Titchy Question

[bam]

so....worthy of doing? Does bluetooth work, suspend/resume, etc....

and

any problems that are to be expected?

oh and

compiler?


tia,
bam

[ZDevil]

I'd recommend using the EABI system. Titchy runs in OABI and is (noticeably) slower in general (though still better than using Pocketworkstation). The armel branch is pretty much complete now and fully functional. The repos get updated and refined everyday. The most obvious thing about EABI (Sid) is that from time to time there are package installation problems (reported as "broken packages/dependencies"). But actually they are not that frequent and it is almost always the case that one or two required packages have got newer versions than the others need. It can be easily solved by installing those apparently "broken" packages (nothing breaks actually apart from the mere dependencies) manually and the apt-get install again and things will be fine. This is what I did to set up Xfce4 and Emacs22, for example.

Suspend/resume works great.
jpmatrix and a few others have got bluetooth working. Just dig into the recent threads a bit.
Compiler, oh, it's just there. I use it to make additional packages without any issues. It just uses the standard Debian method for compiling and packaging.

[BarryW]

I still haven't been able to get my wifi card to work.  It's an Ambicom something or other, the back sticker came off a long time ago, so I don't know the exact model.  I've followed several of the how-to's, but it still keeps using the default configuration.

[ZDevil]

@BarryW

Basically two most crucial things about getting a wifi card working are: the network interface setup, and the driver used.

Perhaps it helps here if you can:
-- Pull out the card
-- Insert it
-- Run "dmesg" in the terminal
-- Post the output here.

The dmesg output will give a lot of relevant information.

And what kind of connection are you using? WEP, WPA or no encryption (!)?
Also are you running OABI (such as titchy) or EABI?

I am also using Ambicom WL-1000C. It just works without any painful tweaking (except after firmware upgrading failed yesterday and something weird happened, but it's fixed now). This card uses prism 2.5 firmware and runs with hostap driver.

[BarryW]

@BarryW

Basically two most crucial things about getting a wifi card working are: the network interface setup, and the driver used.

Perhaps it helps here if you can:
-- Pull out the card
-- Insert it
-- Run "dmesg" in the terminal
-- Post the output here.

The dmesg output will give a lot of relevant information.

And what kind of connection are you using? WEP, WPA or no encryption (!)?
Also are you running OABI (such as titchy) or EABI?

I am also using Ambicom WL-1000C. It just works without any painful tweaking (except after firmware upgrading failed yesterday and something weird happened, but it's fixed now). This card uses prism 2.5 firmware and runs with hostap driver.

Yea, I guess I should have thrown some more info in here.

Connecting to a 128bit wep access point, I've never gotten wpa to work with my Z.  Don't know how to post the dmesg, since I can't get into the zaurus with something with network access....   It loads the hostap_cs drivers, shows as wlan0, then sas no IPV6 routers present.  After a bit it deauthinticates all stations.  How do I find out which version oabi, eabi I'm running??  I followed so many different how-to's I don't remember where I got the files.  I know it wasn't the how to on the titchy site, because I couldn't get the keyboard or networking to work.  Now I have networking "working" it just won't connect...

[ZDevil]

Okay. How did you install your debian? Which rootfs and kernel are you using?
Can you using some terminal apps that supports copy and paste? If not, then direct the dmesg output to a text file on a card and paste it out is also an easy way.

[BarryW]

Okay. How did you install your debian? Which rootfs and kernel are you using?
Can you using some terminal apps that supports copy and paste? If not, then direct the dmesg output to a text file on a card and paste it out is also an easy way.

Okay, looks like something is screwed up.  It won't mount the sd card either.  BSD was easier to install...  


Where is the best how-to for getting a working debian??

[Capn_Fish]

If WPA doesn't work, perhaps the firmware is too old on your card.

bam: Problem to be expected (from my POV): SLOW!!!

[ZDevil]

In what way is debian slow(er than pdaXrom)?
Emacs runs much faster and more responsive in EABI. Many browsers, too.
Yet OABI (titchy) is indeed slow...

[ZDevil]

Oh, just forgot to say that armel repos are already available in Lenny, so there shouldn't be any apt-get install broken package problem.

[tux]

Where is the best how-to for getting a working debian??

 The most straightforward install is from the TitchyLinux site. However it gives you a hybrid system with an EABI kernel and an OABI filesystem.  

