Topics

1

Linux Issues / ! Multisync And Gentoo Linux Warning !

« on: January 18, 2005, 05:27:55 am »

Hi all,
        Haven't posted here for quite a while but thought I would give people a heads up on a problem I encountered with Gentoo Linux and multisync so hopefully they can avoid the annoyance / waste of time i didn't

If multisync is installed from portage (emerge -v multisync) then the multisync source that is fetched and compiled is the 0.82 source NOT the newer 0.82-1 source. As far as I have found out the multisync author posted 0.82 source, realised there was a  bug and very quickly posted newer source (named 0.82-1). The Gentoo ebuild however doesn't take account of this and gets the older, buggy source and builds that. While it appears that multi sync works fine, it has problems with the opie/openzaurus plugin and fails to sync at all. See post from multisync user list Multisync users mailing list post and the (as yet still unresolved) bug post at gentoo Gentoo bug tracker (link to ebuild patch there as well).

Before I found this info I spent quite a loooooooong time changing ROMS, recompiling the (what I thought was the stable relese) source, dumping network packets to see what commands were being sent and generally pulling my hair out in annoyance! (If anyone is interested the network dumps showed the zaurus complaing about unregistered channels, and thus refusing to flush() the relevent apps)
 As soon as I grabed the newer 0.82-1 source everything went swimmingly and I could sync with evolution.

Hope this can saved others some hours of palying about, when only a recompile is needed

Oh and Gentoo, this bug has been around for aaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeessssss can someone please fix the portage tree as the patch is so simple its silly.

dys

2

Software / ozone - OpenZaurus cloning tool

« on: April 07, 2004, 07:47:20 pm »

Hi all,
        Just thought I\'d post to say that I have written a little script that makes a flashable image (clone) of an openzaurus filesystem. I wrote this for myself but it works good for me so I thought someone else might benefit from it so I thought I\'d release it

In a nutshell what it does:

- Can create a flashable image of an OZ system so as if the system needs reinstalling (for whatever reason) then it can be done with some apps/data etc already there.
- Can also create a regular backup (tarball) of an OZ system. This tarball can be encrypted if required.

What I\'ve found it useful for:

- Checking out new ROM\'s. I just took an image of the OZ with the old ROM and then could test out the new ROMs without worrying about loosing anything / doing a lengthy reinstall of old ROM + Apps if I didn\'t like the new ROM.
- As I play round LOTS with my zaurus there is always the chance I will kill it somehow. If I have a recent flashable image its very quick and easy to restore back to a good and happy zaurus

Anyway I thought that someone other than me might find it useful so here ya go. If you do like it / dont like it / want to see new features or bugfixes feel free to let me know and I\'ll try and do them.

!! --WARNING-- !!
I have only tested it on a 5500 but it \"should\" (cough) work on the other models that OZ works on as I have included the initrd build values from the OZ CVS. In any case if it does work on another model / you tweak the script to get it to work on another model it would be cool if you let me know.

It can be downloaded from my website :
http://www.iodboi.co.uk/ozone/

cheers
           dys

3

Accessories / Retractable USB sync / charger

« on: January 30, 2004, 10:32:36 am »

Hi all  
             I ordered one of these from shirt pocket and it came today !!
http://www.shirtpocket.co.uk/cat/product_i...4741cdc9acd4b5f

It only cost £8.95 so I was a bit suspicious, but it fact it was far better than I expected  . Its all in clear plastic, with clear cableing and seems sturdy enough to be retracted and chucked in my bag. NowI dont have to lug the cradle AND transformer to and from work every day as this little beauty charges straight from the USB port !! I have tried on 3 machines at home and 2 at work and they all sync and charge just fine with it, no probs what so ever.

The iceing on the cake is the mechanism that allows you to extend the cables as far as you want, then applies a brake so they stay there and dont retract.

I\'d recomend one of these for anyone who needs to sync their Z in different places and doesn\'t want to go to the bother of taking a cradle and power supply with them.

