Hi,
I do not want to start a blog somewhere just because of summarizing my Z experience, so I decided to start this thread to which I will probably contribute to in the future myself.
Before I forget I would like to summarize here my experiences, hurdles, issues, contributions and feature requests collected in the course of last week when I went from the first touch with Zaurus SL-C1000 to now, when I am trying to set it up as a blend between a ultra-mobile laptop and PDA. Maybe some of the solutions posted here will help others as well, and maybe I get feedback on some of the issues itching me.
[size=]
Installation[/size]
Installation of pdaXii13 was smooth. Right after that I tried to install some applications. That's where issues started.
No space left on the device.The Zaurus was set to use 64MB NAND space, pdaXii13 installed without a problem but no space was left on /. After installing few apps it started to complain about lack of space and only re-install helps. And of course during re-installation, it is necessary to change the size allocated for / to 121MB.
Suggestion: Maybe the installer could detect that automagically and at least complain to the user.
Instaling apps on vanilla pdaXii13Package manager is configured to read also pdaxiiv2 feed at tyrannozaurus.com. Of course this causes problems on plain pdaXii13. And as there's no way to see to each package from which repository it comes, the only solution is to remove that feed (after already trying to install something what failed then). The other solution is to upgrade to pdaXii13v2.
Upgrade to pdaXii13v2I simply ran
$ ipkg install
http://www.tyrannozaurus.com/feed/beta3/pd...a1_armv5tel.ipkWorked quite well, although I was afraid it will consume again the whole space on /. It did not.
Request: Why is this package not in a feed? Would make sense to install it directly from package manager.
Request: It would be nice if the package manager held the default install location. I am installing all the apps by default to the SD card as my C1000 has no enough space on the NAND any more. When I accidentally do not switch it for some package, I am always sweating whether it won't consume my whole rest of NAND / space. For this also showing the package size in the package view would help...
Request: When package manager does not succeed with some package it does not complain. Only in the log tab. Would be nice if it said something.
[size=]
WLAN[/size]
I tried to download some complete feeds to the USB stick and install it from there. However, in order to install anything in a reasonable fashion, the network should work, right? Setting up the WLAN is obviously not easy. Here my experience:
Orinoco vs. HostAP clashOld problem, but for a newbie to figure it out is a hell. So if your WLAN card uses Prism 2 chipset (or higher) and does not work out of the box, check the output of "lsmod". If you see orinoco and hostap loaded at the same time there you are (this issue was also on r198). My solution was simply to uninstall orinoco driver using package manager.
WPA/PSKMost people here around (central EU) have WLAN DSL boxes at home which are configured to use a static WEP key. For that you need to configure your card to work with that.
First the low-level solution:
1.- open System Tools/Lan & Wifi
2.- create and save a profile for your WLAN network and fill everything to your best knowledge
3.- edit /etc/pcmcia/network.opts and add WPA="y" to the entry corresponding to your network
4.- run "$ wpa_passphrase SSID WEP >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf", replacing the SSID and WEP with SSID of your network and the key to be used.
5.- edit /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf and add all the other configuration to the entry of your access point created by wpa_passphrase command. Most probably you do not have to modify it at all.
6.- execute this sequence of commands"
$ ifconfig wlan0 down
$ iwconfig wlan0 essid YOUR_SSID
$ iwconfig wlan0 mode Managed
$ iwconfig wlan0 enc off
$ ifconfig wlan0 up
It sets some basic WLAN info to the card and brings up the network interface.
6.- Then run "$ wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -Dhostap -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -d". Now the supplicant is running in the foreground and you can read all the debug info. If you are successful to connect to your network, you can probably read it from the debug msgs. Try to fiddle with this until you make it. Most problems I had came from not having the device up. That can be seen running ifconfig and iwconfig. First should show an entry wlan0 and the second should show correct settings on it.
7.- Once you are connected you want to get IP address if your WLAN is configured to DHCP. Run
$ dhcpcd -t 30 -h HOSTNAME wlan0, where HOSTNAME is what is written in your /etc/HOSTNAME
8.- Normally, you should run wpa_supplicant with "-B" option instead of "-d" option. It will put it into background and in a good case, it won't issue any debug log.
If that succeeds, you are a happy WLAN user and you can proceed to installation of packages from network.
Wifi-radarThe same can be achieved by using wifi-radar. However, few things have to be configured in it first.
