Messages

1

General Discussion / Resurrecting The Old Z... As A Webcam Server

« on: August 26, 2011, 01:32:07 pm »

Honestly, no it didn't go well.  I gave it a long afternoon, with no real luck.  I bought a network webcam on sale and forgot about it.  Resonantly, I build an internal mobile web app for my company's QC program.  I tried angstrom, but I just couldn't get it just won't boot.  The kexec kernel runs and the menu finds my root image, but it just hangs after a selecting the distro.

I would love to get it working again, but I get frustrated with the Akita situation pretty quickly.

I was looking to buy one of those new baby monitors that can stream video to your iphone/android phones but they are somewhat expensive and most have pretty bad reviews.  I was thinking that there must be a better solution.  I haven't carried my C1000 in over a year and was thinking it might make a pretty good low power personal webcam server.

Could anyone recommend a compatible USB camera that works in low light?  Also, I've more or less defected from linux to Mac so I'd also like recommendations for the software?  I'm guessing Debian is still going to be my best bet for the OS.

I'm starting to get excited about the project.  It might be my last chance to geek-out for a while, and I'm looking forward to giving my favorite old toy a new job.

Long live the Zaurus.
Cal

Cal,

How did it go, did you ever get this working?  

If so it would be nice to hear your solution for hardware and software.

2

General Discussion / Resurrecting The Old Z... As A Webcam Server

« on: February 24, 2011, 09:11:28 am »

I was looking to buy one of those new baby monitors that can stream video to your iphone/android phones but they are somewhat expensive and most have pretty bad reviews.  I was thinking that there must be a better solution.  I haven't carried my C1000 in over a year and was thinking it might make a pretty good low power personal webcam server.

Could anyone recommend a compatible USB camera that works in low light?  Also, I've more or less defected from linux to Mac so I'd also like recommendations for the software?  I'm guessing Debian is still going to be my best bet for the OS.

I'm starting to get excited about the project.  It might be my last chance to geek-out for a while, and I'm looking forward to giving my favorite old toy a new job.

Long live the Zaurus.
Cal

3

Debian / Apt Pinning

« on: January 27, 2010, 09:09:28 pm »

Found a nice newbie-friendly article on apt pinning, which enables the user to prioritize the repos in /etc/apt/sources.list instead of installing/upgrading things simply based on the versioning of the packages:

http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html

One immediate use I thought of is to assign the highest priority to jpmatrix's custom repo, so that 2or0's mplayer won't get replaced by apt-get dist-upgrade.  

My /etc/apt/preferences is pretty much exactly whats on that link plus a line to keep udev from upgrading.  Any others?  Maybe we should keep a list of potential apt pit falls.

Code: [Select]

Package: udev
Pin: version 0.114-2
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 650

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 600
Cal
PS my udev pin might not be at the highest possible version, but it hasn't caused a problem yet.

Thanks for the info, my udev is broken....any ideas on how to fix it?

Sorry, I don't really.
Maybe you can roll back with  sudo aptitude install <pkgname>=<version>

4

Debian / Apt Pinning

« on: January 26, 2010, 03:41:25 pm »

Found a nice newbie-friendly article on apt pinning, which enables the user to prioritize the repos in /etc/apt/sources.list instead of installing/upgrading things simply based on the versioning of the packages:

http://jaqque.sbih.org/kplug/apt-pinning.html

One immediate use I thought of is to assign the highest priority to jpmatrix's custom repo, so that 2or0's mplayer won't get replaced by apt-get dist-upgrade.  

My /etc/apt/preferences is pretty much exactly whats on that link plus a line to keep udev from upgrading.  Any others?  Maybe we should keep a list of potential apt pit falls.

Code: [Select]

Package: udev
Pin: version 0.114-2
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 650

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 600
Cal
PS my udev pin might not be at the highest possible version, but it hasn't caused a problem yet.

5

Ubuntu / Flash For Zubuntu's Firefox

« on: December 23, 2009, 08:53:15 am »

finally got around to testing it.  It works.  
[img]http://hcfolds.com/eee/zaurus/flashz.jpg\" border=\"0\" class=\"linked-image\" /]


The install script reports that it failed, but flash works anyway.  You could just ignore the installer and copy the files to the correct location manually.  

