Welcome to the Debian-Xqt Page

This page is related to the Zaurus SL-6000L, only one that I have tested, althought it should work with any other Zaurus that is able to run Xqt. Probably, with the Z-860 it would be better.... Here are a few screenshots taken with the SL-6000:

For installing Debian on Xqt those are the steps that I have done:

Install Xqt acording to the instructions of "jfv" in "Zaurus User Group" and using the last packages found in http://xqt.sourceforge.jp/feed-testing/
Download the package http://pocketworkstation.org/files/zaurus-debian-big-v0.17.tgz after reading the page from Klaus and doing things as he explains UNTIL the instruction
"./debroot/INSTALL.d/postinst.sh".
DON'T DO THAT
Modify --or write-- the file " .xinitrc " in /home/zaurus and let it finishing with " rxvt ". Comment " blackbox "
Create a link --after being "su"-- between /home/QtPalmtop/bin/Xqt and /home/QtPalmtop/bin/X
Now you are ready. Click the button "startx" corresponding to the installation of Xqt. You will see the typical horrible begining of X's and after some seconds afterwards a terminal will open
In the new terminal, type "su" and then " /sbin/chroot /mnt/~yourcard~/debroot ". From now on Debian can work. Launch a Window Manager. You will find that IceWM is the default so type: " export DISPLAY=0:0 " and " /usr/bin/icewm "
After that you can begin your "fight".. :-). Don't forget to write in the file " /etc/resolv.conf " the nameserver that you want to use. Then type " apt-get update " and Debian is yours to install all the packages..., if your card allows it.

I will continue to give some advices acording to my experience. I will be very happy also to receive advices and/or to answer any doubt or help you. Please, use Zaurus User Group to stablish the personal connection. GOOD LUCK !!

Nov the 4th. 2004

I have been able to map the few default keys that didn't worked. I have put it in a file called .xmodmaprc that you can download. Please, include it in any place that you can remember and tape: xmodmap .xmodmaprc

Once done, your keyboard (only on the SL-6000) will be modified so now you will have available the keys corresponding to: ? " : ; . You can also use the "braces", left and right and the brackets. The braces are obtained typing the parenteses and the brackets typing " & " and " * ". For obtaining those last you must press the Fn + Shift keys at the same time.

Dont ask me why, but I haven't been able to do it in the "other" way, maintaining the usual symbols.

Doing what I have explained will make the keyboard totally complete. Sorry, I forgot; to obtain the backslash you can type Shift + Space. So, with that the keyboard is complete and works o.k. with the rxvt-terms. Not so with some special editors like "Scite". Also I have found that in this last version of Debian, "Emacs" is faulty so, I recomend to use " vim " or one of its derivates: " vim-gtk " is really nice and powerful.

Another point that I recomend, acording to my experience (of a very few days) is to create a swap space to have full space on memory for using the most demanding applications. This can be done as I explain afterwards. You can find the complete explanation doing " man mkswap " in any Linux distribution.

For installing swap, first of all you must create a file that can work as swap. This can be done, in the root directory for example, typing
dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1024 count=65536
For a swap file of 64Kb. that is enough. (You can also create half this size.) Then for activating the swap you must type:
swapon /swapfile
Once done, no more ram-memory problems and, what is nice, no big retard due to swap. Anyway, don't forget to deactivate the swap typing:
swapoff -a
(I have forgotten more than once and nothing has happened but.... it should be done).

Finally I will say that yesterday evening I installed the kernel "retouched" to go up to 530Mh. and found in Zaurus User Group, with no problems at all running Xqt and Debian.

More news if I have something new to say. Cheers

Dec the 9th. 2004

I have improved the .xmodmaprc and replaced the one above. Download it. Now, all the keys on the keyboard work as they should, acording to the inscriptions on it and in all editors. There are four signs very important for some kind of writing/programming that have been maped outside the keyboard. Those are the "braces" and the "brackets". You will find them in the same file as the menu key and respecting this one (comes from X/QT and I don't want to touch it). So from left to right you can type "brace-left" - "brace-right" - "bracket-left" - "menu-key" - "bracket-right".

I forgot to say that, when creating the swap space it is needed to type "mkswap swapfile" before the file is ready for being used as swap with "swapon". This is needed just once.

Emacs works. If you want to try it you must launch it with: "emacs -fn fixed". It works very well if you launch it with: "emacs -fn 9x15".

I recommend to try the "accelerated" kernel BUT with the version "zImage.no-ffpe". Nevertheless, if you put it at maximum speed (what is nice), you will find a certain difficulty in using the pointer. Very unstable in movements. So, the right way should be to use it at 530 when speed is really needed. Otherwise, the standard is o.k.

If you are keen to Java, you can install the jdk-118 from blackdown. Once the paths well stablished, and using Scite as editor, you can write your own applications and/or applets and compile or run them from the editor, what is very nice. To change/modify some points/details and see immediatly the result is very practical. You will find that it works very well with just one drawback compared to Jeode: the numerical calculation is a lot less quick. This is because the math libraries used are those included in the kernel and the calls to this one are continous. Anyway, this is only perceptible with intense floating point calculations.

Be aware that you can run your applications in Qtopia with Jeode and that you can also compile (and run) Swing applications/applets using the classes "swingZ.jar" easy to find in "zaurus software". They work quite slow but also on very intense manipulation of those classes. Otherwise they are o.k. and your work can be run after on your desktop very nicely.

For those of you keen to maths, I recommend you the application Xcas. You can download it as the version for Ipaq. It is a *.tar.gz file that you can untar in the root directory. It is a very strong application, more or less like Maple, but, probably, more complete and absolutely free. Beautiful to use on the 6000. Also, Xmaxima is directly installable with apt-get, but it doesn't always run in graph mode. It works very well in console mode.

I include some screen-pics of Xcas, Java aplications with Swing, and the standard screen that I'm using now.

More news when I have something new to say. Cheers

If you want to use java on Debian-Xqt it can help to have the needed java and swing classes in just one compressed package. Try it downloading it from here. This is NOT a JVM. Just includes "classes.zip" from jdk1.1.8 and "swingZ.jar". You can give it a try also in Qtopia with Jeode using in this way:

evm -cp /path to/myjava.zip sun.tools.javac.Main Your_program.java

for compiling and

evm -cp /path to/myjava.zip Your_program

for running the application that will accept Swing.