Messages

1

Gemini PDA - Linux / Is there any practical linux means to make cell phone calls?

« on: July 16, 2019, 02:13:10 pm »

I just did a reflash with the latest gemian. I put a sim card in the device. I see new tab 'Mobile' in Conman. If I click 'Powered' I get

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We received a DBUS reply message indicating an error.
Error Name: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject
Error Message: Method "SetProperty"with signature "sv"on interface "net.conman.Technology" doesn't existI followed this but did not find any clue
https://github.com/gemian/gemini-keyboard-a...DebuggingMobile
If I do 'sudo systemctl restart ofono;sudo systemctl status ofono' I get:

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? ofono.service - oFono Mobile telephony stack
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/ofono.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2019-07-16 17:41:16 UTC; 25min ago
     Docs: man:ofonod(8)
 Main PID: 2642 (ofonod)
      CPU: 51ms
   CGroup: /system.slice/ofono.service
           ??2642 /usr/sbin/ofonod -n --nobacktrace --noplugin=he910,dun_gw_bluez5,hfp_b
luez5,hfp_ag_bluez5,cdma_provision,bluez5,isimodem,n900,u8500,qmimodem,gobi,cdma
odem,
isiusb,nwmodem,ztemodem,iceramodem,uaweimodem,calypsomodem,swmodem,mbmmodem,hsom
dem,i
fxmodem,stemodem,dunmodem,hfpmodem,speedupmodem,phonesim,telitmodem,udev,udevng

Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: Excluding Dial-up Networking Profile Plugins
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: Excluding BlueZ 5 Utils Plugin
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: Excluding Hands-Free Audio Gateway Profile Plu
gins
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: Excluding CDMA provisioning Plugin
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: parse_devices_reply: found 1st battery device:
 /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_battery
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: RIL version 14
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: ofonod[2642]: SIM card OK
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: SIM card OK
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: ofonod[2642]: Requested file structure differs
 from SIM: 6fb7
Jul 16 17:41:16 localhost ofonod[2642]: Requested file structure differs from
SIM: 6fb7If anyone can give me hints, I like to hear them. I am not interested in phone calls, but would love to be able to use 4G.

2

Gemini PDA - Linux / camera on linux ?

« on: July 16, 2019, 01:59:32 pm »

I had the same problem, I reflashed my gemini with the 7.1 android rom and the latest debian and the camera app works. (Just for info)

same here. also did a reflash with latest gemian. camera works out of the box.

3

Gemini PDA - Linux / Testing TP2

« on: March 27, 2019, 09:33:52 am »

Adam, thanks again for pointing me in the right direction. Indeed I completely forgot about the different boot options in the gemini. If I boot with only the silver button pressed after the bzz I boot into a gemian with the right boot.img:

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uname -a
Linux geminiPDA 3.18.41 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Mar 22 00:00:17 UTC 2019 aarch64 GNU/LinuxSo I presume I have the TP2 installed and booted as expected now and continue with the testing of my usecase with the gemini

4

Gemini PDA - Linux / Testing TP2

« on: March 26, 2019, 08:59:00 pm »

Well, now, after rebooting, what is the output of uname -a ?

it is still the same after many reboots:

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$ uname -a
Linux geminiPDA 3.18.41+ #7 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 30 16:45:45 MSK 2018 aarch64 GNU/Linux

5

Gemini PDA - Linux / Testing TP2

« on: March 26, 2019, 06:52:38 pm »

Could you provide the following:

1. Which key combination do you use to boot gemian?

I mostly use 'longpress-esc' or 'shutdown -r now' in commandline. I also tested silver-esc, this gives sound noice and takes a bit more time, halfway gives an image with a battery and then black screen (presume it is off now) press esc to start gemini again.

