Pogoplug Pro V3 running vncserver

Hi Bodhi,

I did buy a Pogoplug Pro.
I put your U-boot on it.
Copied the filestem to usb-stick.
and it works fantastic.
Thanks for the good work.

I have upgraded to the latest kernel: 4.4.54-oxnas-tld-1
Did a dist-upgrade to Debian 8

After that and reading about the mPCI-e possibilities and connectiong a real screen.
I thought maybe GUI with vnc4server

I did:

apt-get install gparted
apt-get install firmware-realtek
apt-get install task-lxde-desktop
apt-get install kde-full
apt-get install xfce4-desktop
apt-get install xfce4-goodies

Because of some problems during installation with memory, i did make a swap partition on the usb-stick.
Formatted as swap. I made it 384 Mb (3 times the amount of available memory)
looked up the UUID with blkid
and added in fstab:

UUID=XXXXX none  swap    sw      0       0

In /etc/rc.local i added:

su - root -c "vnc4server :1 -geometry 1920x1080 &" &
su - erik -c "vnc4server :2 -geometry 1920x1080 &" &

In /etc/alternatives/vncserver, i changed geometry

#$geometry = "1024x768";
$geometry = "1920x1080";

And create vncpasswords by starting vnc as root and user.
and changed in
~/.vnc/xstartup

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey -cursor_name left_ptr
vncconfig -iconic &
x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
#x-window-manager &
/usr/bin/startlxde &

Did have some problems with memory and processorload.
So i switched from lightdm displaymanager to xdm displaymanger.

I am running top with 2 vncsessions running

top - 14:45:20 up 23 min,  2 users,  load average: 0.13, 0.11, 0.23
Tasks: 104 total,   1 running, 103 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu0  :  0.0 us,  0.0 sy,  0.0 ni,100.0 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
%Cpu1  :  0.7 us,  0.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 99.0 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:    120916 total,   117860 used,     3056 free,     6628 buffers
KiB Swap:   393212 total,    21728 used,   371484 free.    46196 cached Mem

It is working much better, than i expected.

Thanks

Erik,

Excellent :) this is a great example for running a higher resolution an dxdm displaymanger and vncserver! I'll add this to the Wiki.

Quote

Formatted as swap. I made it 384 Mb (3 times the amount of available memory)

You might want to try zswap and let us know if it will perform even better than without zswap!

The swap partition could also be replaced by a swap file. I prefer swap file because it makes the system rootfs simpler, and it is easier to add more swap files while the system is running

-bodhi
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Forum Wiki
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Erik,

Also if you could, take a screen shot of the desktop and post it here in attached png/jpg. It does not have to be highresolution (need to be <= 1M to attach to post).

-bodhi
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Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

Hi Bodhi,

I have also tested with a swap-file.
It does not make any difference, when using a swap-file or a swap-partition.
See below for the testing part.

How to create a swapfile:

Make a swapfile of 384 Mb

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap bs=1024 count=393216
# chown root:root /swap
# chmod 0600 /swap
# mkswap /swap
# swapon /swap

Add it to /etc/fstab:

/swap none swap sw 0 0

Check if swap is used:

swapon -s

(or top or htop or ..)



I have tested with zswap.
It is already installed.
You can activate it by changing the value in /sys/module/zswap/parameters/enabled
Default it is not enabled.

I have tested with swap-file and zswap on
-> starting Konqueror 20 20 22 20 22 --> 21 seconds
I have tested with swap-file and zswap off
-> starting Konqueror 34 35 32 40 33 --> 35 seconds

I have tested with swap-partition and zswap on
-> started Konqueror 21 21 22 22 25 21 --> 21 seconds
I have tested with swap-partition and zswap off
-> started Konqueror 28 31 40 34 35 37 --> 34 seconds

So ..
1) There is no difference in swap-speed when using swapfile or swappartition.
It is more easy to create a swap-file in the current rootfs (because it can be done when system is active)
To create a partition, you have to do this in advance or on other box when filesystem is not active.

2) Using zswap give a better performance of 33%
I think it is worth using it.



To enable zswap on your box, you can do two things:
1) Enable it when you started up you box by hand or add the next line in /etc/rc.local

echo 1 > /sys/module/zswap/parameters/enabled

or
2) add it to your kernel-parameters.
In my box the custom_params where not defined, so i used this parameter

# fw_printenv set_bootargs
set_bootargs=setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 root=LABEL=rootfs rootdelay=10 $mtdparts $custom_params
# fw_printenv custom_params
## Error: "custom_params" not defined


fw_setenv custom_params 'zswap.enabled=1'

When you reboot your box zswap is automatic activated.

Hi,

I'm writing this using Konqueror on my Pogoplug pro.
I have made a few pictures of the vnc-viewer-screen
Used ksnapshot for it.

The first picture is with LXterminal - running top.
The second with LXterminal and Dolphin - showing snapshots
The third with LXterminal, Dolphin and Konqueror.

Pictures are uploaded directly from pogoplug.
(I'm just telling this, so you can see it works good)
(But don't try to run to big applications, because there is a limitation to the memory 128Mb)

Erik, this is very cool! I'm definitely going to have to give this a try. One dumb question: is it easy to change all those white backgrounds for various applications to something else? I absolutely hate white backgrounds and would prefer to just keep using multiple ssh connections than have to deal with blinding, headache inducing white backgrounds. :-)

-JT

Thanks Erik,

Excellent tutorial :)

That gain in performance with zswap was what I experienced with XFCE desktop too.

-bodhi
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Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

Hi JT,

Every program has its own background.
By some you can change them. Not with all.
Sometimes you can use an other program where you can change background or lookings.

Erik

Erik, AWESOME!

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