Recent Posts

1

Cosmo Communicator - Android / Privacy Protection Password after temporarily removing SIM

« Last post by Dr. Watson on October 27, 2021, 02:25:20 pm »

Hello all,

I had to remove my SIM from my Cosmo to put it into another phone.
I though I could boot the cosmo without SIM. Well, it asked for my regular unlock PIN, which it accepts, but since then it keeps asking for a Privacy Protection Password and shows the PIN Pad.
I've never set a Privacy Protection Password.
Reinserting my SIM card and booting/rebooting doesn't help.

After days of trying I just tried a factory reset through recovery.
After a very long reboot it asked me for my unlock PIN again and the Privacy Protection Password prompt reappears.

Any tipps, before I ask Planet?

Thanks,
DrW

2

Gemini PDA - Android / Re: Trouble with WiFI with one SSID, but multiple transmitters ? Android issue ?

« Last post by Radovan Garabík on October 26, 2021, 07:09:55 am »

Update after 2 something years: after thoroughly unpleasant experience with the UPC's customer service, like *completely* ignoring my reports for months until *I wrote a f*ing paper letter to them*, then asking several times for some details that I already provided them and ignoring my replies and asking the same details again and again, finally under pressure confirming they've received my previous e-mails (but apparently not reading them), and then... nothing happened for months. (sorry for the rant)

And then, suddenly, Wifree started to work and keeps working for maybe half a year by now, after almost 2 years of not working. Not that I need it that much, and I certainly *do not* recommend UPC if you have a reasonable other choice. And it does not solve the Android unable to select an AP issue.

3

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / Re: CODI battery life

« Last post by Radovan Garabík on October 26, 2021, 05:27:50 am »

Actually, I tried (I am still trying) to figure out of it is possible to turn CODI on/off when the lid is closed (under Android). So far, nothing seems to work - I am trying various "automating" applications, so far the most promising one is MacroDroid, but the silver button does not produce any event (even with the lid open), and fingerprint gestures do not work. I can bind an action to a volume up/down (i.e. the rocker switch) button, or a flip-over trigger, or a shake trigger, but all of them work only with the lid open - as soon as I close the lid, MacroDroid stops noticing them (even with the "work with screen off" option on). I suspect there is some dark wizzardry going on when the lid is closed.

4

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / Re: CODI batterey life

« Last post by vldmr on October 25, 2021, 02:22:19 pm »

Since I decided that battery life is more important to me than quick access to cosmo in closed state, beside watch provide most of this access anyway, I also started to turn codi off.

And then when I turned it back on on few occasions, I noted that the time it takes to bring it up is actually quite short - several seconds. So it does not seem to be in complete power off state.

That brought me to idea that if the silver button instead of turning codi screen off would do the same function as turning codi itself off/on through the settings/quick access, that would allow to use codi without much sacrifice on function and with good power savings.

I am not sure how to pitch this idea to PC, and not sure if they would really care. I might try to create such service for android myself, but it might take a while before I get some free time for that. If someone here will get inspired by this idea and proceed with implementation that would be great

5

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: Anyone in Sweden interested in a Planet Car Mount Kit?

« Last post by Daniel W on October 25, 2021, 02:09:24 pm »

Hi Nicolaj.
One of the car mount kits should be on its way to you now. I sent you a PM with a tracking link.

6

Zaurus - Other distros support / Re: Permission denied when trying to copy file from cf card to internal drive

« Last post by nad007007 on October 25, 2021, 07:56:34 am »

Hi

Figured the first error out. I was tiring to chmod on a fat drive. 

 
Regards
Conrad

7

Cosmo Communicator - CoDi / CODI battery life

« Last post by Radovan Garabík on October 25, 2021, 06:48:58 am »

Since I have read a lot of negative views on CODI and its unusability, and since I am considering using Cosmo as my main phone, I decided to measure (unscientifically) the impact of several settings on battery life.

The software is already somewhat customized: the Cosmo is rooted, however I am booting a non-root partition. I installed KISS launcher, Opera, termux, F-Droid, set up airmail (without automatic synchronization), Greenify (in non root mode without ADB permissions). Ledison is disabled (does not seem to be working, anyway).

In Settings→Cosmo Settings I turned on “Switch OFF cover display on power down”, though the description is a bit confusing (does the “Power down” refer to powering off the Cosmo, or just putting it to sleep mode?).

In Setting→System Developer options→Background check I turned off F-Droid.
In Play Store, I turned off Autoupdate and everything begining with auto-*

I also disabled Wifi control for all the applications  in Settings→Apps & notifications→Special app access.

Standby Intelligent Power Saving has been on, bluetooth, NFC has been turned off. Greenify was used to kill all the background processes just before closing the lid.

Codi ON means the CODI has been turned on from the notification area; the display has been kept off (probably) all the time, there were no incoming calls nor SMS.

Cosmo has been fully charged and after 12 hours of rest (closed lid), I looked at the remaining battery pecentage.

• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi off, everything else off: 95%
• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi off, wifi ON, everything else off: 93%
• wifi ON, mobile network 4G ON, codi off: 94%
• airplane mode (i.e. the red LED is on), codi  ON, wifi off, everything else off: 78%

When the airplane mode is ON, a red LED on the CODI lights on, and I haven’t found a way to turn it off - I have a bad feeling it drains the battery a bit, though the numbers are close enough to the measuring error to be conclusive (compare 2 & 3 above).

The results when CODI is on frankly suck (I actually repeated it twice, to be sure) - instead of about 5%, it drained 22% of the battery in the same timespan. This suggests either some serious power saving issues, or the CODI CPU&chipset is more power hungry than expected or incapable of deep sleep. At this point, Planet would have done better if they connected the cover display as a secondary screen of the mail CPU, not a separate CPU & OS - but then again, it is probably not possible with the Mediatek (or other common) chipset. Perhaps a (scaled down with some circuitry?) copy of the main screen would have been doable - or perhaps not.

