john robert boynton: ipaq 3800 Linux

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 00:12:56 GMT

Status.... I mostly don't use the ipaq. For some reason, when the battery says it's at 50%, it becomes unusable. Every second or so it Opie pops up a dialog that it's time to recharge. Supposedly there's 50% left, so it's pretty stupid of Opie to make the computer unusable at that point. I did, at one point, track down some information about how to fix that problem, but I'm *tired* of screwing around with it. The last I saw, Familiar on ipaq was not ready for prime time, and it didn't seem like anyone was testing it on the 3800 series. So every now and then I copy the content of an article off the internet onto the ipaq and read it at the cafe. But usually when I want to do that, the battery is dead, because it runs down to unusable in a few days. So I have to plan ahead -- give it time to charge before I go to the cafe. It's mostly not worth it to me. I've got plenty of things to do. It's *very* disappointing to me. Compaq's design was wretched, but the potential is so close.... If they had just done a few things right instead of wrong, this could have been an awesome little computer. Now, *maybe* -- if I get the newest version of the software, fix the battery problem, and use it consistently -- it will live up to a little more of the potential. But I'm reluctant to waste any more time installing the operating system over (and over) again. Ultimately the problem is that it is really not a pocket device. Compaq stupidly made a 'sleeve' to protect the screen, made the device itself slippery without the sleeve, and required a separate sleeve for a compact flash card (for networking, say). Even if I got all the software and the wifi working, it still takes a backpack to carry all the stuff around. But *someday*, someone will come out with a decent, light handheld that you can attack to a decent keyboard. That'll be cool.

Fri, 03 Jan 2003 15:34:00 GMT

Update on crashes. If I am careful to wait about five seconds between disconnecting the power, removing the network card, removing the sleeve, and turning the power off, it seems that I can reconnect the sleeve and insert the network card with crashing. I also recharged while suspended in X-windows (instead of opie) and didn't have to reboot. That was nice. I'd like to think that if I would upgrade to Familiar 0.6 that I could switch back to opie without rebooting, but the upgrade looked like it had the potential for peril, and it's just not worth another day of futzing right now.

Fri, 03 Jan 2003 15:20:56 GMT

When I put photographs on my ipaq 3800 with Familiar, they seem *way* too dark. To get them to look about right, I use photoshop to change the "gamma". File -> Adjust -> Levels, then change the value from 1.0 to 2.0 on the dialog:

Sat, 09 Nov 2002 20:27:16 GMT

Update.... Since my late-October install of Opie, the 3800 crashes consistently when it recharges with the power "off". As far as I know, it crashes when it hits full charge, because after rebooting it has always turned out to be fully charged. I haven't tested whether it crashes the moment it is fully charged, or if it happens after some period of time.

Thu, 24 Oct 2002 23:31:52 GMT

Update on opie.... The worst thing is that it crashes now when turned off. If I turn it off before it's fully charged, it might not come back on. Anyway, rebooting is only an embarrassment, not much of a problem. I'm *very* sad that jove (an emacs-like text editor) doesn't work in the opie terminal. It also didn't work over the serial cable, but has been reliable over ethernet and with the stowaway keyboard. When I switch to the terminal, it seems to insert a weird escape sequence on the command line. Konqueror is pretty nice. I use a stylesheet for a lot of the web documents I carry around. People are impressed. It also runs javascript, so I can show off my small library of javascript-based user interface components.

