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Everything Else => Zaurus Distro Support and Discussion => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => Angstrom & OpenZaurus => Topic started by: systemparadox on September 27, 2004, 10:58:49 am

Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on September 27, 2004, 10:58:49 am
Hi
I have an SL-5500. I much prefer OZ and Opie to the sharp rom, but I have some major problems which must be solved soon or I will be forced to go back to the sharp rom (and I really want to avoid that). I have been using OZ for a few weeks now, first version 3.2, but now I am running 3.3.5.

1. Currently have only one cf card- a maxell 64mb storage card formatted as fat16. As it is my only cf card I leave it in all the time, but it keeps doing very stupid things.
It makes suspend and/or resume take ages. Under OZ 3.2, it initially took ages on resume (i think this may have been partly related to the docs tab), but then it changed it's mind and took ages to suspend, usually ejecting and then reinserting the card (the point of which is...?). With 3.3.5, it doesn't eject and reinsert the card every time (and it seems to be generally faster, although it still takes longer with the card than without), but every so often (usually at the most annoying times), it ejects the card and fails to redetect it the cardmon icon disappears from the bar and never returns. It then takes no notice of me physically removing/inserting it (or the 256mb kingston card borrowed from a friend), cardctl commands never complete, and mount says that /dev/hda1 is not a valid block device (probably because cardctl hasn't picked up the card). An SD card still worked fine when it did this, although I cannot verify whether sd cards will start the problem or not. The only way I can find to get cf cards working again is to reboot completely.
I use my zaurus mostly as an organiser, so this is incredibly annoying.

2. It sometimes freezes on resume. This means i have to do a full reboot. This may well be related to the cf card problem, but so far it has only happened with the cf card present (bear in mind that it is in almost all of the time). I am testing this now.

3. USB Storage. I absolutely MUST have this. Many of the pcs i use cannot have drivers installed on them, so the usb networking mode won't work. I downloaded a usbstorage driver ported from one of the c series zs, but this will not install correctly (and when I try it leaves its attempted install on my Z, whilst aqpkg thinks it isn't installed so I can't uninstall it). The last attempt at this one made Linux on my laptop pick up a usb mass storage device, but it could not be mounted. A bit more messing and the Z would not start opie any more- reflash time- again. I then found an OZ version, but this would not work either.

4. The documents tab is a mess. Whilst it might be more convenient than adding things to a manual tab, it slows everything down, especially if you use cf or sd storage cards. I have turned it off, but is there some way of getting rid of it completely- it's cluttering up my desktop.

5. What does it mean when aqpkg says 'invalid magic'?
6. Can I remap the hardware keyboard? (i use dvorak)

Has anyone else expericenced similar problems?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thankyou in advance
Simon
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on September 27, 2004, 11:04:40 am
About your CF card - although I have no real idea, it might be worth running fsck on it.

Quote
3. USB Storage. I absolutely MUST have this. Many of the pcs i use cannot have drivers installed on them, so the usb networking mode won't work. I downloaded a usbstorage driver ported from one of the c series zs, but this will not install correctly (and when I try it leaves its attempted install on my Z, whilst aqpkg thinks it isn't installed so I can't uninstall it). The last attempt at this one made Linux on my laptop pick up a usb mass storage device, but it could not be mounted. A bit more messing and the Z would not start opie any more- reflash time- again. I then found an OZ version, but this would not work either.

You downloaded my ipk from my web page? Sorry if it doesn't work, it has never been tested - I prefer to use the scripts directly from the command line. This works fine. I presume you've read the threads about this (2 main ones from a long while back)?

Depends on your distro I think, but under Mandrake 9.2 the usbstorage device is /dev/sda and mounted fine.


Simon

P.S. I'll link the threads if you need, and explain how to use the scripts etc.
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on September 27, 2004, 02:25:57 pm
thanks,
no errors from fsck, but the card appears to be fat32. Is this ok or are there problems with it (many things i have read say that it should be formatted as fat16)?

