Debian on Gemini - Usage

[Adam Boardman]

I'm uncertain if the second part of you did was required, but so long as it works.

[ArchiMark]

I'm uncertain if the second part of you did was required, but so long as it works.

It was...

I tried just the first part and still no go. So, logged out again and did as I wrote in prior post and Voila! It worked!

[Adam Boardman]

Good stuff, the latest thing is that you can install gemian-leds and to get the caps lock led to work.

[ArchiMark]

Great....

Onward and upward.....

 

[ArchiMark]

Got caps lock LED working...no more blue LED!

Battery status app is not working, correct?

if so, is there way to fix?

Thanks.

[Adam Boardman]

The battery status green circle shows how much is left, the clicking on it thing is nonsense it seems.

[ArchiMark]

The battery status green circle shows how much is left, the clicking on it thing is nonsense it seems.

OK, now I get it....

Thanks!

[ArchiMark]

Got another one.....

Ethernet Connection

At home it would be nice to use my wired ethernet connection.

Is the Debian image setup for this or does one need to some installs and/or configuration to get it working.

I have the Gemini hub which has ethernet port at the end of it. However, one light is green and other is orange at port when cable plugged in.

Tried pinging, but says network unreachable.

Did ifconfig and think ethernet is rndis0. Tried doing ifup rndis0, but says not found....

Any suggestions?


Thanks.

[ArchiMark]

OK, now another one....

Relates to DebianTP webpage, heading 'Sleep on close'.

Did as instructed, and after using Gemini, I closed it up. If I click on the silver side button, I hear the time announcement. That's the good news...


Meanwhile, have no idea how to wake up Gemini, so tried various keys.

Clicked Esc key and get this world map graphic with yellow dots on some locations in the world. No hint on screen regarding unlocking.

Clicked Enter key: I get a blue circle with word 'verifying...' on display. Then after a bit, circle turns red and says 'wrong!'

What is key(s) to get Gemini unlocked?

Thanks.

UPDATE

OK, figured out how to unlock....

When you see the world map screen, type the Gemini password and it unlocks....


UPDATE 2

Noticed an item in taskbar 'Screen Saver Activation Error'. Clicked on it and window popped up that says:

An error occurred starting screensaver. Action 'activate' failed. Ensure you have xscreensaver installed and running'.

[Grench]

You folks here working on the Debian items might have some insights to a few issues I'm seeing on Android.

Above was a discussion where the lid switch was activated under Debian.  I want to change how it works on Android.  Is the lid switch in the Keyboard matrix (keycode?) or does it live on it's own weird GPIO elsewhere or other?

Debian has it's own keyboard mapping - which may be better than what is on Android.  Within Debian, do Fn+arrows work?  I.e. is PgUp, PgDn, Home, End working on the Debian side?  If so - good, that means there is hope.  Is there a table of keycodes generated by keys that can be shared?

Thanks!

[Adam Boardman]

Grench - We changed our kernel so that it doesn't use F11/12 for the lid switch:
https://github.com/gemian/gemini-linux-kern...47c8967963d6b0f

The android kernel will still be sending F11/12 keys.

Yes we have our own key maps, and all the keys can be made to do useful/appropriate things:
https://github.com/gemian/xkeyboard-config/...net_vndr/gemini

Uncertain how you would make use of any of this in Android, unless your re-building your own version some how (Lineage OS)?

Crucial things to know about keyboards - the Gemini closes on its keys, this means that they fire off random key presses on the close and the open and sometimes full scale repeat for the entire duration of the closed lid state. In debian we handle this with both turning off the screen/keyboard and launching a lock screen to eat key presses. It will be interesting to figure out the HDMI+USB/BT keyboard+closed device user story once we get to working on that side of things.

--

Mark - Ethernet not supported yet, theoretically there are USB drivers available for the dongle, just need to debug it/figure out why they aren't being picked up automatically, not looked into it yet, probably not worth looking into until we've decided on the best cellular connectivity solution.

The rndis is the usb tethering that can be used for initial setup when connected to a PC via the USB cable.

You can activate the screen saver (sleep) with the fn+esc key combination. We don't use xscreensaver, isn't that the animated type screen-saver rather than a power efficient sleep?

[Grench]

Grench - We changed our kernel so that it doesn't use F11/12 for the lid switch:
https://github.com/gemian/gemini-linux-kern...47c8967963d6b0f

The android kernel will still be sending F11/12 keys.

Yes we have our own key maps, and all the keys can be made to do useful/appropriate things:
https://github.com/gemian/xkeyboard-config/...net_vndr/gemini

Uncertain how you would make use of any of this in Android, unless your re-building your own version some how (Lineage OS)?

