Topics

1

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Any Cross Compilation Tutorials?

« on: February 02, 2010, 03:46:14 pm »

I know plenty of people in the boards cross compile for pdaXrom. But I have yet to come across a cross compilation tutorial. Chero posted a very helpful native compilation tutorial which is what I have used to build my packages, but I really need a cross compilation howto in order to start producing better things. Compiling on board the Zaurus is just not too practical.

Thanks in advance,

TB

2

Zaurus - pdaXrom / The Definitive Fix For Kopi Alarm Issues

« on: January 23, 2010, 02:24:07 pm »

I know this has been an ongoing problem for many people under pdaXrom, and I hope this fix will encourage some users to get back to using pdaXrom in their Zaurii.

The issue involved general unreliability with KOPI alarms due to failure to wake up the Zaurus before an alarm would take place. Additionally, I found a bug in one of the scripts which was preventing suspended alarms from being considered under certain conditions. This has been thoroughly tested under pdaXii13, and should work equally well with pdaXrom. As always, I advise you to perform a NAND backup before installing.

The hwclock script saves and retrieves the time in UTC format. In my testing, I have found that it is the only way to maintain consistent times across reboots. If your hardware clock was last set using a different time zone, the time will be wrong on your first resume after installing the package. It suffices to set the time via datentime.py again, and it should remain consistent after that. This is due to the fact that hwclock keeps time in a raw format without timezone information. The only requirement is consistency in specifying a time zone for interpretation of the raw value between writes and reads.

Without further ado, I'm attaching the packages. I include:
KDEPIM/PI (Not needed if your KDEPIM/PI version is already capable of playing sound alarms.)
kopi-apm (A revision which fixes the logic which was preventing suspended alarms from kicking in.)
atd (You need this if you don't already have atd installed.)
hwclock-atd (This modifies the /etc/apm/scripts.d/hwclock script to work with atd.)

Let me know if you have any questions!

Cheers,

ToneBlind

3

Zaurus - pdaXrom / File Missing From Pdaxii13v2 Feed (gpicview_0.1.5_armv5tel.ipk)

« on: January 20, 2010, 07:13:33 pm »

Hi,

This file: gpicview_0.1.5_armv5tel.ipk
is missing from the official pdaXii13v2 feed. If someone could post it I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

4

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Some Pdaxii13/pdaxrom Fixes

« on: July 17, 2009, 06:11:52 pm »

As a part of my setting up my fluxbox installation on pdaXi13, I'm doing little modifications to enhance functionality or solve small issues. Instead of posting them in my fluxbox thread, I'll post them here.

The first concerns the issue that takes place whenever you are watching a movie in mplayer and rotate the screen. This causes the screen to turn white, and requires a hard reset. I fixed this by making sure that rotation only takes place whenever mplayer is not running. Just add these three lines to the beginning of /usr/bin/rotate.sh

Code: [Select]

if [ "`pidof mplayer`" != "" ] || [ "`pidof mplayer2`" != "" ]; then
  exit 0
fiNow, whenever you are watching a movie in mplayer, you can swivel the screen without problems.

I seem to remember having the same issue in cacko. Maybe the screen rotate logic is shared. In this case, this modification should work equally well.

5

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Issue Solved: Display Images In Kchmviewer

« on: July 16, 2009, 03:37:51 pm »

I was frustrated because of not being able to display embedded images in kchmviewer (I tried a couple of IPKs, 2.5 and 3.1.2, and it didn't work.) I was getting ready to compile my own, when I realized that there is a wrong setting in qtconfig which was preventing the images from being shown.

In qtconfig, go to Library Paths tab, and remove /usr/bin/qt/lib. Instead, add these two entries:
/usr/lib/qt/lib
/usr/lib/qt/plugins

Now I can read CHM documents with their embedded images, and with the ability to set proper language and character encodings.

6

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Fluxbox 1.0.0 Ipk Released

« on: July 15, 2009, 10:28:29 pm »

I finally set up the crosscompilation SDK, and this is my first release. Everything works out of the box. Fluxbox 1-0-0 is even faster than the 0.9 branch, and it loads every possible style, even pixmap styles. And they load faster too.
I have tested this in a SL-C1000 running pdaXii13, but it should work equally well in pdaXrom Beta1 or Beta3. Not sure about other versions, please let me know if you encounter any problems.

