Messages

1

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Reversing the mess that opie-aqpkg has made ....

« on: October 23, 2004, 11:38:43 pm »

ARGH! .... well, thanks for the advice. I guess the package manager for OZ isn't in great shape as of yet as the installs aren't atomic and the program isn't very robust.

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Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Reversing the mess that opie-aqpkg has made ....

« on: October 23, 2004, 09:08:31 pm »

Hi all;

I just decided to take the plunge and move my SL 5500 from running the default ROM to OpenZaurus 3.5.1, and I've got to say, I was initially impressed. It looked really slick, and I really liked the proper filemanager/shell included. Then I went to use the packagemanager, and my fortunes reversed. After looking on these forums, I found out that the opie-aqpkg alternative exists. "No problem!" I said, having survived the horrors of doing an LFS install on my own computer without a second computer to rely upon.

So I successfully pulled off portmap and replaced the package manager. I started to fully enjoy these wonderful 'feed' concepts, and the way it automagically hunts down dependencies for me

But then disaster struck. I wanted a web browser for my Zaurus, and tried to put on Opera. Much to my dismay, though, Opera didn't work (I just now found the symlinking trick). "Alright", I said to myself, "let's try out this 'Minimo' browser thingy". At that time, I didn't realize that minimo = mini-mozilla. I thought it would be like Opera, only smaller! *insert painful, forced laugh here*

I don't have an SD card for storage, and I went with the conventional 32/32 split of my RAM. I told aqpkg to install minimo. Suddenly a long, long stream of dependencies started flashing up on my screen ... "Alright, let it go" I thought. About two minutes later, I was looking at a frozen screen where the message "Storage space full" sat in between an attempt to configure two of about a dozen system libraries. One battery-switch toggle later (she wouldn't take any other kind of input!), I began to poke around on my now-stuffed Zaurus. I can recall libraries being installed like libatk, libxfreetype2 (or something like that), and pango. My package manager shows none of those as currently installed. Looking under /mnt/ram, surprise! Gtk+ is there (sorta). Going to my terminal and hitting in 'ipkg files gtk+' gets me "Gtk+ is not installed!"

So there you have it: aqpkg hosed my system by clogging me with about a bazillion semi-installed packages, and I have no way to pull them off w/out manually inspecting every freaking file in /mnt/ram. Can anyone provide me with a way to:
See what minimo was trying to install on my system.
Get a file listing for what each of those dependencies was trying to install
Auto-hose all those half-baked useless files.

As it stands right now, I've flashed about 3 or 4 times in the past two days, and I really really don't wanna go reinstall all my software over again (groan)

3

5x00 General discussions / Need help getting WiFi going on an SL-5500 with default ROM

« on: May 10, 2004, 10:00:32 am »

Alright, I\'m using ROM version 2.12 right now, and I don\'t have a CF card to upgrade with.

The steps I take right now are:
Edit the .conf file and reboot (works!)
Go to the Wireless configuration screen, and choose either ad-hoc or infrastructure, as I\'m unsure which one I\'m using
Find out that ad-hoc won\'t even bring my card up (according to ifconfig), so use infrastructure mode.
See that eth0 has no IP, is up, and not receiving (while it is transmitting)
Try changing the wireless setting to the specific ESSID for my LAN.
Get same results.
Stare at all the options on my router and wonder what the heck all the options mean.

This network has worked before - my dad\'s laptop can get up just fine. Do I need to update my ROM? From the looks of things, mine might be a little bit old.

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5x00 General discussions / Need help getting WiFi going on an SL-5500 with default ROM

« on: May 09, 2004, 11:41:15 pm »

Hi all

I\'ve been trying to get a LinkSys WFC12 WiFi card going on my SL5500 with little success. I viewed the HCL, and made the changes to that .conf file, so the card is recognized and the module is loaded into my kernel.