1.- Preferences:
- set autodetect to false
- set the device to wlan0
- switch on commit required and ifup required options. It seemed to turned out to help stability of the application, even though I do not understand them fully.
2.- Add a profile for your network (after it is detected in the list)
- WiFi options - set mode to managed
- WPA - set the driver to hostap
- connection commands - set before to "ifconfig wlan0 up"
3.- Anyway, you have to add your WEP key to the /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf as described above.
4.- Now you can hopefully connect with the wifi-radar. However you won't get a lot of debug info out of it. It will tell you that it got no IP address, even though it is obvious it didn't manage to get through the AP association phase.
Request: Why is wifi-radar sorted under menu item Internet? It is more a system tool, isn't it?
BUGS:Wifi-radar erases the config!!!: I have no clue why, but after some use, wifi-radar always manages to loose the content of /etc/wifi-radar.conf. Then it does not start anymore. It crashes with an error on line 1580: "Attribute error: 'list' object has no attribute split". Removing that file makes wifi-radar to start again, even though preferences can be edited only after trying to add a new configuration.
Wifi-radar does not connect properly: even though I am able to connect manually with the procedure described above, wifi-radar sometimes is unable to connect. Most of the time, after such a case wlan0 device is down. Also when it connects, after a while (10seconds) it shuts down wlan0 device for some reason.
Wifi-radar hangs: Sometimes Wifi-radar hangs forever when trying to get the IP address. Even sometimes when it gets it (it says so), it stays hanging forever. In the meantime it shuts the wlan0 device down .
Actually wifi-radar seems to be a tool on a right track, even though it is buggy and has problems. Unfortunately I do not speak python, so I am not able to help with it right away :|.
Also taking a look at the network-cfg tool is worth, although I did not manage to make it work correctly. It seems that I will end up with scripts automatizing the connection process and pinning them to the desktop. That seems to be the best solution, because WLAN is difficult to configure anyway... And I am connecting to a network with 802.1x + EAP-TTLS & PAP authentication (for any of you in EU universities, if your Uni uses the eduroam network -
http://www.eduroam.org/, this is it - I know there are some people who asked here on the forum few years ago about exactly this network and did not succeed - it seems to use some Radius auth, or that kind of stuff). That is hard to configure with any of those tools anyway...
[size=]Desktop environment[/size]I very much like how the system looks out of the box. Those icons are nice and usage is also quite nice. I tried to install ROX to see what that actually is.
Desktop applications1.- some packages do not appear in the menu and the corresponding folder. For example links.
2.- When wifi-radar is launched from app launcher menu/ or from the folder Internet. it works properly. The same when launched mnually from the command line. However, when I add a launcher forit to the menu, it hangs.
3. Cellwriter app launcher has no icon and thus cannot be added to the taskbar.
All the above have comments from Meanie
hereFireFox and SwapfileSeems to work, but crashes. I found that using a swapfile is worth and makes FF more stable.
ROXAfter X restart it replaces my background image. Obviously more than a file manager comes with it. But how can I put it into a plain file manager mode and keep the standard openbox desktop? I'll have to work on this in the close future.
BUG: After first attemtp to launch rox-filer it opened however without few icons. It displayed some question marks instead. When started from command line, it spit out this:
** (ROX-Filer:1760): WARNING **: Couldn't recognize the image file format for file ...
I googled around and found the problem described
here. However running "$ gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders > /etc/gtk-2.0/gdk-pixbuf.loaders" did not help!!! Later I found the problem was with how libpng is installed. Some applications (apart from Rox) do not find the libpng library. Solution was to simply provide a correct symbolic link /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 to the correct .so file.
This seems to be a distribution issue.[size=]IrDA keyboard[/size]To my old Handspring Visor Edge I own also an IrDA keyboard. As typing on the Z keyboard is a bit tiring, I was looking how to connect that keyboard to it. I found
zkbdd by kopsis of this board. I tried to use my irda keyboard with it but did not succeed. Obviously I had no correct driver for it. I found that my
X-Tensions XP-950 Universal PDA Keyboard is probably compatible with
SnapNType T806. At least they use the same driver on Palm OS. So I tried to reverse engineer my keyboard and produced a Lua plug-in for the zbkdd keyboard driver for it. It is attached to this post below.
Problems: I always have to create the /dev/misc/uinput node and manually load uinput module before running the zkbdd driver - which anyway has to be launched manually (for details see
here). Wouldn't it be possible to include this into the pdaXii13 config application?