Crucial things to know about keyboards - the Gemini closes on its keys, this means that they fire off random key presses on the close and the open and sometimes full scale repeat for the entire duration of the closed lid state. In debian we handle this with both turning off the screen/keyboard and launching a lock screen to eat key presses. It will be interesting to figure out the HDMI+USB/BT keyboard+closed device user story once we get to working on that side of things.

Thank you - that helps a lot.  My interest is in being to document the issues on the Android keyboard & lid switch in the faint hope that they might get fixed in the Gemini Android keyboard driver.  Since the Debian group here has, 'been there done that', I thank you for your assistance in documentation.

Android lid switch is F11/F12.  So it's behavior should be governed in the Planet keyboard app.

Can you verify that PgUp/PgDn/Home/End are returning their proper keycodes and functioning normally in Debian applications?  (These do not work at all in Android on the Gemini US keyboard definition.)  Likely just a value change in a table.

Thank you!

[ArchiMark]

Mark - Ethernet not supported yet, theoretically there are USB drivers available for the dongle, just need to debug it/figure out why they aren't being picked up automatically, not looked into it yet, probably not worth looking into until we've decided on the best cellular connectivity solution.

The rndis is the usb tethering that can be used for initial setup when connected to a PC via the USB cable.

Thanks for explaining.....understand current situation...

You can activate the screen saver (sleep) with the fn+esc key combination. We don't use xscreensaver, isn't that the animated type screen-saver rather than a power efficient sleep?

Thanks for this info...

Regarding xscreensaver, I was just surprised to see the error message and thought it good to report it.

You're right, it's the animated screen-saver....

[ArchiMark]

WiFi - Guest Network - Captive Portal - Login Problem

Per my earlier posts on page 1 of this thread, I am still not able to get to login page on web browsers for the guest network at my workplace.

WiFi works well on Gemini everywhere except at my workplace.

I know it should work as I'm able to connect easily to guest network with all my other little laptops that run Win 10 or Linux.

Even though I can see the guest network and shows I'm connected in cmst, the browsers will not go to the login page.

Have tried with Firefox ESR and Chromium included in Debian image.

The guest network at my company is the type where you have to see the login page, click on checkbox to agree to terms & conditions, then click on connect button, then you get taken to a company related webpage, and you're good to go web-surfing wherever you like.

I've looked through the various items in Connman/cmst windows, and tinkered a bit with some settings, but nothing seems to fix this.

Have tried various suggestions mentioned on various websites about not connecting to public WiFi networks, but nothing works. Have tried typing in the network IP address in browser, typing in neverssl.com, etc.

In the Details tab, it says:

Connection: wifi_0009345a845c_4b61697365724775657374_managed_none

Service Details:
Service Type: WiFi
Service State: Ready
Favorite: Yes
External Configuration File: No
Auto Connect: On

Name Servers
8.8.4.4
8.8.8.8

Time Servers
192.168.0.1

IPv4
IP Address Acquisition: DHCP
IP Address: 192.168.0.11
IP Netmask: 255.255.255.0
IP Gateway: 192.168.0.1

IPv6
section is blank

Ethernet
Connection Method: Auto
Interface: wlan0
Device Address: 00:09:34:5A:84:5C
MTU: 1500

Wireless
Security: None
Strength: 60
Roaming: No

Proxy
Address Acquisition: Direct

VPN Provider

section is empty


In browser, I get following message:

Unable to connect

Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 10.224.128.40

In URL field, I see:

10.224.128.40/upload/custom/PK-EDGE-CP/index.html?cmd=login&mac=00:09:34:5a:84:5c&ip=192.168.0.11&essid=%20&url=http%3A%2F%2neverssl%2Ecom%2F

*** Please note that I altered a few letters/numbers in the URL above.

Again, the Gemini PDA connects OK to my WiFi network at home, but there I am able to enter password myself.

If you need me to check on some things and provide info, let me know.

Any suggestions of what to do to be able to get to the login page would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Mark

[ArchiMark]

Reading about Connman online....

Want to find the file that is holding the name servers info, so I can delete the current google server info.

Just looked at the 'settings' file in /var/lib/connman.

Not much there...but here's what's written (changed name of guest network to hide company name):

OfflineMode=false

[WiFi]
Enable=true
Tethering=false
Tethering.Identifier=XxxxxxGuest


[Bluetooth]
Enable=true
Tethering=false

Just tried to check what is in /var/lib/connman/wifi_0009345a845c_4b61697365724775657374_managed_none directory and can't get in.

$ cd ./wifi_0009345a845c_4b61697365724775657374_managed_none
Permission denied

$ sudo cd ./wifi_0009345a845c_4b61697365724775657374_managed_none
sudo: cd: command not found

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Mark