A few problems with your usb storage ipk...
Firstly, the ipk won't install.
(very verbose) output:
Code: [Select]
Dealing with package /root/Documents/usb-storage_1.0.0_OZ_SA_arm.ipk
cp:
/etc/usbcontrol
: No such file or directory
cp:
pkg_info_preinstall_check: updating arch priority for each package
pkg_info_preinstall_check: update file owner list
arch arm (priority 1) supported for pkg usb-storage
Installing usb-storage (1.0.0) to root...
 1 providers
 provider_apkg=task-opie-minimal
  arch_priority=1 constraint=1
  using latest matching task-opie-minimal 1.0.3 arm
pkg_depends.c:164: satisfying_pkg=0x52ec0
Aborting installation of usb-storage
  cleanup temp files
Failed.
configuring unpacked packages
  writing status file
/etc/rc.d/init.d/usb: No such file or directory
hash_table[pkg-hash] n_buckets=1423 n_elements=214 max_conflicts=2 n_conflicts=12
hash_table[file-hash] n_buckets=1423 n_elements=2098 max_conflicts=68 n_conflicts=567
hash_table[obs-file-hash] n_buckets=1423 n_elements=0 max_conflicts=0 n_conflicts=0
preinst script returned status 1
Finished

On your site it says I just need the storage_fd.o module from the ipk. Is the correct? I would actually prefer to use the command line scripts and avoid installing from the ipk (although the gui tool could be useful). With most ipks I can 'tar -xvzf' them, but yours isn't recognised as a tar, gzip or bzip2 file.

Thanks
Simon
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: Greg2 on September 27, 2004, 06:39:43 pm
Quote
On your site it says I just need the storage_fd.o module from the ipk. Is the correct?
Yes... and the two scripts listed there.

Quote
With most ipks I can 'tar -xvzf' them, but yours isn't recognised as a tar, gzip or bzip2 file.

ar -x usb-storage_xxx.ipk
tar xzvf data.tar.gz

Greg
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on September 27, 2004, 06:58:24 pm
Cheers Greg :-)

Yeah sorry about the ipk, I based it on the version of hotplug which I was running at the  time. It may have changed (or it may have been wrong all along for all I know).

As Greg says, stick the storage_fd.o module in its correct location and just use the two scripts (I've not tested this on 3.5.1 yet, but am about too, however it worked fine on 3.3.6pre1).

Nb. In the script on my web page the following line should all be on one line:

Code: [Select]
/sbin/insmod /lib/modules/2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-embedix/kernel/drivers/usb/device/storage_fd/storage_fd.o storage_device=/dev/hda1

Si
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on September 28, 2004, 11:39:49 am
Well I have now tried the files from both the non-OZ and your ipk, but both of them make my Z lock up. Time to flash 3.5.1...
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on September 28, 2004, 12:07:20 pm
I'm going to test it this evening on my 5500 with 3.5.1

Works fine on C750 with 3.5.1


Si
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on September 28, 2004, 04:21:38 pm
OH NO! 3.5.1 won't boot properly!
I'm currently trying to get the 3.3.5 image back on my cf card to flash back a working version. This is very annoying.
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on September 28, 2004, 04:59:43 pm
Oh, sorry to hear that.

For mass storage (which is working), see the thread I created today in this bit of the forum.


Si
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: Greg2 on September 28, 2004, 05:09:51 pm
Quote
OH NO! 3.5.1 won't boot properly!
I'm currently trying to get the 3.3.5 image back on my cf card to flash back a working version. This is very annoying.
Just in case your stuck in the new medium found dialog...

You must remove your CF and SD cards after flashing, before booting for the first time.

@Si (lardman)...2 Simons in thread

I cannot make or fix that ipk to work properly (tried again today also), but your storage_fd.o module and your scripts work in OZ3.5.1 (Opie)

Thanks again

Greg
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on September 28, 2004, 05:26:53 pm
@Greg2: Yeah, I think the changes would have to be integrated with hotplug. I'll probably re-build the ipks and just put in the scripts and the modules (rather than messing about with hotplug).

Si
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on October 18, 2004, 12:43:24 am
Thanks for all the help so far.

I haven't tried the USB storage mode yet- and probably won't for the next couple of weeks (no sync cable available). A random question- should it work using the cradle? with the power disconnected?

It turns out that someone had disconnected the internet half way through my download of the ramdisk. A re-download, recopy (this was not easy with my Z unusable) and reflash has fixed the problem. I STILL get the message "RAMDISK: Couldn't find valid RAM disk image starting at 0." on bootup- why?

