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Messages - sashby11

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1
General Discussion / touchscreen error
« on: July 12, 2004, 06:55:49 pm »
I posted this in hardware - but there doesn't seem to be much traffic there.  My apologies for crossposting.  The problem seems worse lately, possibly a progressive hardware failure?

Thanks for any feedback!
Shane


I am having a strange problem with a new SL-5500, and I'm concerned it might be a hardware problem. When I tap the screen at a certain spot, right in the middle of the handwriting area, I get a diagonal line. It is about 75% consistent (about 25% of the time it doesn't happen), it only happens in that general area and the line always stretches off toward the upper left. This creates a line from 3-10 mm that I can see register on the screen.

I'm not sure if this is related, but when I run OZ with Opie, my handwriting recognition is choppy at best (anywhere on the handwriting area), like the Zaurus is not registering the full stroke.

I was using tkRom 2.0 alpha3. I reflashed to "factory standard" using Ospack 3.13 from Sharp. I'm still getting the same problem - but somewhat different. The response is much quicker than before. Also, there seems to be more of a pattern. When I tap very lightly, there are multiple rapid clicks, almost like the tap is barely registered and so picked up as rapid-fire clicking from the "confusion". If I tap more firmly this is much reduced, and only a single click is made.

Since reflashing to 3.13, the area most affected by the problem has shifted significantly from where the problem was occuring before. The shape of the registered stroke is the same - diagonal stretching toward the top left, but it is happening on the right-lower corner of the screen, rather than in the lower-middle like before.

Perhaps this is lessened in Opie by making the touchpad less responsive, as a fix? This is just speculation - but it would explain why the screen is less responsive in OZ/Opie. I don't recall the touchpad errors occurring on Opie (but not certain).

<crossing fingers> Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

BTW - same behavior occurs in ImagePad application, doesn't seem limited to Handwriting.

2
5x00 General discussions / Iwconfig and screen repair
« on: July 09, 2004, 01:18:14 am »
In case anyone is still looking at this old posting -

I've had good luck with a product called "STP Son of a Gun".  You can get it at most hardware stores - it comes in a big yellow spray bottle.  It's expensive but a bottle will last you forever.  Just spray a little on the screen, spread it around evenly and leave it for a while.  Then wipe off any excess with a lint-free cloth (I usually use lens paper) and it will put a nice finish on the screen.  It also reduces any minor scratches and protects against new scratches.

It won't repair major scratches, but it does help.  I've done this on many PDAs in the past, and never had any trouble whatsoever with damage from it, and it's always worked well.

Shane

3
5x00 Hardware / touchscreen error
« on: July 09, 2004, 12:56:40 am »
last posting cont'd....

I was using tkRom 2.0 alpha3.  I reflashed to "factory standard" using Ospack 3.13 from Sharp.  I'm still getting the same problem - but somewhat different.  The response is much quicker than before.  Also, there seems to be more of a pattern.  When I tap very lightly, there are multiple rapid clicks, almost like the tap is barely registered and so picked up as rapid-fire clicking from the "confusion".  If I tap more firmly this is much reduced, and only a single click is made.

Since reflashing to 3.13, the area most affected by the problem has shifted significantly from where the problem was occuring before.  The shape of the registered stroke is the same - diagonal stretching toward the top left, but it is happening on the right-lower corner of the screen, rather than in the lower-middle like before.  

Perhaps this is lessened in Opie by making the touchpad less responsive, as a fix?  This is just speculation - but it would explain why the screen is less responsive in OZ/Opie.  I don't recall the touchpad errors occurring on Opie (but not certain).

<crossing fingers>  Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

BTW - same behavior occurs in ImagePad application, doesn't seem limited to Handwriting.

4
5x00 Hardware / touchscreen error
« on: July 08, 2004, 10:49:12 pm »
I am having a strange problem with a new SL-5500, and I'm concerned it might be a hardware problem.  When I tap the screen at a certain spot, right in the middle of the handwriting area, I get a diagonal line.  It is about 75% consistent (about 25% of the time it doesn't happen), it only happens in that general area and the line always stretches off toward the upper left.  This creates a line from 3-10 mm that I can see register on the screen.  

I'm not sure if this is related, but when I run OZ with Opie, my handwriting recognition is choppy at best (anywhere on the handwriting area), like the Zaurus is not registering the full stroke.

Any ideas, or suggestions on how I might test it?

5
Sharp ROMs / Feedback & question
« on: June 29, 2004, 10:21:40 pm »
You need to install it - I tried it recently using an ipk.  I tried
http://www.longbros.com/benjamin/ipaq/dist...5.0-8bp_arm.ipk

Unfortunately, I could pop-up the writing area, but it didn't work properly and wouldn't register in any applications.  I was having other problems with packages though, so it might not have been the program itself.  You could give it a try.  If it doesn't work - maybe you can find another version, or I hear there are ways of extracting built-in applications from the Sharp Rom...

Good luck -
Shane

6
I'm very surprised at the results of this poll - I use the handwriting - I much prefer it to the pop-up keyboard, and the hardware keyboard.  In fact - one of the factors that interested me in the Zaurus is that it has a virtual writing area - so I can get feedback as I'm writing to improve accuracy.  Linux is what sold me, but I wouldn't have even looked beyond an inexpensive Sony if it hadn't been missing the virtual graffiti area.

7
Angstrom & OpenZaurus / handwriting recognition on OZ 3.2 & 3.3.5
« on: June 28, 2004, 12:39:31 am »
Sorry - should have mentioned - that was one of the first things I tried.  Unfortunately, to no avail....  any other ideas?

