THE ROOT FILESYSTEM -- MAIN BUILD
=================================
root/ THE ROOT FILESYSTEM ITSELF. This tree *is* what
ends up on partition 2 of the card. To change
anything in PsionLX, edit here and re-run
mkimage.sh.
mknods.debugfs The /dev node list, hand-maintained, 295 lines.
Rarely changes.
chown.debugfs Generated on every build by walking the tree.
devlist.txt Reference listing of the device nodes.
removed-by-psion/ .desktop files Psion's own recipes delete, kept
rather than lost.
OWNERSHIP -- THE TRAP THAT COSTS DAYS
The build applies:
/home/lx and below 1000:1000
/home/gpe and below 100:65535
everything else 0:0
/home/lx is the one that matters. The whole desktop runs as user lx, so
lx must be able to create ~/.matchbox (the dock) and ~/.gpe (the
settings database holding theme and background). Root-owned means no
dock, the default theme and the fallback background, all at once --
three symptoms that look like three unrelated bugs.
The host filesystem cannot carry those uids, so they are written into
the image afterwards with debugfs. Verify in the BUILT IMAGE, not here:
debugfs -R 'stat /home/lx' rootfs.ext2
And keep /home/lx otherwise EMPTY. A leftover mbdock.session or
.gpe/settings overrides everything in /etc permanently, because both
mechanisms only fall back to /etc when the user's copy is absent.
DEVICE NODES ARE NOT OPTIONAL
mknods.debugfs originally created no /dev/random or /dev/urandom, and
libgcrypt then aborted with "no entropy gathering module detected" and
took the dock and the launcher down with it. No desktop at all, from two
missing nodes. minimix also wants the devfs-style /dev/sound/mixer.
