Messages

1

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / What Is The Oz Boot Process?

« on: November 26, 2005, 11:08:52 am »

Hey there, I've decided that just editing the in /etc/rc0.d/K99gpe-dm to call "/usr/bin/login" instead of /usr/bin/gpe-dm is a bad idea because there are, I believe, still more things to do in the boot process, which are neglected if you just skip right into login.  Does anyone know if this is true, or does it just go ahead and boot up everything after?  And if it is true, where would be a good spot to call "login".  I've searched through the init scripts and tried to find the last place to put a command but all my attempts seem to have failed.

2

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / "bl" Backlight Control For 5500

« on: November 26, 2005, 10:55:52 am »

Ok now does anyone know why when I suspend my 5500 I can't get it to turn back on without resetting it?

I changed the boot scripts so instead of running "gpe-dm" it just runs /usr/bin/login.  So I log in before I load GPE.  Suspend/resume works in GPE.  I am wondering if there is some program or module I must load that didn't get loaded in my boot process.

Mitt

3

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / "bl" Backlight Control For 5500

« on: November 26, 2005, 10:29:43 am »

Ok thanks, I just tried it and that one in the ipk works well.

One thing, though, just in case someone reading this doesn't know, most sites say that ipk files are just tar'd and gzipped files, but because they only contain 3 files that are already gzipped, now they just archive the three gzipped files.  So this one you have to do:

ar -x bl-0.0.ipk

then tar zxf data.tar.gz and bl is in usr/bin

Mitt

4

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / "bl" Backlight Control For 5500

« on: November 25, 2005, 10:31:14 pm »

Hi I am trying to find some way to do command-line backlight control for my 5500, which is running OZ 3.5.3

I see the tool "bl" from this page:
http://people.bath.ac.uk/enpsgp/Zaurus/bl/

I downloaeded the executable "bl" and tried to run "bl 1" and it says "Illegal Instruction".

When I try to compile it myself, with my native gcc compiler, it says errors about "g_strdup_printf" being an undefined reference.  Does anyone know what library I'd have to include to get this to work?

I couldn't find a package for bl.  Does anyone know where to get it and how to install it?

My suspend/resume button doesn't work unless I load up GPE for some reason, like if I just boot to console I can't suspend or else I'll have to hit the battery change button to get it to turn back on.

5

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / What Is The Oz Boot Process?

« on: November 15, 2005, 01:18:47 pm »

Yeah, I was thinking that I could just run GPE as a vnc server, like I run debian.

Do you think that there is much slow-down in running the debian thing on top of OZ?  Would it be faster to run GPE through a vnc server than to run pocketworkstation through vnc?  Or I might be able to get the old debian flash image where it directly accesses the hardware, and run that through VNC.  But I don't want to bother with it if it won't be any faster.  

I was wondering with vnc, if when I play an mp3, it gets the sound from the debian thing and then sends it to the z soundcard, adding the extra step of the sound info going through the vnc client before it gets to the hardware.

Also, could you tell me how much CPU is used on your Z for playing a normal mp3?  Mine running gxine is still 70 % or so, but that least it plays.  I think you are probably right about how it isn't meant for handhelds, and that's slowing it down.

6

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / What Is The Oz Boot Process?

« on: November 13, 2005, 12:33:11 am »

Oh that makes sense about the integers and floats.  My sine wave thing does a lot of float calculations.  I did "apt-get install gxine" and I got it playing the mp3's pretty well, though it was a bit slow because it loaded up so much graphic junk, and it couldnt' play at all with the visualizations.  I'll try compiling mplayer with no front end and see if that makes things better.

The two things I like about debian pocketworkstation that gpe doesn't have, as far as I know, is the "apt-get" thing (though I could live without this, just using ipkg), and I really like being able to have a large desktop that I can zoom out from.

Does anyone know if it's possible to make a larger zoomable desktop in GEP, or for that matter in any X windows system.  I know you can make a larger desktop than your screen, but I don't think you can zoom out and shrink everything down  and anti-alias it all, like with the vnc debian setup.