Request: I tried to contact kopsis, but got no response yet. Anyway, it might be useful if (after zbkdd package maintainer agrees) my driver plug-in was packaged to the zkbdd IPK package.
[size=]Migration from Palm OS[/size]I want to migrate from Handspring Visor to Zaurus. First problem was which PIM to use. I finally found that I probably want to end up with KO/Pi and KA/Pi because of the ease of sync with the desktop PC apps. Now the problem was how to migrate the databases as I keep my whole life-journal in there. I found that it is possible to
beam contacts and todos. That turned out to be the first problem.
IrDA vs. PalmIt seems that many people were trying to make it work, but I did not find any solution on the Net. Finally I managed to find out how to do it. Corresponding post is
here.
After beaming my contacts and todos I still did not have a clue how to convert the datebook. KOrganizer reads vcal and ical files, but none of Palm Desktop and Agendus which I am using does not export such formats. I found two solutions for this:
1.- Free+limited: use an on-line calendar like Yahoo! Calendar, or Google calendar to upload the Palm database and then export it to iCalendar format. I found that the best one would be
AirSet. However after giving it a try, it handles only the last 12 months . I have about 6 years of my life in there. So no good solution...
2.- I finally purchased the
DIMEX by LinkeSoft . The demo worked well, so I hope the full version will be worth the 19 bucks. BTW, why they charge 19.- EUR as well as 19.- U$D? With todays exchange rate I shouldn't pay that much in EUR!!!
[size=]Misc[/size]As is probably obvious from above, I am seeking a PDA experience with my Zaurus (with a possibility to use it as a mini laptop). So I will to my best to configure it so, that I can use it well in the PDA mode. Some apps are obviously not built for such a use. E.g. KO/Pi lacks some points. E.g. font size is always an issue and too rich GUI. In PDA mode I want to switch off everything and have only the basic usage at hand. Palm got it perfectly right in those old days when they were
flying high on usability and community support. I have to make my way with cellwriter and desktop customization... I will try to post my solutions to some problems I encounter and goodies I develop in this thread in the future.
overclocking the CPU causes screen flickering I was frustrated by 20 sec. start-up time of KO/Pi so I tried to overclock the CPU. The screen started to flicker. There obviously are some posts about this (
here and
here): I have to check the solution.
BUG: vim complains about missing /usr/share/vim/syntax/syntax.vim on startup. This is obviously a distribution problem.
Complaint: Even though this is a forum for Z users, it is not very Z friendly. For example the upload thingy is Java-script based (or that kind of thing) and so does not work in Dillo, nor in Links. And Firefox reliably crashes on clicking "Manage current attachments" combo box. Not nice .
[size=]Future outlooks[/size]
As I am a scientific writer, I rely on LaTeX and LyX. In the next few weeks (when some deadlines are over) I hope to install the newest versions of these two guys. I am sure it won't be straightforward. BTW, why none of these found its place in the official feeds?
Synchronisation:I do keep my $HOME directory + all the private data in a subversion repository to be able to share configs between several Win32 and Linux boxes I have. Ultimately this is not a huge issue for me as far as I have enough SD/disk space and a network connection.
If you have any comments or suggestions to issues I have, I would be happy to hear about that.
P.S.
Finally I want to raise one positive point (as I am a notorious complainer): I am very pleased by this community. You guys seem to be very helpful and quite patient with newbiees. Thanks for help till now...
P.P.S.
Oh, I forgot. I am seeking any advice/comments on how to configure my Z as a PDA. What I am interested in currently is how to configure the WM to behave well. I very much like how those openbox things in pdaxrom work. It does not have to be openbox. Actually I do not care what it is as far as it has that nice behaviour of the default pdaxrom system. That is really nice. I would like to keep that behaviour in the future.
Please if you have any comments to the following in particular, you will make me happier Z user:
1.- I would like to pin some new icons to the desktop (does not seem to be straightforward with openbox),
2.- have the taskbar/panel autohiding if possible (with a small token to open it somewhere),
3.- have the panel available in all the desktops,
4.- be able to switch desktops without using the keyboard in some unobtrusive way (so no hanging windows on the desktop - rather an applet in the tray/panel),
5.- have some file manager similar to rox. However I do not like that rox screws up that nice icon navigation I like so much,
6.- improve my WLAN connecting/disconnecting experience
7.- comments on PIM apps?
Thanks.
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