3.5.1 seems to have further reduced the CF card issues, but after a couple of weeks of use I have found that there are still serious problems (even after reflashing 3.5.1 three times (this was done because it crashed sooo badly (I suspect this is due to the CF card again)).
Now when I turn my Z on it ejects and reinserts the card again, but then works properly (sort of). Suspend is now pretty quick.

The current problem: Randomly, it seems to not be able to read from the cf card. I don't find this out until executing a command such as 'ls /mnt/cf', which makes the terminal do nothing. Suspending when in this state will cause it to lock up completely, requiring a hard reboot. It will shut down, but this takes ages. Removing the card sometimes helps (but not often).

Unanswered question: is it ok for my cf card to be formatted as FAT32 rather than FAT16?

Is locking up a sign of a lack of memory? I have always used the kernels which give the most storage space as opposed to memory, as I need as much space as I can get (obviously if this is causing crashing I will have to live without any RAM).
Does any else have problems with their Z locking up?
Is OZ less stable than the Sharp ROM?

Hmm...  I cannot use the package manager that comes with 3.5.1 to install anything, as it won't list any packages not installed. This is not really a problem for me (command line junkie ), but it is a little strange. I would be interested to know if this is a 'problem' specific to me- has anyone else experienced this?

I keep getting 'ipkg: invalid magic'. I have tried downloading the packages several times- it has made no difference. I read about some 'magic number' thing- can I tell ipkg to ignore it?

Is it possible to remap the hardware keyboard to dvorak?

Thanks
Simon
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on October 18, 2004, 06:43:52 am
Quote
A random question- should it work using the cradle? with the power disconnected?

Yes.

Quote
Does any else have problems with their Z locking up?
Is OZ less stable than the Sharp ROM?

No; no (in my experience).

Actually wrt to usb-storage I can make my Z lock-up, and I'm not quite sure why. If I switch to usb-storage all the modules get rmmod'd and insmod'd without troubles. When I try to switch back my script sometimes hangs (one of the modules is busy and can't be rmmod'd). This didn't used to happen with 3.3.6pre1, I'll try to track it down when I have some time (I might have to recompile the kernel module..).

Quote
I keep getting 'ipkg: invalid magic'. I have tried downloading the packages several times- it has made no difference. I read about some 'magic number' thing- can I tell ipkg to ignore it?

This is due to corrupt downloads. Whether the file is poperly corrupted, or your browser has decided to gunzip it is for you to determine.

Quote
Unanswered question: is it ok for my cf card to be formatted as FAT32 rather than FAT16?

No idea, try it and see.

Quote
Is locking up a sign of a lack of memory? I have always used the kernels which give the most storage space as opposed to memory, as I need as much space as I can get (obviously if this is causing crashing I will have to live without any RAM).

I don't get the problems you're talking about, but then I do use a 64-0 kernel. It might be worth flashing this kernel and seeing whether your troubles were related to the kernel (you can flash the kernel flashing the initrd.bin, but you will of course lose your /mnt/ram).


Si
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on October 24, 2004, 11:27:41 pm
Arghh!!! I've had to reflash AGAIN! Konqueror decided that it would give a "Bus Error" and not do anything. What does this mean?
Reinstalling, uninstalling, reinstalling did not help.

My Z is less predictable than Windows  :`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(:`(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: panyo on October 25, 2004, 03:44:01 am
Quote
Is it possible to remap the hardware keyboard to dvorak?
Systemparadox, your post has made me so happy. I have started this thread, including some keymaps that you may be able to use:
https://www.oesf.org/forums/inde...?showtopic=7953 (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=7953)
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on November 04, 2004, 10:47:53 am
OK, my new travel usb cable arrived today, so i decided to get the usb storage mode working (my sd should be here soon ). I tried to find the scripts on your site lardman, but it looks like the whole of zaurii.net is down. Could you (or someone else who has them) post them here please?

Thanks
Simon
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on November 04, 2004, 12:09:54 pm
The scripts are listed in the original thread from way back.

The site has gone for good now, and I've not got round to creating a new one... yet ;-)

Note that the scripts are different for the PXA and SA processor machines, as are the kernel modules (the SA machines need to use the patched sa1100_bi.o which comes in the ipk, the PXAs only need the storage_fd.o module as their pxa_bi.o is fine).

Which machine do you have? I'll post the various bits and pieces somewhere.


