Guylhem Distrib Update: Document Tab Bug Fixed !, new release getting closer Options

[guylhem]

Hello

I know a new release is overdue, but I want clean polished stuff :-) And the document tab bug was really annoying to me.

But after a long hacking night I could finally fix the most important bug preventing a new release : the document tab bug. That's what caused ipk installation problem and files not appearing in usual location.

It seems to be due to a bad sharp hack with the filesystem "cleaning" revealed. Basically, mount should update /etc/mtab when something is mounted.
Sharp mount does not (!). So they symlinked it to /proc/mounts (!)

Man mount will tell you this is not a good idea and it could cause bugs - well it did (!) Basically, the document tab is using libsl to read /etc/mtab ...

I don't even what to know how they worked around the problem *they* created in the sharp rom. It's ugly and deserves to die. Mtab also reports /dev/root instead of correctly reporting /dev/mtdblock2 - which also cause problems.

A fix in on the way. I will recompile the latest busybox and add mtab support. This will hopefully be enough. Else I will add a new standalone mount tool.

Thanks **A LOT** to whoever reported inserting cards was a workaround for the document tab bug. It helped me pinpoint the bug (along with some debugging :-)

Speaking of debugging; you will be happy to know a new zgcc will be made available for the SL6000. It uses /opt/zgcc and takes currently 8 Mb thanks to squashfs. So you can have it on your zaurus all the time!

I will just add perl file and a couple of other apps before releasing it. Yet recompiling on a standalone zaurus is just very cool. zgcc will certainly be released before the new nandbackup, but it should work like a charm on the previous one.

Now working on the last remaining keyboard bug! (so that *every* key over the keyboard can be remapped to applications - this is quite cool since I use a lot of apps at the same time and wanted to have the light key start an app, while a long press on the ( o ) key ("user key") turn on and off light. Same for power key, record key and other keys - long presses and short presses will have different functions (under work)

Fellow latin users (french, spanish...) will appreciate a reworked keyboard with easy access to accentuated chars. No need of additional applications or complicated setup - fn+shift+your key does it, in every application.

Guylhem

[guylhem]

Hello

Sorry, it won't. If I keep making such fast progress, it might. But softfloat and qtopia 2.1 are a totally different story.

SoftFloat is highly probable - I only have to compare and pick up a toolchain doing softfloat, and recompile what has to be. It'll probably use the latest EABI format (I don't think OE is using it yet)

mplayer, libsdl, the emulators, and every app worth the trouble will be recompiled. What I don't know yet is 1) what the overhead will be (ie how many more Mb just to run the same applications?) and 2) what the benefits will be for the end user.

We all know it is faster; but if it only gets you an additional couple of frames per sec with mplayer and the videogame, it won't get in the distro.

Evaluating and installing better (and free) applications for the non free equivalents is much more important IMHO. Having a clean system capable of offering access to good alternatives using the same basic system (pdaxrom is high on my list of priorities !) is also more important that some potential optimisation that would just take too long. Sorry, but I try to work at the same time (between my jobs and PhD) on the distro/zedialler/many other free software project - I have to take decisions.

That's why qtopia is highly unprobable : it will break a lot of stuff and is certainly not worth the trouble yet. I was hoping on kernel 2.6 on the 6000 but after I evaluated it - honnestly it's not ready for end users yet. Promising but not mature. Qtopia 2.1 is nice but compatibility is important to me, and I've to test everything to pick it up.

If you want to break everything for some potential benefit, I suggest you try the other roms out there :->

Guylhem