Topics

1

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Gpe 2.8 Released. How Can We Use It On Our Zaurii?

« on: August 07, 2007, 09:09:24 am »

LinuxToGo announces GPE 2.8 release. They mention Maemo (for N770) and OpenEmbedded but neither OpenZaurus nor Ångström. I'd would love to try it out on my SL-C860 currently running OZ 3.5.4.1. Can I?

Does anyone already use Angstrom/GPE for simple PIM?

2

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Gpe Trademark Issue (handhelds.org Vs Linux-to-go)

« on: June 25, 2007, 08:08:47 pm »

There seems to be an argument going on between the GPE developers organized at linux-to-go.org and George of handhelds.org. Handhelds.org is the site which hosted GPE before linux-to-go was founded and George claims (US) trademark rights on "GPE" because he runs the site (handhelds.org) which hosted (a project called) GPE first.

The full story is on Nils Blog at Linux-To-Go

Personally I think it's best if most people ignore the (legal and verbal) fight and concentrate on writing software. I have no clue about (US) trademark law (and IANAL) but I don't believe George or handhelds.org can do any harm to the people who wrote GPE and invented the name. (They seem to have gathered all at linux-to-go.org).

I'm posting this here for the people who wonder why handhelds.org is abandoned/dead/strange and hope for a great GPE release from linux-to-go.org.

3

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Who Maintains Gpe?

« on: April 26, 2007, 07:44:16 am »

I reported a bug to bugzilla.handhelds.org which was ignored for a while and then assigned "orphaned": Bug 1762

I would like report more bugs in OZ/GPE, but where do I go? Should I file bugs against the OpenEmbedded package? (The bugs are in the GPE GUI.)

Jan

4

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Gpe-calender: Repair Corrupted Database File?

« on: April 26, 2007, 07:35:19 am »

Hi,
yesterday my Z with latest OZ/GPE crashed. So I had to remove the battery for a rough reboot.

Now GPE calendar is empty, but the file ~/.gpe/calendar exist with non-zero size. IIRC this is a SQLite database file and I assume it was corrupted during the crash. Are you aware of a tool to analyse or repair this file?

Thanks
Jan

5

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Enter International Characters In Gpe?

« on: February 23, 2007, 04:13:54 pm »

Is there a replacement/enhancement for GPE's xkbd, the on-screen keyboard, with umlauts, accents and the like?

Is there an other way to enter characters neither on the virtual nor the physical keyboard?

Jan

6

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Gpe-xcalibrate.sh And Oz 3.5.4.1

« on: August 24, 2006, 05:01:28 am »

When I logout (and unsuspend) I sometimes (always) see a message box "gpe-xcalibrate.sh not found" or similar. I upgraded my Boxer by flashing the image from OZ3.5.4 (without erasing anything first).

There is file called /usr/bin/run-calibrate.sh which seems to be the new name of what used to be called gpe-xcalibrate.sh. (Found a discussion about sepearting X and GPE for the sake of E.) However in /etc/xinit.d/ there is a file calling gpe-xcalibrate.sh instead of run-calibrate.sh.

Did something went wrong when I upgraded or is this the case on all OZ3.5.4.1 machines?

7

Cxx0 Hardware / Is Flashing Badblock Aware?

« on: August 03, 2006, 12:46:17 pm »

I want to reflash my Zaurus because of the situation described in here. I think one NAND eraseblock (on the root fs) could have gone bad.

Will reflashing (OZ3.5.4.1) scan for badblocks, remember existing badblocks?

Jan

8

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Nand Problems: "bad Eraseblock" And "i2c Error"

« on: July 19, 2006, 06:39:30 am »

My Zaurus startet to behave strangely (CPU load average > 2.00, fonts in GPE wrong, suspend not working). I couldn't identify to problem, so I rebooted a couple of times, which didn't solve the problem. I found two interesting bits in 'dmesg': [full dmesg output attached]

Code: [Select]

Sharp SL series flash device: 800000 at 0
Using static partision definition
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "sharpsl-flash":
0x00120000-0x007f0000 : "Boot PROM Filesystem"
NAND device: Manufacturer ID: 0xec, Chip ID: 0x79 (Samsung NAND 128MiB 3,3V 8-bit)
Scanning device for bad blocks
Bad eraseblock 32 at 0x00080000
Bad eraseblock 3095 at 0x0305c000
Bad eraseblock 3099 at 0x0306c000
Creating 3 MTD partitions on "sharpsl-nand":
0x00000000-0x00700000 : "System Area"
[...]
0x00700000-0x03c00000 : "Root Filesystem"
0x03c00000-0x08000000 : "Home Filesystem"
[...]
I2C: i2c-0: PXA I2C adapter
i2c: error: exhausted retries
i2c: msg_num: 0 msg_idx: -2000 msg_ptr: 0
i2c: ICR: 000007e0 ISR: 00000002
i2c: log: [00000446:000007e0]
I don't know whether these message are new.

I tried to find out whether the NAND chip is working by running "md5sum /dev/mtdblock*". This works on mtdblock0 and mtblock3 while I'm seeing "IO errors" for mtdblock1 and mtdblock2.