Cheers
           dys

4

Themes, Icons, and Backgrounds / Some new icons for OZ

« on: January 07, 2004, 07:37:08 pm »

Hi all,
         I have been playing about with the icons on my OZ install and have made some replacements of the originals for some of the new SVG crystal icons. I haven\'t done them all, just the ones I wanted to change for myself/felt the originals didn\'t match that well. I quickly bundled them into ipkg incase anyone else wanted to swap some icons without having to do it all by hand (not difficult just boring !!).  

NOT FOR ANY OTHER ROM THAN OZ

I put the screenshots on my website here:
http://www.iodboi.co.uk/OZIcons/Apps.png
http://www.iodboi.co.uk/OZIcons/PIM.png
http://www.iodboi.co.uk/OZIcons/Settings.png

And the Package is here:
http://www.iodboi.co.uk/OZIcons/icons.tar.gz

I might change a few others (i.e. The Today one and Media Mount) in the future if ppl have suggestions for icons that they think would fit well. But as I said I did this mainly for me, not really as a full iconset replacement so when I get round to such things ........

Oh yeah the package backs up any icon it chnages before install and restores them on uninstall, so you won\'t trash your original icons

Cheers
           dys

5

Software / Dasher

« on: December 11, 2003, 06:47:12 am »

Hi all,
          Has anyone managed to get dasher to work on a 5500 ? I saw it being demo\'d at the UK Linux expo and I\'d love to try it on my Z. The problem is when the ipk is installed it seems to only contain libraries, but no executables to actually run dasher. I have tried install both the opie-dasher by itself and with its trainer ipk but it seems to make no difference. Has anyone else had better luck ??

Cheers
           dys

6

Linux Issues / theKompany.rom usbnet wierdness ?

« on: December 09, 2003, 06:15:47 am »

Hi all,
          I have been using OZ for the entire lifetime of my zaurus 5500, but thought I would have a look at theKompany.rom. After flashing, I plugged the zaurus into its cradle and the hotplugging loaded the usbnet driver as normal and brought up the usb0 interface, so far so good. However unlike the OZ rom my scripts in /etc/hotplu/usb/usbnet were not executed (to set the ip [192.168.129.200] set up the IPtable etc etc etc), however the interface came up with the ip 192.168.129.1 and the /etc/resolv.conf had also been changed to now point to a new DNS server ?? What gives ? Has anyone else had thekompany.rom change their desktop settings ?
I know thekompany.rom won\'t sync with a linux desktop, but that is not the problem that I am asking about, I just want to know whethe thekompany.rom changes others desktop settings also ?

Cheers
dys

7

Site Suggestions, Requests, and Updates / #zug IRC channel ?

« on: December 03, 2003, 06:53:23 pm »

Hi all,
        I\'ll be the first to say that I havent been frequentin\' these parts for all that long!, but if the zaurus dev site is down for good then this site seems to form the centre of the zaurus community.  Does anyone else think it would be sensible to have an IRC channel for the zug ?? I for one would use it, i was thinking about a channel on freenode, #zug or whatever ?

Anyway I supose the response to this thread will be telling as to how much demand there is for such a thing ?

cheers
           dys

8

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / 3.3.6-pre0

« on: December 02, 2003, 08:11:12 pm »

Hi all   ,
                 Just thought I\'d let you know that the OZ have been busy (again!!!) and have posted a new set of kernels/images (only for 5x00 - Collie though). This is what Mickey has to say:

-=========================================-
- OpenZaurus \"Collie grows up\" 3.3.6-pre0 -
-=========================================-

Built with gcc 3.3.2 ==] better speed, less bugs
(e.g. no SIGSEGV after closing button-settings)

Only one drawback: You\'re no longer compatible to the
rest of the world.

Ah one issue to note: Suspending takes 6 seconds,
but then again, that fixes the hotplug issues we had!

Cheerio Miss Sophie,

Mickey.

So there you go, I just flashed it and it installed just fine. So there you go. Oh one thing, opieplayer2 still seems to have issues with playing MP3\'s (so did my install of 3.3.5) anyone know a solution ??

Cheers
            dys