7

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / What Is The Oz Boot Process?

« on: November 12, 2005, 02:19:26 pm »

Well, I've got another question here.  I'm very disapointed in the audio output, and I think it might be a problem with gpe.  I made a simple little program and compiled it in debian that uses portaudio.  It just plays sine waves and hardly does any calculations.  It barely works in the debian pocketworkstation thing; I have to put it down to 11025 kHz or else it will be really choppy sounding or freeze the system.  I tried it in GPE (i put the libportaudio.so file and whatnot where it had to go) and it ran but it was even choppy sounding at 11025 (and that's on a fresh boot without debian running in the background).

I run the same program on my pentium II 300mHz with 64mb memory and it only takes up about 2% of the CPU and I run it at 44kHz with multiple sine waves.  On the zaurus at 11kHz it takes up to 80% or more CPU and it doesn't sound very good.

Then, I got mpg321 into debian pocketworkstation and it can barely play an mp3.  I try to get it to play a 44kHz stereo mp3 and it chugs out the song choppy and slow.  I haven't tried it in GPE yet because I don't want to bother with moving all the libs for mpg321, but if it's like my little portaudio sine wave app, it will be even worse in GPE.  Also in GPE I couldn't get the memo recorder to work.  It would say it was recording and then on playback it would play weird screechy sounds.  However, the audio worked fine for me with the sharp ROM.

I assume other people out there are using standard OZ 3.5.3 with GPE and getting the mp3's to play well?

8

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / What Is The Oz Boot Process?

« on: November 11, 2005, 11:06:41 pm »

Ah hah, I've figured out an ok solution.

To cleanly exit gpe you need to make a little script that runs:

/etc/rc0.d/K99gpe-dm stop
/bin/login

If you don't run "login" it probably will just sit there after it exits gpe.

If you don't want GPE to start up at all, just edit the /etc/rc0.d/K99gpe-dm script.

Comment out the line "/usr/bin/gpe-dm" and add "login".  So:

#/usr/bin/gpe-dm
/bin/login

Then when it boots it will do a console login.  This probably isn't the best solution, because it sort of gets stuck running the K99gpe-dm script (you can see it in "top") an I imagine that some other scripts after it don't get run until that one finishes.  So, probably, just commenting that gpe-dm line out is a good first step, then finding the last script that is run on boot, and putting /bin/login at the end of it would be the best thing.

But with this solution all the hardware works, anyways.  Just run "gpe-dm" to load gpe.

I am using debian pocketworkstation and it runs smoother now.  I enabled X11forwarding for the sshd server (see /etc/ssh/sshd_config and ssh_config) so I can ssh to myself (127.0.0.1) from within the debian environment and connect to the pure openzaurus environment.  From there I can run any of GPE's programs, because it forwards all the graphics to debian's X server, which is very handy for running "gpe-conf" to configure the light and sound.  I actually ran "gpe-login" through ssh and it gave me a windowed login screen and it even loaded up my gpe navigational bar at the bottom of my screen.

Has anyone tried http://people.debian.org/~mdz/zaurus/index.html?  It's a more pure debian install that directly accesses the hardware (uses parts of openzaurus).  I don't think it works very well yet with the zaurus hardware, so I'm afraid to try it.

9

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / What Is The Oz Boot Process?

« on: November 11, 2005, 09:01:04 pm »

I would like to just boot to a prompt in the console, without ever running GPE or OPIE.  Then at my own leisure run them.  I can't find anything that explains the boot process of openzaurus.

Also I was wondering, I typed "killall gpe*" in the console in GPE just a bit ago and it exited GPE to the console, but now after I've rebooted I try the same thing and it doesn't kill anything, just says no processes were killed.  Anyone know why?

10

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Hardware Keyboard Works In Debian But Not Oz/gpe

« on: November 10, 2005, 09:08:09 pm »

Doesn't debian steal the /dev entries & place them somewhere else?