8
Sharp ROMs / use "loop,async" on Crow when initializing /home?
« on: June 27, 2004, 04:15:52 am »
Suggestion/request - would it be possible, if a new version of Crow for the 5500 comes out, to have SD card mounted using "loop,async" during the initialization of /home?  Unfortunately, this process can take 15+ minutes as card is mounted sync.  That setting can always be changed later, but that requires the initialization of /home first, just to boot into the system, before it can be changed.  During this lengthy initialization process, my Z ends up timing-out and suspending (another issue that might be fixed?).  Even if loop was used for this lengthy writing process, it could always default back to "sync" after the process finishes and the Z restarts...

Regardless - thanks to the makers of Cacko/Crow - the Rom is great, and definitely a step in the right direction.  It seems to be the easiest way to get /home on SD, and I've found the "async" option extremely helpful with performance.

Thanks!
Shane

9
General Discussion / ext3 for /home on SD?
« on: June 27, 2004, 04:09:51 am »
Does anyone know if it's possible to use ext3 instead of ext2 when mounting /home on SD?  Unfortunately, it's very easy to lose everything if zaurus crashes while /home is mounted on SD.  I've had the same problem in Linux on my laptop (some years ago) and switching to ext3 solved the problem.

And if not ext3 - is there any other stable, journalling file system that could be used instead?

Thanks!
Shane

10
Angstrom & OpenZaurus / handwriting recognition on OZ 3.2 & 3.3.5
« on: June 27, 2004, 03:30:44 am »
I tried installing OZ recently and found that handwriting recognition was extremely choppy and inaccurate.  Killing off ssh and sshd (to reduce CPU usage, as I understand it from others) didn't help.  I tried the following configurations:

----hardware
SL5500
SD128
CF64


----configurations tried
OZ3.2   32/32
OZ3.2    48-16
OZ3.2    64-0

OZ3.3.5  40-24
OZ3.3.5  64-0


Anyone have any ideas on what the problem might be?  I've tried other roms, including Crow with /home on SD (configured with async and noatime), Hybrid rom, etc.  None of these have the problem - and all of the stock roms have the problem either.  It seems almost like the system is becoming "impatient" and stopping the recognition of the stroke before it's actually finished.

Thanks!
Shane

11
Zaurus - pdaXrom / Network shares?
« on: June 20, 2004, 06:27:18 pm »
Fabian - to start samba you need to find the samba startup script.  On OZ 3.2 it\'s \"/etc/init.d/samba\".  You could issue \"/etc/init.d/samba start\" and that would probably do it.  Also - after you install samba it probably will be put into your regular startup scripts - in which case rebooting should do the trick.

Shane

ps.  I had many problems getting samba running on my system - it turned out that certain directories samba expected to find weren\'t there.  In my case creating \"/var/run/samba\" and \"/var/cache/samba\" directories, then restarting samba, did the trick.  This may not be a problem for you, but if you start samba and don\'t see \"smbd\" and \"nmbd\" processes running, that might be it.  Oh - and make sure you\'ve specified a valid share path in \"/etc/sysconfig/samba.conf\" (path may be a little different, depending on distribution).

12
Security and Networking / samba process nmbd dies
« on: June 20, 2004, 06:21:13 pm »
btw - I\'ve been cautioned elsewhere to remember that logging is turned on - and to turn it off when no longer needed (files can get quite large).   It\'s just the kind of thing I\'d forget...

13
Security and Networking / samba process nmbd dies
« on: June 20, 2004, 06:19:55 pm »
Ulf,

I\'ve run into a similar problem using OZ 3.2, although I don\'t think it has anything to do with the rom.  I turned on error logging for samba (change \"/dev/null\" in /etc/samba.conf to \"/var/log/samba.log\") and the error was that no network device was present.  Try checking your network devices and see if any of them are active, perhaps?  I checked mine and usbd0 was inactive.  As soon as I started that, and restarted samba, both processes showed up properly.

Good luck!

Shane

14
5x00 General discussions / Z5500 battery meter issues
« on: May 31, 2004, 10:08:11 am »
Thank you everyone for your posts!  I\'ve also found some more info in another posting on this site.  
Quote
\"[unusual battery behavior] has probably nothing to do with this special ROM as the battery meter reads out \'apm\' which in turns reads out the kernel values. Sharp used a four stages driver...  In the OZ kernel for collie we have patched the battery driver to be much more accurate...\" (borrowed from Mickeyl)


I think I have a pretty good picture.  It sounds like:
    1.  hardware is not the problem
    2.  100% -] 0% is a kernel issue, fixed in some newer ROMs.  Inaccurately interpreting results of APM call?
    3.  100%, 75%, 25%, 0% behavior derives from Sharp driver which only reports 4 possible battery states.  Some newer ROMs either interpolate this for better resolution, or patch APM somehow.  4 step behavior is a design issue then, not a \"bug\", and
DIFFERENT FROM 100%-]0% issue
4.  Some users say status goes from \"good\" to \"low\" then back to \"good\" again.  Perhaps APM status reading is right \"on the line\" between 2 states?

Also: newest OZ Rom apparently reports status in 1% increments (if it works, then NICE!)
    Battery life - wow, 1 hour with light full.  Ouch.  The price of pocketing Linux, I suppose.  I gather battery extenders are pretty workable (and all over Ebay).  It still beats Win CE (
yuck! )

Thanks again everyone!  Sorry if this posting seems a little pedantic (I\'m an Engineer, please forgive me), and I hope that this thread has answered others\' questions too.  At least there\'s a lot of great feedback in one place!

15
I have no familiarity with this model, but I have a thought...  My Dell laptop does the same thing.  The laptop trickle charges the battery when it\'s full, to reduce memory issues (that info is from Dell support).  This seems more common on newer systems, to compensate for battery types that have memory problems.  Could the C860 do the same thing?  (Dell later tweaked the driver to detect this scenario so it would report full when trickle charging.)

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