So, it seems my NAND has a few badblocks, I learned (from google) that's OK. But are these NEW badblocks which were good untill now? I know the NAND memory wears out, but does this mean I'm near the end of its lifecycle (2.5years of "normal" usage)?

I assume the builtin NAND chips don't have any "logic" (for wear leveraging, mapping out badblocks), so this has to be done on the software side (jffs2, mtd?). But how would I do this? Will the OZ installer do the job? Is there a "format" utility?

Did people here have problems with bad NAND chips before? I assume, the devices used by OZ developers get reflashed quite often?

Your help is very much appreciated.

9

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Headset/mic Working On Clamshells For Voip?

« on: July 14, 2006, 12:47:43 pm »

Is it at all possible? Does soud work on current OZ for clamshells? Is there any VoIP app proven to work on OZ (preferably GPE or CLI)?

Is hard or could a small donation turn my Z into a phone?

10

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Public Holidays In Gpe Calender? Import I/vcal?

« on: May 29, 2006, 04:47:12 am »

I'd like to have a reminder entry for any public holiday. Is the best way importing an iCal file or does GPE have any support for national holidays?

11

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Simple Backup Approach Like Rsync/tar?

« on: April 20, 2006, 04:39:36 pm »

Just a simple question? Can I safely assume that all data is in $HOME and all configuration is either in $HOME or /etc and rsync those directories to CF or network for backup.

When it comes to restoring things, is it likely the file format of gpe apps will change or can I update and keep my files (as from a rsync backup)?

12

Accessories / Data On Sd Card Changes Randomly

« on: April 20, 2006, 04:22:17 pm »

Because my MMCplus card is not yet supported (will be in OZ 3.5.4.1 I've been told) I tried using an old 128MB SD card I used with my camera. Although problems with ext2 on SD have been reported I did mkfs.ext2 and weired things happened. (coudln't mount, partition table disappeared after removing and reinserting the card.)

Quickly decided to go back to fat (and use an ext2/cramfs/whatever image on FAT).
I used my camera to format the card, thought this to be safer then fdisk/mkdosfs. Afterwards I found a standard partition table and FAT partition,  but things were still strange:
* After umount, mount *sometimes* fails (as corrupted)
* If mount didn't fail, the md5sum of files had changed.
* After removing/reinserting the card, *sometimes* no partition table was found (by neither the kernel nor fdisk)

My camera still likes the card. No failure, can read the photos from Zaurus or my USB card reader. I'm not going to use the card anymore for anything important, but I'd like to know:
* Did I 'destroy' the card by using ext2. (In that case I'd write an angry letter the manufacturer.) What I'm thinking of here is that I could have confused some proprietary 'secure' feature expecting FAT which now makes me 'pay for pirating' or whatever.
* Is the card at the end of its lifespan? (It was hardly used)
* Can I find out? Does it make sense to run badblocks or alike on a memory card or will it just cost write cycles?

jan

In case you carre it's a "Pentacon Practica" made in Taiwan bought two years ago (new) for cheap.

13

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Gpe-mini-browser And Https: Not Working

« on: April 11, 2006, 04:58:52 pm »

The browser doesn't do anything (not even a message on STDOUT) when I try to access htpps sites.

Can I fix this by installing a lib? Which one? ipkg info 'gpe-mini-browser' doesn't suggest any.

14

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Email With Gnupg And Offline Reader For Gpe

« on: April 03, 2006, 05:18:00 pm »

(Most of) my current mail is on a IMAP server. On my desktop box I use offlineimap and mutt, which is pretty cool when you have a keyboard, unlimited disk space and broadband. While it's possible to do the same on Z, I'd appreciate a GPE solution. I tried Sylpheed, which is good, but it was even better if it was better customized for use with stylus and small screen.

What I am looking for is a client, that will download *new* mails in imap/INBOX, so I can read them while disconnected. But it's not the best idea (though possible with 1GB MMC card) to store *all* mails on the Z.

GnuPG, gpe-contacts integration, filters would be cool. Any hints?

jan

15

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Screen Rotation And Arrow Keys On Clamshell

« on: March 26, 2006, 07:58:29 pm »

After a reboot (killing X is not enough) things are mostly working:
+ screen rotation applet in the bottom bar works
+ arrow keys work in "desktop" and tetris (and mostly everywhere)
- arrow keys in sokoban don't work. They work but their effect is rotated by 90°
- in "screen setup" the effect of portrait/landscape is swaped

After some time (don't know how to reproduce) things go worse:
- screen rotation applet has no effect
- arrow keys' effect is rotated by 90° EVERYWHERE (tested sokoban, tetris and desktop)
- apps behave as if left-arrow was constantly pressed at an interval of about 1sec
- "screen setup" thinks we are in potrait mode (while we are in landscape actually) and trying to change it has no effect.

People pointed out this was a due to missing keymaps but is it really? The keys in question work mostly. The software must know about how to match key codes.

Where am I supposed to file this bug? GPE?

jan