Chip9$ now it's a better Debian GUI

Chip 9$ runs jessie Debian and Xorg server (I am running lxde in the picture here below).

(There are still details to fix, but it works!)

Chronicle of my second Debian installation

first step: flash the debian image

I have used on my laptop (Debian SID) the procedure described here for Ubuntu. I am not using any vagrant/virtualbox virtual machine as I don't want any proprietary virtualbox extension running on my laptop

There is a typo in the command: change:

 ./chip-firmware-update.sh -d

into

 ./chip-update-firmware.sh -d

... and use the sunxi-tools provided by next things co

 git clone https://github.com/NextThingCo/sunxi-tools.git

otherwise the procedure may fail as the script uses a non-standard argument of fel (--progress).

second step: connect chip to a network

nmcli (network manager command line interface) can be used to set up your networking. IMHO it is one of the worse documented command I have ever seen

If you have a standard home/office wifi network you can use a command like:

 nmcli device wifi connect (your wifi network name/SSID) password (your wifi password) ifname wlan0

It is possible to preconfigure connections. The following commands defined my connection named jolla: I use it to connect chip to my phone (guess which brand of telefone I own ;-):

  nmcli con add con-name jolla ifname wlan0 type wifi ssid rd235
  nmcli con modi jolla wifi-sec.key-mgmt wpa-psk
  nmcli con modi jolla wifi-sec.psk ThisIsNotMyRealPasswd

now I can connect to jolla in this way:

  nmcli con up jolla

and disconnect:

  nmcli con down jolla

I often use my laptop in AP mode as a router, I have set up another pre-configured connection:

  nmcli con add con-name laptopap ifname wlan0 type wifi ssid myessid ip4 192.168.42.2/24 gw4 192.168.42.254
  nmcli con modi laptopap ipv4.dns 8.8.8.8

This is the way to configure a connection to an open wifi network using static IPv4 addresses.

When I wnat to connect my chip to my laptop I type:

  nmcli con up laptopap

and when I'm done:

  nmcli con down laptopap

third step: install some packets

I like aptitude

# apt-get update
# apt-get install aptitude

IMHO a *nix host must have building tools.

# aptitude install vim build-essential python python3

Without this you'll get a lot of warnings... locales is missing (this should be a good idea to be part of the standard image)

# aptitude install locales
# dpkg-reconfigure locales

Now for the GUI, X first:

# aptitude install xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xcore-video-all xinit

And a (possibly light) graphical environment:

# aptitude install lxde netsurf

this is just a starting point

much more to do.

X is currently using the frame buffer, it should fully use the support of the embedded video card. The resolution is quite low.

I still have a problem on ssl-certificates. It seems the authentication with most of the ssl-CA is not working properly.

I'd like to update the kernel from chip itself. Maybe there is a standard way but I have not discovered it, yet.