Watapon ROM

[Chaos]

Well, I basically decided to say "screw it" about my plans for December release.

Next version coming up in a few weeks.  1.6, probably. I've been working on it slowly, but steadily.

Removed the media player (too crappy to live), and also swapped out QT/Opie Reader (will be in an IPK). In their place is QPDF2, probably an overall more useful application to most people.

Also, I'm going to compile Busybox 1.0.0-rc3 and use it.  ar, bzip, etc. built in in this version. I'll create as many symlinks for the commands as I can, all of them if I need to.  Lots of fun stuff compared to to the old one Sharp used.

Also I'm going to play with MPlayer and create a shell script with, so to speak, optimized options for Mplayer and package it up as an IPK. Of course it'll have to be run from a terminal, but if all goes well it'll just be typing in something like "playmplayer.sh path/to/movie.avi" and it'll "automatically" drop frames, go fullscreen, etc...  If anyone already knows a "best" set of options to us with Mplayer on the 5600, please, speak up!

So look forward to that, and probably more, in a few weeks.

Oh yeah, I figured a way to backup the PIM, and ONLY the PIM.  I'll create a script for those who can't sync but want to upgrade.  Maybe it'll backup Documents and some Settings or Application files as well... Just make the whole process as streamlined as possible.

[TJRCHKA]

Hello Chaos,

I haven't tried your ROM yet, I'm about to. I have to say I appreciate you working on this.
I wish there was someway I could contribute.
 I say QPDF2 was a good idea, I think PDFs are very convenient documents.
Can you somehow get VLC (video LAN controller--? I think that's what it stands for) going? I have some games on the sharp rom (special kernel 1.3), will the Apps (games) I have now work with your ROM?


Thanks again

TJ

[Chaos]

VLC = Video LAN Client

The Zaurus version is command-line only (and I'm nowhere near good enough to write a front-end for Qtopia), so it was a tossup between that and Mplayer. Personally I've used Mplayer for a while on my Linux box and like it, so I decided to use it in an IPK, as I said above.

Any games (or any other applications for that matter) you install should work if they work on the Sharp ROM. Of course you'd have to install all the dependancies, like libSDL.

I've actually added a few libraries to the base ROM, so I'll probably list those somewhere...

[TJRCHKA]

I went to install some of my Apps I had before your ROM, and the installer says this
"The filename of this package includes character this application can't handle. Please change the filename and retry install. "

This is a game called "Froot", you may notice improper grammar, this is verbatim the text. Other applications give me the same message, these are the same installers I used before.

Anyway any insight is appreciated, I have to say the GUI is quite nice, I love the icons.

And for the first time since I have owned the 2: SL-5600 + SMC2642 wifi card, the card never would see any networks now it sees my Airport basestation and gets signal. This is a first.

But it never finalizes after intializing.

Thanks again for working on the ROM.
TJ

[Chaos]

Hmm, the filename issue could just be a minor error... I've never had an issue.

Try going into the Terminal, and changing to the directory where the IPKs are stored.

i.e. if it's in the internal flash:

cd /home/zaurus/Documents

OR

cd /home/zaurus/Documents/Install_Files

or on a SD card...

cd /mnt/card/

OR

cd /mnt/card/Documents/Install_Files

If you know basic Linux you should have no trouble.

Once you're in the correct directory, use "ls" to list the files.

Type in (I'll use froot as an example)...

mv froot<Hit tab to autocomplete the rest> froot.ipk

This simplifies the name as much as possible, hopefully stopping it complaining. Try installing again.

EDIT: Oh yeah, theoretically you could use the GUI document tab to do this as well. Just tap-and-hold on the package, and hit "Rename".

[TJRCHKA]

Hey Chaos I tried what you said, (I'm not that good with the terminal yet, but I tried from the GUI) GUI did not work, I clicked to rename and nothing happened. Then I realized I had the put all my installers in a seperate folder on my Compact flash card. I moved one App right to the "root" of the card, and viola it was able to install. I guess it was a directory confusion. The apps are working fine now. THanks again.

TJ

[Chaos]

Hmm, did the directory you originally had them in have a space in it or some symbol or something, perhaps?

Having a space or any other non-alphanumeric character (also excluding -, _, and .) may have caused the problem...

Oh yeah, Busybox will be 1.00 (they released it today). And that's if I can get my current 200 KB busybox binary down small enough (down to about 150 KB or 100 KB). Maybe using strip I can get it to do it...

[TJRCHKA]

I don't know, I never checked on that level; like the script of the location of where the installers were.--sorry.  

I wonder if you can provide any insight as to how to connect to my wifi network. I have the WEP (hex) and it sees the network, gets signal but does not finalize. Just intializes. It's a SMC2642. Which is a Prism 2.5 chipset. And I'm trying to connect to a Snow Airport basestation.

Again Thanks.

TJ

[Chaos]

Hmm, try turning off WEP on your access point (just for a short time) and see if it can connect with no WEP, maybe.

If it can, then the problem is narrowed down significantly, to being either a WEP issue with the card, a WEP issue with the ROM, or a general issue between some combination of the above and the access point.