2. Date stamps/file listing for files in /usr/share/kernel/

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$ ls -l /usr/share/kernel
total 43608
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  8991258 Mar 21 19:15 Image.gz-dtb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5888138 Mar 25 18:42 initrd.img-gemini.cpio.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14884864 Mar 26 21:33 linux-boot.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 14884864 Mar 26 21:33 linux-boot-stowaways-debian.img

3. A directory listing of /.stowaways/ (just the names will do)

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$ ls -ld /.stowaways/
ls: cannot access '/.stowaways/': No such file or directoryPM: I searched for '*stowaway*' and did not fine anything else then above 'linux-boot-stowaways-debian.img'

This will let me confirm that your actually booting the boot3 kernel (esc+silver), that the boot image components are uptodate, and that you do have a 'debian' stowaway to be able to boot (strikes me as unlikely anyone other than me would have that).

Thanks for helping me on.

I accidently found a workaround for the brightness and sleep-on-closelid problem. If I logout of my regular user, login/logout to/from a new test user, login to my regular user brightness and sleep-on-closelid is working as expected.

6

Gemini PDA - Linux / Testing TP2

« on: March 26, 2019, 04:52:12 pm »

Your kernel version should be from a few days ago (yours is almost a year old May 2018!)

You are right about the date, but it also states it is version 3.18.41 and that is the one you mention in your TP2 manual. So which is true ? A reboot (actually doing this continuously) does not help. I retried installing the new kernel and will show what I did. In both methods "sudo apt install gemini-kernel-image-3.18" and "sudo apt install gemian-modular-kernel" I finally get errors like

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depmod: ERROR: could not open directory /lib/modules/3.18.41+: No such file or directory/lib/modules/3.18.41+ indeed is missing on my system. I supposed that 3.18.41+ could be the same as 3.18.41 and made a symlink:

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ln -s /lib/modules/3.18.41 /lib/modules/3.18.41+Now both "sudo apt install gemini-kernel-image-3.18" and "sudo apt install gemian-modular-kernel" end without errors.

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sudo apt install gemian-modular-kernel
[sudo] password for :
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  gemini-kernel-image-3.18
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gemian-modular-kernel
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/99.6 MB of archives.
After this operation, 5,108 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
dpkg: gemini-kernel-image-3.18:arm64: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you requested:
 gemian-desktop-minimal depends on gemini-kernel-image-3.18 | gemian-modular-kernel; however:
  Package gemini-kernel-image-3.18:arm64 is to be removed.
  Package gemian-modular-kernel is not installed.

(Reading database ... 166557 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing gemini-kernel-image-3.18:arm64 (0.1+0~20190310135701.31~1.gbpf74f54) ...
dpkg: warning: while removing gemini-kernel-image-3.18:arm64, directory '/usr/share/kernel' not empty so not removed
dpkg: warning: while removing gemini-kernel-image-3.18:arm64, directory '/lib/modules/3.18.41' not empty so not removed
Selecting previously unselected package gemian-modular-kernel:arm64.
(Reading database ... 165282 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../gemian-modular-kernel_0.2+0~20190321181532.42~1.gbpf8ea9a_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking gemian-modular-kernel:arm64 (0.2+0~20190321181532.42~1.gbpf8ea9a) ...
Setting up gemian-modular-kernel:arm64 (0.2+0~20190321181532.42~1.gbpf8ea9a) ...
running depmod%] [#########################................................]
Kernel images installed to /usr/share/kernel/
You need to write the correct kernel to the correct boot partition based upon your boot configuration.
eg: sudo dd if=/usr/share/kernel/linux-boot.img of=/dev/disk/by-partlabel/boot2
or: sudo dd if=/usr/share/kernel/linux-boot-stowaways-debian.img of=/dev/disk/by-partlabel/boot3
After writing the kernel image a reboot is necessary to use the new kernel.
$ sudo dd if=/usr/share/kernel/linux-boot-stowaways-debian.img of=/dev/disk/by-partlabel/boot3
29072+0 records in
29072+0 records out
14884864 bytes (15 MB, 14 MiB) copied, 2.01651 s, 7.4 MB/s
$ sudo shutdown -r now
$ ssh @gemini
$ uname -a
Linux geminiPDA 3.18.41+ #7 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 30 16:45:45 MSK 2018 aarch64 GNU/LinuxSo if my system really still has an old kernel, I am afraid I don't know what to do else to get a recent kernel. Only thing I can think of is using the flashtool to install TP2 from scratch. But I *hate* that, it feels like doing trial and error and that is exactly what I want to avoid by using a device like gemini.