To enable autorotate when the screen is twisted, just add this line to ~/.fluxbox/keys:

Code: [Select]

None XF86RotateWindows :ExecCommand rotate.shThis works with the rotate.sh script in pdaXii13, I don't know if pdaXrom has that same script. If you have problems, again let me know. I can post the contents of the rotate.sh script if necessary (it's just about 10 lines of code.)

Enjoy!

7

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Fluxbox 1.0.0 New Package

« on: July 14, 2009, 12:23:47 pm »

I needed to teach myself how to compile, and it paid off. I have Fluxbox 1.0.0 running perfectly on my Akita pdaXii13 Zaurus. This version of fluxbox is apparently faster than the 0.9 branch. Window move via ALT-LMB and window resize via ALT-RMB (that is, ALT-FN-LMB) works flawlessly.

Pixmap styles can be loaded. Also, styles seem to load much faster than for Fluxbox 0.9.1.2, which is what I was using until now.
This WM is extremely efficient and stable, plus a pleasure to look at and work with in the Zaurus. It will make your Zaurus run faster, and probably will also make you more productive (this is just a subjective opinion, though.)

The release will come later today. This is for a 2.4.20 kernel, so it should be fine for pdaXrom 1.1 Beta1, Beta3, and pdaXii13 (what I got running now.)

I got gkrellm running with full transparency (0.9.1.2. had an issue which caused a 1 pixel frame to be rendered around it.) This setup looks great. I will post some screenshots later, and will tidy up the IPK and get it ready for distribution later today as well (made a mistake and installed to /usr/local/ instead of /usr/, so I need to repackage.)

8

Zaurus - pdaXrom / Fixed Bug In Kopi-apm

« on: July 11, 2009, 02:48:20 am »

I was troubleshooting an issue that I found that prevented kopi suspended alarms from causing a wakeup from kopi-apm, and found (and fixed) the bug in the script. If there is any interest in this let me know. I'm thinking about packing this in an ipk just for fun (to learn how to do that) and release it as a bugfix.

9

Ubuntu / How To Extract Filesystem

« on: June 29, 2009, 02:06:25 pm »

I'm having a great time with zubuntu (thanks to Cortez, I'll be making a donation soon!   )

Now that I have Zubuntu working in my SL-C1000, I'd like to install and run Cacko from the same SD as well. Since I was planning on multibooting Cacko and pdaXrom in the future, I basically exactly duplicated the partition layout which Cortez shows in his Omegamoon instructions. The first step is to get Cacko working and booting off the SD...

I think I can figure out how to get a kernel-cmdline working based off the /proc/cmdline data in Cacko. My main problem is: How do I get a copy of the Cacko filesystem?

I can install Cacko in my other SL-C1000, and I suppose then copying everything from there would be feasible. On the other hand, is there any way to get the whole filesystem image from my laptop using either the Cacko 1.23 install files, or a NAND backup from a SL-C1000 with Cacko installed on it?

I'm just wondering how you guys did it (including Cortez, which seems to have this working judging by his SD card partition setup.) I really want to run Cacko off the SD and not the NAND.

Thank you in advance, and congratulations for the hard work put in this great distro!

TB

10

Ubuntu / Running Zubuntu On Akita Without A Battery

« on: June 25, 2009, 05:37:40 pm »

Hi everyone,

I am pleased to see all the great work put by cortez (thank you sir) and other people into this distro. I had been away from Zaurus developments for a while and this is extremely encouraging.

My question is: Can you run a Zaurus (in my case SL-C1000) without a battery using Zubuntu? I can get it to reboot into Cacko without a battery, but once cacko finishes loading, I get a dialog asking me to change the battery and the system shuts down. I'm thinking perhaps this wouldn't happen in Zubuntu.