However, no matter what options I select with the AP (a linksys 4-port router/AP) and my WiFi setup menu, I never see:
a) An IP
 Receipt of any packets (both with ifconfig)

I\'m kinda stumped here. Can somebody give me a \"from scratch\" step-by-step that _should_ work for this config? I just can\'t figure out what\'s going on :S

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5x00 General discussions / Student w/out a lot of cash considering a Zaurus - lots of q

« on: April 07, 2004, 02:24:05 pm »

Ahah, but that\'s what cargo pockets are for! I could easily fit a PDA, my MiniDisc player, spare batteries, my HP scientific calculator, two CDs, PDA accessories, my wallet, keys, pens and pencils into my multitude of pockets   Of course, then people wonder what on earth is wrong with my legs .... but that\'s their problem

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5x00 General discussions / Student w/out a lot of cash considering a Zaurus - lots of q

« on: April 07, 2004, 12:03:20 pm »

Wow! That was a lot of replies, and all of it was what I wanted to hear  My 5500 should be in the mail soon, and I\'ll start shopping around for that WiFi card. In the end, I got one for $160USD + $35 S/H, so I\'m paying around $255CAD before the border decides I have too much money lol. To Ganoe though - because of my limited finances, I don\'t anticipate ever getting more than one CF card, so I could pretty much solder that WiFi card in place and call it a slow SL6000, ergo no swapping problems. It\'s good to hear about those kernel options being available for the 5500 - I can recall reading about the CF_SYNC problem and the low throughputs people were getting on SD. Reminds me of my HDDs on my LFS box before I realized my IDE module can\'t be compiled as a module, and that hdparm defaults to \'safe\' (as in, safe for a 386 with a broken motherboard). I think I\'ll be adventurous and go for compiling GCC 3.3.1 for my 5500 - I still admittedly don\'t understand why portions of the Linux community keep clinging on to 2.95, I\'ve been compiling my kernels and everything with 3 for a good while now. I think I\'d really like to try getting the X11 desktop to work on my Zaurus though. One of my anticipated uses (one way or another) is to be able to use my Zaurus as a remote control for my PC (ie multimedia centre). No more getting up to change the song, turn down the volume, or pause a movie  If I can\'t pull that off though I\'ll just add some TCP/IP control code to JuK and NoAtun, then make a quicky java app for the Zaurus to do the control. In any case, thanks for all these informative (if not directly related  ) posts!

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5x00 General discussions / Student w/out a lot of cash considering a Zaurus - lots of q

« on: April 06, 2004, 02:26:20 pm »

Thanks for the replies all. It\'s good to hear that I can use the 64Mb onboard as straight RAM, and that the processor is still adequate for most tasks. I\'ll go out and get a 5500 now, with confidence

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5x00 General discussions / Student w/out a lot of cash considering a Zaurus - lots of q

« on: April 06, 2004, 01:25:38 pm »

Hi everyone

I\'ve been hungrily eyeing the Zaurus line ever since I first considered a PDA (or Personal Development Assistant, as these things should be called) Right now I\'m mulling over all the options available, and having a hard time coming up with an answer for what I want to buy.

Basically, here is what I\'d want to do with any Zaurus that I buy:

#1 Have a wifi adapter so I can get internet access through any of my university\'s hotspots.
#2 Have wifi access so I can remotely control and monitor my network of other PCs through SSH.
#3 Have wifi access so I can remotely control and monitor my other PCs through VNC or just X11 (ie graphically)
#4 Be able to quickly set up \'demo\' servers for projects or work (ie: quickly get an Apache server, run some quick scripts, things of that nature)
#5 Point my IR transmitter at other people in a threatening manner (so I can do that with any old PDA .... it\'s still fun though!)
#6 Be able to do basic compilation of smallish projects with GCC, and also be able to conveniently edit as well.
#7 Keep track of names, dates, and other organizational stuff (basic PIM)

So I\'ve been looking over all of my options, and to date here\'s what I\'ve come up with:

SL 5500: Very cheap ($175US + tax + shipping), well supported at this point (been out for a while), limited RAM and slow processor

SL 5600: Much more expensive ($300US Gamble at Amazon), well supported, 50% more RAM and much quicker processor

c750/760/860: Reading on these forums, everyone seems to love them, but  it looks like it\'s quite expensive, difficult to order and ...... expensive.

SL 6000: Just too expensive (I could pick up an old SPARC server for that much!), not out yet, negative reviews vs cXXX

So from what I\'ve been reading here, having a limited cash flow would make me want to get a 5500 on merit of its price alone. But, the question then comes up: would doing any of this leave me hurting from the slower processor and reduced RAM in the 55 vs 56? Or would making up the difference in price with a good SD card and Wifi card leave me more than content for my projected use?

Thanks for any replies, and sorry for going over any old ground