7

Gemini PDA - Linux / Testing TP2

« on: March 26, 2019, 12:23:36 pm »

There is minimal difference between TP1-3, in terms of installing fresh or upgrading. However you do need to install one of gemian-desktop/gemian-desktop-wifi/gemian-desktop-minimal

okay I missed that one. I installed gemian-desktop (apt-get install gemian-desktop).

(...) so will always have to manually 'dd' your kernel updates (we plan to make that automatic in the future but for now everyone has to do that manually anyway and the partition layout changed TP1->2 with the addition of the extra boot partition for the other key combination).

I did that already, but just for the record:

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$ sudo apt install gemian-modular-kernel
$ sudo dd if=/usr/share/kernel/linux-boot.img of=/dev/disk/by-partlabel/boot3
$ uname -a
Linux geminiPDA 3.18.41+ #7 SMP PREEMPT Wed May 30 16:45:45 MSK 2018 aarch64 GNU/LinuxBut I think something is wrong with the modules:

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$ ls /lib/modules
3.18.41
$ lsmod
libkmod: ERROR ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:1655 kmod_module_new_from_loaded: could not open /proc/modules: No such file or directory
Error: could not get list of modules: No such file or directoryI tried symlinking (ln -s /lib/modules/3.18.41 /lib/modules/3.18.41+), but this did not help.

In terms of your syncing, we have gka-calendar-qt and gka-contacts-qt as custom keyboard friendly UI's that store data in the evolution backend, which supports sync with various protocols, you should be able to configure that using regular debian tools (syncevolution etc). (...)

Okay I tested those a year ago already and was not very satisfied with it. Just installed them again and only now realize they use evolution config. Sounds promissing. I did not install syncevolution yet, I am using nextcloud to sync between desktop and gemini (I expect it will do the same on caldav carddav). If I test/use evolution and gemian-calendar together on gemini the same items show up in both, so that's good   But problem I experienced in evolution is the same as in gemian-calendar: it does not accept edits in a caldav calendar while you are offline. If you think syncevolution can solve this please let me know but also explain why ? Some testing on gemian-contacts leaves me sofar with 1. if i add/edit an item it is unclear in which calendar it is put (local or caldav) and I see no way to organize this 2. I can't delete any items. Can you give me hints?

We recently got the stereo audio working and also the keepalive on closed so audio should be much improved.

audio is great. If I close the lid nothing happens, screen keeps on. What am I missing ? In autostart Screenlock (xss-lock gemian-lock) is activated. I really want sleep on lidclose to work.

GPS is still not started, nor is the alarm on sleep working, both need investigation.

can miss that for the moment  I saw that the camera is working now, great.

The keyboard shortcuts can get confused (lxqt bug whereby if it cannot find the key once it drops it), its generally best to just delete your users ~/.config/lxqt/globalkeyshorcuts.conf file whilst not logged in as a UI user (ie via ssh), then login for it to re-generate from the package version.

okay did that, but it did not solve problem that brightness can not be adjusted on my gemini. not by shortcuts and not by lxqt-settings. What can I do to get brightness working, it is a necessity for outdoor use and battery life.

8

Gemini PDA - Linux / Newbie on Debian

« on: March 25, 2019, 09:13:15 pm »

Hello and nice to meet.

(...) Not having fingers like knitting needles, the area covered by a fingertip is enormous compared with the effective size of the icons. I could go to using a mouse, but portability is all. (...)