Hmm, it might have something to do with being Prism 2.5 based, as opposed to the Prism 2 based that most of the other common Prism chipset cards are (like the Linksys WCF12 that I have). I really don't have any great ideas for a solution, unfortunately. I did a ZUG search and a Google and still came up pretty dry... Others have had issues with this card, but it supposedly does work.


Edit: On Busybox... I'm leaving the binary at just over 230 KB because overall it's smaller, since I setup wget and vi both to run through busybox instead of standalone binaries. Also removed ash since having sh, bash and ash seems really overkill. So at the end of this process, I ended with about 200 KB of extra space compared to before. Looks like adding back in QT/Opie Reader might happen.

[tapjpa]

Chaos-

Just gave your ROM a try and all I can say is "WOW".
It has everything I've been looking for in one very nice looking package.
Feeds work perfect! Great selection of Apps!
Looking forward to 1.6.

Thanks for the hard work

Jim

[Chaos]

Just gave your ROM a try and all I can say is "WOW".
It has everything I've been looking for in one very nice looking package.
Feeds work perfect! Great selection of Apps!
Looking forward to 1.6.

Thanks for the hard work

Thanks! I'm going hard on 1.6, so it's bound to be real nice. More apps (with the use of Busybox 1.00 [now including wget and vi in it, instead of standalone], and removal of the real useless ash [we have sh and bash, so why need another shell??]), like QPDF2 added.

The feed is going to be slimmed down in 1.6, because I don't use the games, nor a couple other packages (so I can't test them to ensure their workability; I do know some don't work properly - I want it all to work; bit of a perfectionist when it comes to computers). So it's going to be cut down to basically the good apps that I use (NeIC, opie-oxygen, and a few others), along with some network security testing tools (like Kismet, Nmap, Zethereal, Nemessis, a few others). Fun stuff like that.

Look forward to 1.6.0 on Oct. 24th, unless I run into problems. Probably I won't though.  Once you get the hang of things, ROM building is easy enough to have fun with it.

Also, it's really great to get compliments from a ZUG co-admin.

[TJRCHKA]

I gotta say I was pretty excited today when I went to work with your ROM Chaos, cause with no additional settings I was able to access my jobs wireless network. Whammo your website came up.  Thanks for your helpful suggestions. I would have tried to change the settings on my Apple Basestation but I don't have my Mac right now. By the way my job has all Basestations without WEP.  Thanks again.

TJ

[Chaos]

I gotta say I was pretty excited today when I went to work with your ROM Chaos, cause with no additional settings I was able to access my jobs wireless network. Whammo your website came up.  Thanks for your helpful suggestions. I would have tried to change the settings on my Apple Basestation but I don't have my Mac right now. By the way my job has all Basestations without WEP.  Thanks again.

TJ

So that might mean the WEP on the Apple basestation is causing the problem...

Hmm, you're card is an 802.11b card, right? And the basestation also uses 802.11b? (802.11b is referred to by Apple as "Airport", whereas 802.11g is often referred to as "Airport Extreme" by Apple.)

If it's both 802.11b, then I'm pretty stumped. I've never played with WEP much (my network is totally unsecured since I've never had time to make it encrypted), but my school has WEP, and I'm currently trying to crack it (since the network admin is annoying and refuses to give out the WEP key, he wants to enter it himself [which I don't want anyone touching my Zaurus] - of course it's also a learning experience for me). Once I do I'll be able to confirm that WEP does work (at least on the WCF12) on Watapon, hence narrowing down the problem to either the Apple basestation, or the specific wireless card (or a combination thereof).

Of course anyone else is welcome to confirm that WEP works themselves before I get the chance to.

[zen_cabbie]

First I have to say thank you for a great ROM. I had been looking for a new ROM specifically for the 5600 and yours was the best one I had found (so far....)

Secondly, I am having some problems installing files from the Terminal
I'm trying to install some Libraries for XMMS (for some reason the included media player does not work, at least in my case). I use the following command : ipkg -install <filename>

I continually get back this error:
<ERROR> File not found: /usr/lib/ipkg/lists/WataponFeed
You probably want to run 'ipkg update'
zcat: <filename>: not in gzip format
zcat: stdin: unexpected end of file ipkg_install_file: ERROR unpacking control.tar.gz from <filename>

What am I doing wrong?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

J

[Chaos]

First I have to say thank you for a great ROM. I had been looking for a new ROM specifically for the 5600 and yours was the best one I had found (so far....)

Secondly, I am having some problems installing files from the Terminal
I'm trying to install some Libraries for XMMS (for some reason the included media player does not work, at least in my case). I use the following command : ipkg -install <filename>

I continually get back this error:
<ERROR> File not found: /usr/lib/ipkg/lists/WataponFeed
You probably want to run 'ipkg update'
zcat: <filename>: not in gzip format
zcat: stdin: unexpected end of file ipkg_install_file: ERROR unpacking control.tar.gz from <filename>

What am I doing wrong?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

J

The XMMS 0.00007 release is in the OZ package format. Not compatible with Sharp based ROMs. From the errors, that's where I assume you're installing from.