Video is extremely slow, but audio played with few interruptions.   One thing to note, is that flash drains power faster then you would believe.   My battery is on its last leg, but two minutes of video and my batter went from full charge to half charge. I don't have my power cord today so I can't test any more.  

Flash light reports itself as flash 9.  Oddly, on Youtube.com the static previews work, but the videos don't work. Even odder embedded youtube videos (like in blog posts) work well.  

The browser I tested is iceweasel, and requires swap space,  I guess we'll get better performance with a lighter browser that can run from ram.  I'll let you know.

If nothing else, its nice not to have holes in webpages where flash objects were supposed to be.

6

New products and alternatives / Smartq5/7

« on: October 13, 2009, 08:32:46 am »

I ordered a few SmartQ 5s with android.  I have one for myself and one for my wife, and I pre-sold a couple. I'm really looking forward to this gadget.  I love my C1000, but its been a frustrating experience sometimes, and I'm hoping that already having support for three major distributions (android, mer and ubuntu) will lead to a user experience that is a little less tweaking and a little more fun.  


BTW,  One of the guys backed out and I'll have an extra one when they arrive tomorrow.  PM me if you are interested.
     
Cal

7

Ubuntu / Hp's "glassy-bleu" Theme

« on: October 03, 2009, 10:33:53 am »

How'd it go?

All,

Just ran across this: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/20...rce=microbloggi

Might be old news but thinking this would look really nice on a Z

I will try it out on my Z running Omegamoon's Ubuntu install (thanks for that, it is AWESOME!!)

~Z3n

8

Ubuntu / Flash For Zubuntu's Firefox

« on: October 02, 2009, 11:14:47 am »

Sharp released package for installing flash for the Ubuntu/ARM based NetWalkers.  It might work on ubuntu/debian.  JKKMobile posted a copy of the installer here http://www2.jkkmobile.com/FlashLite3.1_Firefox_plugin.tar.gz

I hosed my ZUbuntu install a couple days ago in a misguided Maemo/Mer experiment, so it will be awhile before I can try this myself. I looked at the tar file and extracted the installer.  Its pretty simple, the tar has couple .so files an a installer.sh that just copies them to the correct directories.  It may work.  Anyone want to give it a try?


(edited title to make it clear that we are talking about using NetWalker's flash package on the Zaurus, sorry)

9

Ubuntu / Zubuntu X11 Faster Over Ssh

« on: August 28, 2009, 12:58:31 pm »

I'm experimenting with running a windows manager in xnest over ssh.

Code: [Select]

Xnest -geometry 800x600 :1 & DISPLAY=:1 ssh -Y -l root xx.xx.xx
I'm finding that once a WM is loaded, the remote and local speed is about the same .  So I'm guessing the extra load of running the WM is what is causing the problem.  The Z takes a pretty good performance hit, even w/light WMs like Fluxbox.

10

Ubuntu / Zubuntu X11 Faster Over Ssh

« on: August 28, 2009, 11:47:47 am »

I'm struck by how much faster apps start and run while being using X11 forwarding through a ssh connection.   The difference is almost nearly double the start time for local apps.  Some things are even faster.   Searching Synaptic over ssh, for example, is nearly instantaneous compared to running it local.

I'm concerned that I have something screwy with my local configuration that is slowing me down.  Is it possible that the reduced load of not having to draw X windows is making a that much difference?

11

Ubuntu / Memory Cards And Multibooting

« on: December 29, 2008, 01:03:31 pm »

My 8 gig sandisk also works well with Debian and Zubuntu.

12

Ubuntu / Zubuntu 1.0 Rc1

« on: December 25, 2008, 08:53:58 pm »

On my C1000 I have no access to CF cards.   They don't show up in dmesg.  I'll investigate further in the morning.  Otherwise its still really cool

13

Android / Google Android Installable Image Available!

« on: January 14, 2008, 10:22:04 pm »

Cortez, thanks man.  Awesome job.

14

Debian / U-boot

« on: January 14, 2008, 12:22:45 pm »

Technically boot was never needed, but I think most of the development has gone on with the younggun kernels which I think do require uboot.  Sometimes things that won't work on a Angstrom / Altboot setup have been fixed with the new youngun kernels.

Is u-boot still needed?

15

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

« on: December 20, 2007, 07:06:49 am »

I have a black Apple Macbook with a 2 GHz core duo, and 2 Gigs ram running Leopard.

I have it because its pretty and people will like me more for being trendy.