I don't know, but that would certainly cause some of the dev things to not work, if debian crashed, it seems.  Do you have any idea of how I could get them back?\

P.S. What do you need from debian that's not in GPE?
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Well, I mainly want to use the zaurus for mobile developement, of which I need mainly to use gcc, SDL, and portaudio, which the debian thing can do quite well after i apt-get them.  Apt-get is also really a nice package system.  I also like the transparent keyboard better on debian, and I like to be able to have a desktop larger than the screen, which I can zoom in and out of, and when you zoom out it has nice anti-aliased fonts. It's also nice because I can install any sort of linux programs and not worry about their layout not fitting on the screen or something, because I can just zoom out until it fits.

THe thing I dislike about it is that it doesn't directly access the hardware, and some other rom must be running under it, so it's not as fast (I presume) as it could be if it were the base rom.  Though I think exiting out of GPE will help, whenever I figure out how to do it.

11

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Hardware Keyboard Works In Debian But Not Oz/gpe

« on: November 08, 2005, 07:00:42 pm »

I've installed debian pocketworkstation on my SD card on my SL-5500.  It also has running OZ/GPE 3.5.3.

Some strange things have occured to GPE as time has passed after installing debian.  The ctrl-c used to work on the software keyboard to terminate apps in the console, but now it opens the calender.  The hardware keyboard does absolutely nothing in GPE, so I have to use the software one exclusively.  The only hardware key that has any response in GPE is the on/off cancel button, which I am glad is working correctly to suspend the PDA.

The debian environment, which I run from a terminal window in GPE is able to use the hardware keyboard flawlessly, as well as the on/off button, the arrow keys, etc.

The problem started after debian froze one time and I had to do a hard reset (battery replace switch).

I don't mind about not having keyboard in GPE because right now I only use it to get into debian, but I hope in the future to boot to just an OZ console and start debian from there, not loading GPE at all, and I'm worried that I'll figure out how to get it to boot to the console but I won't be able to log in or anything because the keyboard won't work.  (speaking of which, if anyone knows how to exit GPE to a console that would be helpful).

12

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / How To Do "ctrl-c" In Oz-gpe Terminal?

« on: November 08, 2005, 06:42:13 pm »

Ok thanks, I got switching between apps working.  I also got "ctrl-c" to work right after a fresh OZ/GPE flash, but then it stopped working shortly after I installed debian pocketworkstation, and now it opens up the calender instead.

13

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / How To Do "ctrl-c" In Oz-gpe Terminal?

« on: October 15, 2005, 01:56:31 am »

Hello, I can't seem to find a way to hit "ctrl-c" in the terminal in gpe, and it's really annoying because I have things running that I can't stop so I have to shut down the terminal and then reload it completely.  I have a sl-5500.  If i do ctrl-c on the virtual keyboard it brings up the calender!

Also if I have more than one program open, (I must be missing something) I am unable to find a way to switch between the open programs.  You know, there should be some icons opened for each program in some taskbar, but I can't seem to find it.

Also, does anyone know to how simulate the middle mouse button?  I found that little mouse icon applet thingy, so that's what I use, but it's sort of difficult to use, and I wish there were a faster way.

Thank you,
Mitt

14

Accessories / What Speed Sd Card Should I Buy?

« on: October 08, 2005, 05:27:13 pm »

Would there even be any difference, then, between a 1x card and a 10x card, as far as using it in my zaurus 5500 is concerned?

15

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Can Pocketworkstation Be Undone After Install?

« on: October 08, 2005, 01:53:45 pm »

I have a 128MB SD card that I wanted to put pocketworkstation on, just to try it out.  It looks like it doesn't need to be flashed onto the rom or anything.  So, if I decide to clear off pocketworkstation, will it mess up my sharp rom that I have already installed? (i have the 5500)

Also, I've seen a lot of posts about peoples' collies becoming "bricks" after they unsuccessfully flash OZ.  Does anyone know if, after I install pocketworkstation, say on a 512MB sd card, can I then flash OZ, (the 0-64 one), and, whether it was a successful flash or not, still boot up into pocketworkstation?

I'm also wondering, to do development in x using SDL and gcc, if pocketworkstation would be best, or if I could save space and have a cleaner environment by using gpe?

Thank you,
mitt