Si
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on November 04, 2004, 12:59:41 pm
I can't find the scripts anywhere on these forums!
I have SL-5500 (SA I think- correct me if I'm wrong)
Thanks
Simon
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on November 04, 2004, 01:27:54 pm
https://www.oesf.org/forums/inde...1100_bi\.o (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=6679&hl=sa1100_bi\.o)

Original thread here:

https://www.oesf.org/forums/inde...1100_bi\.o (https://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=1485&hl=sa1100_bi\.o)

I don't have the modules handy, I'll post them tomorrow if someone doesn't beat me to it.


Si
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on November 04, 2004, 02:47:15 pm
Thanks. I have the ipk so I can get the modules from there.
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on November 04, 2004, 04:07:37 pm
IT WORKS!!!
Thankyou Simon (lardman)!
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on November 08, 2004, 03:41:26 pm
Oh great. It seems to work fine on the two machines I have running win xp (networking mode, sd storage mode and cf storage mode). I don't really know about win 2000 yet; but the last time I tried it something went wrong (I will check this out further tomorrow- i think i did something wrong).

Unfortunately, it doesn't work properly on the machine I use most- my laptop, running 2.6.8.1 linux kernel, slackware 9.1. If I plug in my z in networking mode it does the same thing I have been having trouble with on my server for almost 2 years- "device not accepting address"- it tries this twice and then gives up. Unplugging and replugging makes little difference, but at least it doesn't lock up the usb.
If I plug in my z in either sd or cf mass storage mode, it works fine, but if I unplug it and then replug it, it locks up the usb, so I can't use any other devices in that port either. lsusb locks in this state. So far (although i haven't tried much- i'm sure unloading the usb modules would work, but that may well hang) the only way to get my usb back is to restart. It only has one usb port, so I don't know if it is locking the whole usb system or just that port.

Anyone got any ideas? I don't think its anything to do with the z, but i could easily be wrong.
Thanks
Simon
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: lardman on November 08, 2004, 06:15:52 pm
Out of interest does your Z also lock up when you try to go back to net mode from storage (when you suspend)?

It think it works on my PC (Mandrake 10 - kernel 2.6.something), but I'd have to double check to be sure I've actually used it (and I'm not thinking of 9.2 which I upgraded from a while back).

Quote
Anyone got any ideas? I don't think its anything to do with the z, but i could easily be wrong.

I don't suppose you have another mass storage device to try....?


Si
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on November 10, 2004, 12:30:50 pm
This is very strange.
Yes I have tried several other mass storage devices- these all work fine (with the exception of a few issues with my brother's mp3 player- more on that later).
My Z hasn't locked up for ages!!! WOO!!! :D
I usually unload all the related modules completely before changing mode, but thinking about it that isn't much different from your original script.

It turns out that the Win 2000 machine I had been trying it on has some sort of problem with the usb- it just picks it up as a "usb device" (strange, all other mass storage devices seem to work on it) and does nothing. I tried it on a slightly different (older) win2000 machine and it worked perfectly. Wierd.

I must get round to trying it on another linux box.

The mp3 player has some issues (only on linux on my laptop), which are similar to that of the Z (sort of). The internal memory (256mb) is fat32. If I leave the fs type as 'auto', it is picked up as 'msdos', not 'vfat'. If manually mount it as vfat it works fine, but i get some random messages in dmesg complaining about something to do with vfat. The SD card, which appears in windows as a second drive, never gets mentioned.
The similarity here is that I must manually mount my z as vfat or it is picked up as msdos too.

Thanks for all the help
Simon
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: anunakin on December 09, 2004, 01:21:44 pm
I have tried install bash on my OZ 3.5.2.... from my CF card... I have edited the /ete/ipkg.conf to point to /mnt/cf/feed/* .... and I have sucess installing so many apps on my Z... nut when I tried but a better shell... this fu.... my Z... the ipkg install bash ... works fine but this removes sh/ash and I cant run ipkg-link!
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: systemparadox on December 09, 2004, 03:29:45 pm
check to see if there is a link from /bin/sh to /bin/bash:
ls -l /bin/sh
Title: CF card, freezing, and other problems
Post by: anunakin on December 09, 2004, 03:55:06 pm
Quote
check to see if there is a link from /bin/sh to /bin/bash:
ls -l /bin/sh
I have checked.... there is not a symlink... and no bash binary and no sh/ash... I need reflash!