This is what I'm doing (I got this information from the forum, try it at your own risk):

- Remove the battery.
- Press D + B while you connect the AC adapter. This will bring a command line prompt.
- When you are asked to login, enter 'root' (no quotes). You need no password.
- At the root prompt (#) type 'reboot' (again, no quotes) and hit Enter. This will reboot your Zaurus and load the OS.

Just wondering if someone knows if this would work in Zubuntu without the system shutting down. Or maybe there is a good reason why a Zaurus shouldn't be run without a battery (power regulation)?

Thank you very much in advance!

11

General Discussion / Running Zaurus (akita) Without Battery

« on: June 25, 2009, 04:51:08 pm »

I'm trying to run my SL-C1000 without the battery. I got it to start up via D+B while connecting the AC power, then logged in as root, and rebooted the system (by typing 'reboot' at the root command.) It then proceeds to reboot and load Cacko, but as soon as it finishes loading, I get a window saying "Change the battery" and then the system shuts down.

I'm wondering if there is any possible way to actually run the system without the battery. Is that "Change the battery" message something that does not exist in different ROMs? I tried using the Sharp ROM also and I get the same behavior. But perhaps this is due to the fact that Cacko uses the Sharp ROM extensively.

Has anyone actually gotten their Zaurus to run without battery?

Thanks in advance!

12

Python / Noob Questions (recommended Rom, Compatibility, Etc.)

« on: December 18, 2007, 09:00:50 pm »

Hi there,

I just got an SL-C1000, and thought that I would like to program Python on it. I have to program Python at work, so I thought it would be a good idea to learn and practice during my commute.  

Is there a recommended ROM to run Python in? I would like the best compatibility possible. I would also like to be able to use PyGTK if possible. Any of you use this? How about glade?

At work we are using 2.3 at the moment, so I'm not concerned too much about running the latest right now. My main concern is compatibility, to be able to use standard and widely used libraries the same that I use on my workstation at work. If you have any comments about this, please let me know!    

Thank you!

13

Sharp ROMs / Terminal Starts Up In Portrait Mode

« on: December 18, 2007, 08:53:17 pm »

I'm running the stock Sharp ROM, and when I start up the terminal it starts up in portrait mode, even though my Zaurus is in Landscape mode. Is there anything that I'm missing? This is not normal, is it?

Thanks!

14

General Discussion / Running Your Zaurus From Aa Batteries

« on: December 15, 2007, 06:51:14 pm »

Has anybody done it? I have looked into different products, and this one looks pretty good:
http://www.semsons.com/pdabatexpocp.html

Have you tried this or something similar? AA batteries are easily accessible everywhere, so this would seem to be a good thing to make my Zaurus as future proof as possible.

15

Off Topic forum / What Laptop Do You Use, And Why?

« on: December 15, 2007, 06:42:10 pm »

I assume the vast majority of everyone here uses or has used laptops in addition to their Zaurii. What do you use and why?

My first laptop was a Toshiba Tecra with a P-III 650 Mhz. Very nice machine at the time (almost 8 years ago.) It performed reasonably well, and was mostly problem free. It had a tendency to overheat, specially after a couple of years. I wasn't crazy about the construction of the machine (a few creaks, soft screen hinges, etc.) I didn't like the design either (2 tone plastic in the LCD cover, for example.)

After that I got an IBM Thinkpad T23 (refurbished), and I was extremely impressed by it. Much more solid, better looking, overall a more professional laptop (comparing it to the Toshiba was like comparing a Mercedes to a Toyota.) Whenever I had any problems it was very easy to service using the hardware manuals from IBM. A very modular system. Changing RAM, hard drive, even major components like the keyboard or the LCD panel was doable and somewhat of a pleasure.

Due to my experience with the T23 all the rest of my laptops have been Thinkpads. I have an X21 that I picked up in mint condition in ebay a couple of years back for little over $200. I have a dual boot of Ubuntu and Windows XP on it. It is beautiful, solid, and performs well, and now can be picked on eBay for about $100. Granted it is not as portable as the Zaurus, but it is still a very small system and with vastly superior possibilities.

So, what laptop brand are you guys partial off? Are you a Dell Devil, an Apple Advocate, or a Panasonic Person?