Some Remarks About The Power Of Pdaxrom

[deckard73]

Hi

First of all. I tried a lot of distributions on my C860. At the moment I use kathrin 1.1.0beta1, because the hardware works almost out of the box. I had problems with power management on newer releases and I should track down this some day. Anyway. pdaXrom is a real productivity booster.

I read about a new bootloader concept in newer versions some time ago that allows to boot different versions (like grub on my pc). This is a prerequisite for developers that use their Z every day and dont want to brick it

Is this usable on the C860? If so, I would like to start writing some scripts that fixes the most annoying typos in pdaXrom, fixes symlinks and replaces some of the busybox tools with real applications. There is enough space on 1 GB external card (sd or cf)
And you can get one for less than 30 bucks in each store

Because shell scripts look somehow strange for me, a ruby or python script could do the job.
We could provide scripts that specialize pdaXrom.

An example: I dont need much of the Window-Manager stuff. Even twm is okay for me. But I want to see emacs preinstalled, configured and running with useful shortcuts
So it fits my needs. Though I can do this per hand, I dont want to invent the wheel several times

Other people want to use pdaXrom for only playing chess or other games.
The next only hears music

And another one needs big size mail clients and web browsers

Lets have a real simple base system and write some scripts that do the rest
I think this is more important for the end user than getting new kernel features running

Any suggestions?
Enno

PS: English is not my native language. Could be hard to understand

[grog]

I use r121 (the latest available 2.6 kernel ROM) on my C860 with very few problems. I have 4bg sd card which 'just works', have been playing some games (glhack mainly), reading books (with justreader), reading pdf's (xpdf), syncing my mail & news form my home openbsd box (via ssh & rsync) & watching videos (using mplayer). I do a lot of shell scripting (I'm a programmer by trade & a card-carrying linux lover ). Don't do much with python yet, but have been meaning to learn. (ah, to have more spare time).

That said, there are a few annoyances. I haven't been able to get either my wifi nor my modem card working (yet). But my hardwire network card works, so I've been making do for now until I can get those running. My audio remote also doesn't work right now, but I know I have to get into some re-compiling of my own to address that problem.

So after that long winded commentary, would I recommend the 2.6 kernel ROMS? Definitely. The team is supposed to be releasing a new version too, soon. So if it doesn't work now, maybe it'll work tomorrow.

Most of all, have fun!

[radiochickenwax]

I dont need much of the Window-Manager stuff. Even twm is okay for me. But I want to see emacs preinstalled, configured and running with useful shortcuts
So it fits my needs. Though I can do this per hand, I dont want to invent the wheel several times

Other people want to use pdaXrom for only playing chess or other games.
The next only hears music

And another one needs big size mail clients and web browsers

Lets have a real simple base system and write some scripts that do the rest
I think this is more important for the end user than getting new kernel features running

Any suggestions?
Enno

PS: English is not my native language. Could be hard to understand
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=156035\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

This is probably one of the core tasks of the dev team as I see it right now: trimming the base ROM.  There's been talk about making a "bare bones" type image, which would allow users to pick their own window manager on each flash.  I don't know if this will actually come to be for awhile yet.

Meanie's "pdaxii13 rom" allows users to build custom hard drive images (essentially snapshots) of installed packages which makes it easier to get fairly customized flashes (after a bit of work).  However, I don't know where this is going on the 7x0/860 models if anywhere.

I'm sorta hoping to see something like this come out in some of the newer builds of pdax now that he's on the dev team.

I read about a new bootloader concept in newer versions some time ago that allows to boot different versions (like grub on my pc). This is a prerequisite for developers that use their Z every day and dont want to brick it
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=156035\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

I think you're talking about the u-boot system.  Forgive me if I'm wrong.  I believe it mostly works on the 860 with rc121, but then you're up against a number of new problems that are not present in beta1.

I would like to start writing some scripts that fixes the most annoying typos in pdaXrom, fixes symlinks and replaces some of the busybox tools with real applications.

Because shell scripts look somehow strange for me, a ruby or python script could do the job.
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=156035\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

If you can get past some of the problems with rc121, this would probably be one of the better places to start doing so.  There are at least three python scripts that don't work very well in the newer builds of pdax:

1. lightnpower.py
2. inputconfig.py
3. usbfunction.py  (not used on an 860?)

That would probably be the best place to start, and would also help a lot of people out. If someone were to fix them up.