I am using my gemini screen as a touchpad, works great:
https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=35185

Second. This is a bit of a killer. Nowhere in any of the options available on the screen, can I find any way of setting up the WiFi connection. A portable unit without a WiFi connection is not going to get me far.

use conman (under Internet)

Third. As a spin off from the second I've been unable to locate anything related to adding extra functionality, like FTP clients, Firefox and the ilk, and in conducting software updates, and such. My background is in UNIX admin, and this concept of no superuser does not sit too well with me, along with a fair number of associated things. My current distro, of choice, Mageia, ticks most of the boxes for organisation and admin.

use apt ('apt update', 'apt upgrade', 'apt install myfavprog') as root in CLI. Only problem is if you don't know the exact name of a prog. I use synaptic for that (sudo apt-get install synaptic). It is not really handy with too small characters. It also helps to have a regular debian system on a desktop to test things.

Four, and connected in a fashion with three. As a UNIX man I'm wedded to the multi user ethic. I like my own space, mine alone to organise. Even though as someone living alone, it's extremely unlikely that the Gemini will ever be used by anyone else. So, I accessed the users and groups side of thing to setup a new user. (...)

I just use CLI to add new users ('adduser mynewuser') and it shows up in the loginscreen if I do a restart.

Sorry to have been a bit long winded, and raising more than one subject, but a proper explanation requires a full explanation.

I know. Sometimes it is hard to ask proper questions without writing a book about your gemini experiences  

9

Gemini PDA - Linux / Testing TP2

« on: March 25, 2019, 03:42:35 pm »

A year ago I did a lot of testing on my gemini linux device and finally left it alone, because it did not work for the (very limited) use case I need it for. After a year I had some spare time and blew the dust from my gemini. The good news is that I made some progress and have more hope to use the gemini for my daily life. I want to use the gemini just offline and sync it with my desktop while being at home:
- agenda, contacts, tasks
- notes taking and text editing
- basic (osm) maps (foxtrotgps seems to fit the bill)
- music listening
- reading and annotating books and articles
Syncing is really a pain in the arse. Many progs don't like interference with their data from external systems. Other programs (like evolution) just refuse to work if there is no connection with a (caldev or carddev) server. I finallly found some very down to earth progs which just take what they are offered as data (calcurse, abook, wikidpad) and I succesfully using them for a while now. But I still have quite a few hick-ups which I hope you can help me with. I have TP2 installed and as far as I know I installed everything like I should. I did not use the flashtool to make a new image. Just upgraded from TP1. My main problem is that lock-on-close-lid is not working. I made sure 'enable lid watcher' is off as I understand it would interfere with 'xss-lock gemian-lock'. Another thing is that brightness is not working (not by 'Lxqt settings', nor by using Fn-N/Fn-B ). It used to work, I am not aware to have changed something.

If someone can give me hints I would very much like to hear.

10

Gemini PDA - Linux / 2% power drain per hour on a sleeping device is not acceptable

« on: July 02, 2018, 08:57:18 am »

Mine drains 50 percent in 8 hours, I haven't changed much other than formatting and "downloading" the nvram and firmware files because the terminal emulator said the host name was changed to "node-43afea90309a" or something and I couldn't connect to certain websites. I forgot it initially has a SSH server running

Thanks. Could you specify if you had wifi/BT off or not. If you did not have wifi/BT off would you please do another check with wifi/BT off ?

[update] just changed a typo

11

Gemini PDA - Linux / speaker sound not turned off when headset connected

« on: June 30, 2018, 10:34:46 am »

For my ears the sound of the device is nice enough. So it would be nice to use the gemian als my daily music player. If I connect headphones to the device both the headphones and the speakers on the device give sound. I don't see any settings on the desktop to make the sound on the speakers turned off if the headphones are connected. Is there a way to organize this ?