Anyway, this isprobably moot with the Astroslide.

8

Gemini PDA - General Discussion / Some notes about the GEMINI

« Last post by Radovan Garabík on October 24, 2021, 09:25:25 am »

I started to write these notes when I received my Gemini PDA in 2019, then I kind of stopped. Recently (fall 2021) I unearthed the notes (even though unfinished) and I am posting them just for the sake of historical interest, to have them online and searchable - though I guess the notes about the keyboard are equally valid for Cosmo and Astroslide (I have a Cosmo now).

These are just some unorganized notes about Gemini PDA. It's not a review, just a collection of my impressions and misgivings.

I am reasonably satisfied with the device. though there are some unexpected gripes.

Hardware


Removing the cover to insert sim and microSD - seriously? Having to use a separate piece of metal to open the unit? Though I could probably use a flat screwdriver.

Keyboard is nice. Size of the keys is comparable to those of Asus Eee 701 fame, though the Gemini keys feel a bit more wobbly and less "springy" - it's not better, not worse, just different. It's not really quiet, though - at least compared with my old Sony VAIO P.

Open display has only one fixed position. This kind of sucks. I expected a notebook-like adjustable hinge. Failing that, I am sometimes missing the 90° position.

There are no raised bumps on the f and j keys, for tactile feedback.

More than once I wished for keyboard backlight. Unfortunately, the keys are compressed by the screen when closed, thus I am reluctant to use fluorescent paint on them.

For the same reason I am reluctant to make bumps at the f&j keys (glueing something or marking it with a hot soldering gun)

Software

I am disappointed with Linux support - I expected a fully working device, with X11. Proper open computer would allow us to compile the kernel easily, boot from SD, etc... Even with binary blobs it would be better than using libhybris and/or one fixed precompiled kernel version. At this point, Planet could have created a (perhaps bluetooth) keyboard only with a groove or cradle to put your 6" rooted Android phone into and it would be an even better and more usable combination than the Gemini is.

Currently, Planet seems to aim towards recreating Psion experience (see Airmail. Data, App bar), which is.... OK I guess, if you are a former Psion user. And it makes sense to run the software on top of Android, you get a well known almost mature OS with a ton of applications. However, it deviates from the original expectation of an open Linux machine.

Launcher

Built in launcher is OKish. But Nova launcher, once properly configured is much, much better. With Nova launcher. though, you do not need the App bar.

Both KISS launcher and TUI launcher are quite nice and well suited for Gemini, but they are not well integrated with the keyboard - e.g. you cannot use the keyboard to cycle through application matches in the TUI launcher (one would expect to use TAB for this...)

Keyboard input

The layout copies the old Psion one. It is reasonably OK if you type predominantly English texts, though the need to use Fn combination to type the apostrophe is less than optimal.

Unfortunately, you cannot easily change the  layout - though there are ways to modify the Gemini keyboard app, but this is tedious and requires some skills. Planet should have opensourced the keyboard application.

By holding a key. you can input several variants of the letter - e.g. holding s pops up a dialogue where you can select one of ßšşŝ. Nice touch having the ŝ, but OTOH long pressing h does not allow you to select ĥ. And there is no ś. You can choose the letters either by tapping it on the screen, or by typing the number displayed. So far so good, for an occasional character this is OK (but totally unsuitable for typing in your accented language).

However, this means long pressing d in vim cannot be used to quickly delete a whole region anymore. What's even worse, these long presses emit Shift, Left Arrow, the accented letter - which again, does not produce the desired effect in vim. Why not generate backspace+the accented letter?

And there is an inconsistency, e.g. š, ň, č is the second letter, but ž the first one, and there is no way to type ľ.
The order of diacritic marks should have been consistent, and a compose key would be preferable to a long press (why not reuse e.g. standalone press of right shift to be a compose? see xcape from the X11 world).

What Gemini desperately needs is an input method that would e.g. in German mode produce ä when the keys a e are entered within a (short) time span, ss would produce ß, etc. In e.g. Croatian mode, dj would produce đ, cj ć, cx č etc. In Danish mode, aa would produce å, ae would produce æ.

There are such applications for Android, but only for Korean Hangul, and of course not configurable ones. Almost all existing keyboard input methods are aimed towards touchscreens.

9

Cosmo Communicator - General Discussion / Re: Anyone in Sweden interested in a Planet Car Mount Kit?

« Last post by Occupied_username on October 24, 2021, 05:03:09 am »

Hi Daniel,

No worries (:

I'm still teetering between managing to maintain a presence and forgetting about oesf completely (:

Luckily my Communicator's lack of a part of the cover helps with reminding me.

PM'ed you - thanks man!
Nicolaj

10

Zaurus - Other distros support / Re: Permission denied when trying to copy file from cf card to internal drive

« Last post by nad007007 on October 23, 2021, 09:44:06 am »

Hi

Found this http://distro.ibiblio.org/pdaxrom/download/contrib/voider_feed/sudo_1.6.8p8-1_arm.ipk

But i have another error: Zaurus is not in the sudoers file when i try to use sudo. I have set the root password and zaurus password

I have tried this fix to edit sudoers and add zaurus

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Insert the missing user right below of the text above as shown below.

zaurus   ALL=(ALL) ALL This part is different. root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
 
https://alexandrerosseto.medium.com/linux-user-is-not-in-the-sudoers-file-1a937d3b2a35

The file saves, but i have the same fault. :Zaurus is not in the sudoers file.

Hope someone can help?
 

Thanks
Conrad