Zipit Z2 + Matchbox

Written by Greg Thursday, 22 October 2009 14:25

I've been following the wonderful hackery going on for the Zipit Z2, mostly following tutorials from the Hunter Davis blog.

Zipit Z2 Running Matchbox

After following the Debian Install Instructions he posted, I've done some additions and explorations that I thought were worth sharing:

For a more optimized GUI, Matchbox is pretty impressive. It can be installed with:

apt-get install matchbox

Afterwards, you can build a little launcher script (getting "vim" helps for writing scripts on the device):

#!/bin/sh
/bin/z2mouse-option &
xinit /usr/bin/matchbox-session

I haven't figured out the best mouse emulator to use yet. Aliosa27's ZipIt repository has a bunch of nifty files, and I'm guessing one of them is better for this than the one I'm currently using (which works great with FluxBox, but is missing the Alt keys in Matchbox). To exit Matchbox using this keyset, the standard X Windows method of Ctrl-Alt-Backspace works (The ... key is Ctrl on the Zipit).

With both Fluxbox and Matchbox, the list of applications is composed from the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications/ so you could build .desktop entries for any custom shell scripts you write (i.e. different wifi connections)

Comments (3)

1 Thursday, 22 October 2009 15:01

Naya

Thank you for this tutorial. I'll be attempting to do this to my Zipit Z2 later on today.

2 Sunday, 25 October 2009 00:29

Daniel

I am new to the whole scene I guess as most people are, primarily using ubuntu for the last year which pretty much holds your hand. Can you help with the script to the mouse to work. It says write a script but where does the script go and what should the name of it be and what should the script contain?

I know it is probably stupid to ask but I have ICEWM and Matchbox on my zipit now I just need a little bit more clarification. I apologize and appreciate your help in advance.

Thanks!

3 Monday, 26 October 2009 05:18

x86Daddy

The script example above (contents being the box starting with #!/bin/sh) can be placed anywhere and with any name you like. After writing that file, you'll want to change its permissions to executable with the "chmod" command. (example: "chmod 755 filename.sh") Then you'll be able to run it with "./filename.sh" while in its directory, or by typing the full path of the script file from your command line. If you're familiar with DOS Batch files, these work similarly.

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