsers can be run using this script; change to match your /tce/optional mount point, of course:

Code: (bash) [Select]

#! /bin/sh
if [ -z $1 ]
then
        echo "Usage is runbrowser (browsername)"
else

. /etc/init.d/tc-functions

checkroot
if ! mounted /mnt/mmcblk0p2; then mount /mnt/mmcblk0p2; fi
su tc -c 'tce-load -i /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/optional/dbus/dbus.tcz'
su tc -c 'tce-load -i /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/optional/webkit-image-gtk/webkit-image-gtk.tcz'
su tc -c 'tce-load -i /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/optional/'$1'/'$1'.tcz'
dbus-uuidgen > /etc/machine-id
mkdir /etc/dbus-1/session.d
/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/glib-2.0/glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas
echo "Ready"
$1  &
fiCode based on roberts' original work importing surf. /EDIT

A few other applications work with modifications; these will presumably have supporting importscripts when the repository issues are fixed.  These include:

-uzbl browser
-netsurf browser
-openssh-server
-abiword

Add to the collection!

[bmarkus]

and browsers:
-dwb (probably best of the lot, download function works correctly, follows links)
-luakit (good, download function not working correctly)
-arora

A few other applications work with modifications; these will presumably have supporting importscripts when the repository issues are fixed.  These include:

-surf browser
-uzbl browser
-netsurf browser

Which browser you advice to use? I have never used them, but most are based on the same webkit engine. BTW, what is about midori which is the default browser in Raspbian?

[roberts]

I won't repeat imports already mentioned, as I am using them as well.
I have imported and using
wireless-tools
wpasupplicant
build-essential
eveilvte
dillo
xterm
rsync

Of cource I have the full GUI fluid fltk development system working.

I prefer dwb for full GUI web browsing, however, it is keyboard driven using mostly vi like bindings.

At the beginning I was not pleased with the performance of the turnkey derivatives based on the Ubuntu.
However now I am very pleased with the performance with TinyCore with imported tczs.
I now use my 512MB Mele Allwinner as my daily desktop and development system.

All of this from running a script. Only a very minimal repository required (custom Core specifics).
More features and enhancements to import coming soon.

Note: I still consider import experimental. It is very kit like. However much progress has been achieved and much more improvements I have planned.

The goal is to be generic so that as other Arm SoCs become available, as already witnessed, Core can quickly be made available.

[hlavery]

@bmarkus: I would second roberts' dwb recommendation.  It has a lot of features, without using a whole lot more memory than midori or arora.  I ran a few checks and find that on a fresh startup the "free" command "'used" memory incl. cache is:

core+xorg+xterm only     = 190K
core+xorg+xterm+midori  = 300k
core+xorg+xterm+dwb    = 293k
core+xorg+xterm+surf     = 280k
core+xorg+xterm+luakit   = 300K

Not much difference, these browsers are all small things sitting on a mountain of webkit, etc, dependencies.  I rate performance as dwb>luakit>>surf>>midori, mostly because the Debian surf is a very old version and I haven't recompiled yet.

[bmarkus]

Thanks for the notes on browsers. Initial memory usage is less important, as browsers eats up RAM with cache, unmaintained sql databases (Firefox), etc.  I'm putting together deps for webkit and will make dwb first hopefully.

Regarding import, I tried using Raspbian packages but they have more dependencies than necessary in a TC environment and also I had issues mixing them with my own extensions, so I have choosen the slower way. But now it looks really good..

[coreplayer2]

This is where I miss the logic,  small browsers that require a mountain of deps !   Take for example uzbl @ 140k  but requires more than 55MB of deps to function ?

or am I missing something ?

[bmarkus]

While I prefer small, clean applications, browsers are different. If you need a usable browser which works in a real world and sued not only to read HTML doc files or dedicated text browser friendly geek blogs, you need it. On the other hand, when you are inserting a 4G SD card and extensions are mounted, 50MB is not a high price. SD card is cheap. What you can't expand and is short is the RAM.

[hlavery]

At least in the present case, the "small" browsers are easier to implement, as their deps, if missing, can be run down with a bit of work.  The big commercial browsers are much more opaque and it will take someone with more insight than I to get them going.

In general, I find the small browsers more satisfying to use, as the big names seem to get bogged down in their own chrome, plugins and databases.  Some of the "stuff" can be shut off, but some can't.  Must agree, though, that claims that the small browsers are closer to some ideal  "unix philosopy" seem pretty dodgy to me.

[hlavery]

I guess I hexed myself talking about big commercial browsers just now, as I was just able to "import" and run Debian 'firefox'

-iceweasel. 

The trick is the "tce-load -ic iceweasel/iceweasel.tcz" command...the beast appears to expect to be loaded as-is into the file system.

[hlavery]

The trick of importing iceweasel (firefox) and loading with tce-load -ic iceweasel
.......ALSO...........
works for libreoffice (openoffice)...another surprising outcome.  No further script is necessary to run.  Just:

import libreoffice
tce-load -ic libreoffice/libreoffice.tcz
libreoffice

This won't leave much memory, so it would be prudent to have swap available.   It will only run at a respectable speed if the cpufreq is set high ("performance" governor or a specific high GHz), but it does run, make spreadsheets and graphs, etc.