12

Gemini PDA - Linux / 2% power drain per hour on a sleeping device is not acceptable

« on: June 30, 2018, 10:30:10 am »

What did I do? Not much really. I think the main thing I did was turn the screensaver off in the lxqt session management section. To get the 0.3% ph drain, I obviously have wifi and bluetooth turned off. But I cannot think of anything else I may have done. If I think of anything else (I have played around with quite a few things this week including different window managers etc.), I will post here.

I just realized @mithrandir also has much better PM, because he has 1.2% drain ph with wifi+BT turned on. So probably my device with poor PM is the special case not yours  So I will also check again.

[Edit] I checked two times (unhook device from usb, wifi/BT off, suspend) and both times I had roughly 2% drain ph. No clue why, but if I have more info I will update

13

Gemini PDA - Linux / 2% power drain per hour on a sleeping device is not acceptable

« on: June 30, 2018, 09:29:14 am »

The system seems to simply turn off the screen as there are messages in /var/log/syslog throughout the night.  The screen reawakens immediately on opening the lid.  The battery is now 83%, 6 hours after getting up.

Same experiences here. I can also still ssh from outside to the device and do all kinds of stuff on it while the device is in 'suspend'. That is why I already asked myself is the device really suspended if I do 'suspend'. What does 'suspend' mean anyway ?

But I don't care what suspend means if I would have your version of sleep/suspend/lock on my device and have 2% drain in 6 hours I would be very satisfied. So please find out what you did to get your 0.3% drain / hour and share here

14

Gemini PDA - Linux / 2% power drain per hour on a sleeping device is not acceptable

« on: June 30, 2018, 09:11:37 am »

@Kiriririn really appreciate your efforts.

Quick data point: with wifi off, and screensaver disabled (I do not want to keep typing my password every time), my system was at 87% battery last night.  Closed lid and went to sleep.  Work up, opened system and battery was at 85%.

That sounds promising. Please do a few more checks and tell us if the results are consistent. I presume your device goes in suspend mode (not shutdown) when you close the lid ?

15

Gemini PDA - Linux / 2% power drain per hour on a sleeping device is not acceptable

« on: June 29, 2018, 07:15:56 pm »

I think I've just had a successful suspend by disabling part of the LogindSessionTracker and also adding a script to disable wifi via networkmanager before sleeping (my hacks are here), at least in terms of not losing any battery % at all over 30 mins and no increase in process CPU times from when I closed the lid

Thanks. I have no clue what to do with those scripts. Does it mean I have to rebuild my own kernel to have them implemented ? Any hint on where to begin with that are welcome.

You can identify a proper suspend by some of the log info printed by the kernel in dmesg (though unmodified kernel is hilariously verbose and it's difficult to pick apart), or also by the fact that the device will be completely cool to the touch (burning 2% an hour produces faint heat)

I looked into dmesg and I can't make something sensible out of it   I did not feel any noticeable warmth on the device if it is in sleep mode. That said when it is powered on usb I don't feel any noticeable warmth either.

I have been fiddling with the geminiPDA for the whole week now. My conclusion so far is that I can't use it right now for daily use, even not with the very limited goals I had set for myself:
- good power management so that I can be off the socket for at least 4 days.
- music player. sound is fine for me, but if I hook a headset sound on the speakers is not turned off.
- camera not implemented yet.
Things I did already fiddled enough and that would fit the job for me for now are:
- automatic syncing my data stuff with my pc
- thunderbird for contacts, tasks, calendar. just works fine on the device if you remove as many screens and taskbars as possible. it syncs nice with my home pc.
- wikidpad for my personal notes taker. works fine and syncs nice with my wikidpad on my pc.
- gvim for other editing stuff and note taking.

So the device goes back in it's box again, but I will return regularly to test new gemian versions. But my hope to finally carry my own privacy secure device with me is tempered right now. Android is no option for me, no big brothers watching me over my shoulder