   However I do not know that the ambicom cards work and this method needs a working network. So it may be a non-starter for you. However searching the   pinned thread with the title Debian Arm on C3XXX for ambicom might help.  

That thread will solve your installation problems if the ambicom works on TitchyLinux. I suspevct it does because I believe that ZDevil did start out with TitchyLinux.

Assuming you get a working system with TitchyLinux and your ambicom the contents of the interface file should give you some help with moving on to the EABI versions.

I have to say that there I did a lot of floundering about in getting to the EABI stage. The later threads do seem to be offering slightly more friendly procedures though.

Myself, I'm going to wait a bit longer in the hopes that there will be an official EABI/armel Debian soon which can be installed the Titchylinux way.

Good Luck!

[BarryW]

Where is the best how-to for getting a working debian??

 The most straightforward install is from the TitchyLinux site. However it gives you a hybrid system with an EABI kernel and an OABI filesystem.  

   However I do not know that the ambicom cards work and this method needs a working network. So it may be a non-starter for you. However searching the   pinned thread with the title Debian Arm on C3XXX for ambicom might help.  

That thread will solve your installation problems if the ambicom works on TitchyLinux. I suspevct it does because I believe that ZDevil did start out with TitchyLinux.

Assuming you get a working system with TitchyLinux and your ambicom the contents of the interface file should give you some help with moving on to the EABI versions.

I have to say that there I did a lot of floundering about in getting to the EABI stage. The later threads do seem to be offering slightly more friendly procedures though.

Myself, I'm going to wait a bit longer in the hopes that there will be an official EABI/armel Debian soon which can be installed the Titchylinux way.

Good Luck!

Yea, the titchy how-to was useless for me.  The keyboard didn't work, you can't do a whole lot with no keyboard, couldn't even plug in a usb keyboard.  Guess they'll go back to the closet for a while.

[Capn_Fish]

In what way is debian slow(er than pdaXrom)?
Emacs runs much faster and more responsive in EABI. Many browsers, too.
Yet OABI (titchy) is indeed slow...

I don't remember specifics. All I remember is it being slow enough that I stopped playing with it out of frustration in 5 minutes (this was EABI).

I'll stop complaining about Debian now, as I'm obviously in the minority. Maybe I'm just used to things being really quick.

[ZDevil]

Hey, man, easy! There is no need to start this kind of love-or-hatred discussions, even though we are all Z enthusiasts.  

[ZDevil]

Where is the best how-to for getting a working debian??

 The most straightforward install is from the TitchyLinux site. However it gives you a hybrid system with an EABI kernel and an OABI filesystem.  

   However I do not know that the ambicom cards work and this method needs a working network. So it may be a non-starter for you. However searching the   pinned thread with the title Debian Arm on C3XXX for ambicom might help.  

That thread will solve your installation problems if the ambicom works on TitchyLinux. I suspevct it does because I believe that ZDevil did start out with TitchyLinux.

Assuming you get a working system with TitchyLinux and your ambicom the contents of the interface file should give you some help with moving on to the EABI versions.

I have to say that there I did a lot of floundering about in getting to the EABI stage. The later threads do seem to be offering slightly more friendly procedures though.

Myself, I'm going to wait a bit longer in the hopes that there will be an official EABI/armel Debian soon which can be installed the Titchylinux way.

Good Luck!

Yes, I started out with Titchy, just like quite a few early debian adopters here. In fact Titchy, despite some glitches (mainly sound and speed), it is still quite a usable system, and it did surprise many of us when we saw this happen on the Z for the first time: a full-fledged standard linux distro running on this tiny little machine. And it was exactly Titchy that stimulated the excitement about Debian here, ever since the Pocketworkstation.

As some users have suggested before, perhaps it would be better to have a more standard installation method/installer. But it takes time to prepare and before that we need a truly working and stable environment.

To make it brief, there are two main paths to follow:
PATH #1: If you don't care about sound and high speed, and just want to have debian running and prefer the standard way of installing it, you may try to take a look at my poorly made slideshow long ago: http://www.flickr.com/photos/50659119@N00/...157702606/show/
PATH #2: If you want to get most of the things working OOTB and more speedy, then try to start from scratch here: https://www.oesf.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=25029 . The first post should be enough to walk you through the process. ( I know mplayer is not working nicely, so don't blame me on that  )

I believe running EABI is much easier now because it has already been added into the Lenny branch, so packages and repos shouldn't cause any bigger trouble than all other supported architectures.

Good luck and just share what you find.