gtk+ on Debian

**Soorena** · 03-09-2010

I was just wondering if it was possible to build gui applications on Debian linux and execute them from inside the terminal. I can do this using ubuntu, but Debian doesn't have a window manager and can't execute my compiled programs. It gives me a "Gtk Warning **: Cannot open display" warning.

Thanks,

**Rubberman** · 03-10-2010

You don't have the X server and required libraries installed on your Debian system.

**Soorena** · 03-10-2010

Actually I found this command "startx" that loads gnome after giving me a few pop ups/errors, and then I can run my gui program. As we discussed in the other thread, I am ultimately trying to do this on a PC104 system with full debian linux. Do you think I could use this command and gnome to run my programs?

**Rubberman** · 03-10-2010

Ah! A "minor" omission! PC-104 systems are considered embedded systems boards, which often don't run a GUI stack unless there is going to be a user interface component beyond the most simple of displays. Even those that have a full distribution, such as debian (I am starting work on a PC-104 ARM9 board w/ debian also) don't usually have the X server enabled since it takes up a lot of memory and often you are interfacing to them via a serial rs-232 port. However, if you login and set your DISPLAY environment to point to your workstation that is running an X server, then you can run X applications on the SBC with the display going to the external server, often over an ethernet connection.

**Soorena** · 03-11-2010

Something doesn't make any sense to me, and I keep getting mixed messages. This whole PC104 business has become a major nightmare for me. Anyway, my ultimate goal is to have a gui application that runs on PC 104 with a touch screen display. I know it's been done before: embeddedarm.com/products/board-detail.php?product=TS-TPC-7395

So when I asked these guys what they used to build apps for that device, they said gtk+ and DirectFB.
Since it already has the full debian, if you install xorg it will give you a window environment. I did this on a VM and the whole thing ended up being about 800 Mb, but I wouldn't care if I had to put a 2 Gb SD Card in there.
Do you think I can do this with any board that has enough RAM and CPU power? or am I missing something? (TS-7250, TS-7300, and TS7800 are some of the boards that I think may meet my needs).

Thanks a lot for the help.

**Rubberman** · 03-11-2010

Yeah. I just got a TS-7350 development kit. The 7200-7300 series can take up to 128M of RAM, which should be fine for your purposes. I haven't looked into their LCD support features yet since I'm designing a headless system, so I don't have any information about what you are going to go thru to deal with the video and touch-screen stuff. Do keep us posted on your progress. FWIW, I found the people there generally quite helpful and knowledgeable when I called them on the phone. Bob Miller is the president/founder and he definitely knows his stuff.

As for graphics toolkit, you might want to look into Qt for embedded applications. They do a lot with smart phones and such.

**Soorena** · 03-11-2010

The thing about 7350 is that even though they say it's LCD ready, we would have to design our own physical video interface. So, I ended up talking to my boss and pretty much told him if he wants touch screen, he has to go with TS-TPC-7395 because we just don't have the resources to build a gpu in our kind of time frame. And those TPC devices are out of our price range, so we'll have to go back to the good old fashion Text Only displays. Although, once we are done building the device, we might consider offering an upgrade that will have touch screen support and whatnot...

I think we might go with the TS-7350 too, so we can help each other out if something goes wrong. In the mean time, I'd really appreciate your review of the device. Thanks.

**Rubberman** · 03-11-2010

I'm just getting it fired up today. Gotta hook up the console port to one of my computers to see the boot info when I do. I'll let you know how it works out.

**Rubberman** · 03-12-2010

Well, it was quick to boot up - under 1.5 seconds w/ 2.6.21 kernel to minimal system. A full Debian stack took a bit longer, but still PDQ. So far I am able to connect with it via telnet, run an xterm on it with display on my workstation, compile and run simple programs using standard libraries, ftp files back and forth. Next I need to read more documentation and start to interface to the COM ports as well as DIO-24 and Relay cards. It seems pretty clean to me. This is definitely a nice device for quick time-to-market on such a system.

So, since it has a full GTK+ graphics package, and a compact X window manager (icewm) to run on embedded video devices. Since I don't have a small LCD to try out, all I can do is run X-Windows applications with their display on my workstation or laptop. That works just fine, so the libraries are functional. Now, I need to get ntp running on it because there is no battery backup on the RTC for the system I got. A real PITA to have to reset the clock whenever I remove power from it.

**Soorena** · 03-15-2010

Thanks for the quick review. We are probably going to order it this week and we'll order it with the $10 real time clock. I am very much looking forward to getting device and testing it out.

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