Sun, 20 Oct 2002 17:04:27 GMT

Installing opie *again*. The first exciting event is that ipkg install keeps stopping. Maybe their server is overloaded? Maybe that was the problem the last time I tried to install opie. All it takes to get beyond this -- apparently -- is persistence. Keep running ipkg install task-opie, and eventually it will get through. There's an opie manual now. The installation chapter tells you not to install x-windows. It doesn't say what to do if you already have x-windows installed. But it does tell you that ipaq 3100 and 3800 owners have to install qt-embedded-rotation. I've forgotten to do that once or twice. The manual says opie will launch at the end of installation. It didn't for me. Perhaps because x-windows was already running, starting opie was a bit of a disaster. Then I rebooted, but the ipaq crashed. That's probably the kernel problem related to power and the compact flash sleeve. Hmm. But the instructions didn't say 'task-opie-complete', which is what I've used before. Oops. Trying to install task-opie-complete gives me a Segmentation Fault error. That's not so good. A few other packages give the same error, but many don't. Hooray! Minesweep installed ok. I'm holding my breath about Konqueror, which is really the only point to installing opie, for me. Tried to install irda support. First I got this problem: ipkg install opie-irdaapplet ERROR: Cannot satisfy the following dependencies for opie-irdaapplet: openobex This could mean that your package list is out of date, (try "ipkg update"), or that the packages mentioned above do not yet exist. To proceed in spite of this problem, try again with the `-force-depends' option. Using force-depends, I got this problem: Installing opie-irdaapplet (0.9.1-20020923.1)
Configuring opie-irdaapplet.../opt/QtPalmtop/bin/qcop: error while loading shared libraries: libqpe.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
pkg_run_script: `/usr/lib/ipkg/info/opie-irdaapplet.postinst configure' failed.
ERROR: opie-irdaapplet.postinst returned 127 Darn. Well, in all the years I've had a Palm device, I've only ever used the infrared beaming three or four times. As long as Konqueror works, I'll be happy. Joy! No segfault for install konqueror. Seems like the last time I tried to install konqueror it was off in some random feed somewhere. Now it's in the main feed at: http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/ipaq/Packages It's not only there, but it installs and works. I'm glad. My idea is to wave this ipaq in front of some folks tomorrow. I want to show both Konqueror and Dillo, as examples of the cutting edge of web usability. Opie doesn't notice when you install or remove apps. Sigh. But you don't have to reboot: /etc/init.d/opie stop
/etc/init.d/opie start Next issue: switching between opie and x-windows. No problem, right? Just ipkg install wswap (from the familiar unstable feed). To swap from OPIE to X, click the 'X' icon in 'Settings'
To swap from X to OPIE, click 'Utilities/Switch to OPIE' It doesn't quite seem to work. I seem to be able to switch from opie to x, but when I try to switch back to opie from x, nothing happens on the screen. In my shell, I get the message: swap to q: q already running! I noticed the following error message: swap from qt to x
sh: /etc/init.d/qpe: No such file or directory It looks like I have an old version of wswap, that tries to use "qpe" not "opie". I couldn't figure out where I could edit, but I made /etc/init.d/qpe a soft link to opie, and that seemed to break everything. So then I tried some batch files of my own. #!/bin/sh
/etc/init.d/x stop
/etc/init.d/x start
#!/bin/sh
/etc/init.d/opie stop
/etc/init.d/opie start That seems to work. X-windows seems to wipe everything out and start fresh, but opie seems to come back in the same state I left it. The problem is that after I switch from opie to x and then back, the whole thing crashes when I turn the power off, and I have to reboot. Sigh. Stay tuned, campers.

Sat, 21 Sep 2002 16:09:14 GMT

More ipaq/linux joy. Got a 64MB Multimedia card. Up until now, I've downloaded a batch of mp3s into the memory that goes away on reboot. I keep forgetting to download them again after a reboot. So now I can have twice as many mp3s, and they won't go away if I have to reboot. (Remember that SD cards don't work with ipaq linux -- SD cards require closed-source, proprietary drivers.) I stuck the card in my ipaq 3800. Where's it show up? Well, you have to mount it: mkdir /mnt/mmc
mount -o sync /dev/mmc/part1 /mnt/card

Thu, 05 Sep 2002 16:32:52 GMT

Joy in Mudville! Linux for the ipaq 3800 finally supports the Stowaway keyboard! This morning I sat in Cafe Borrone playing jazz mp3s on my ipaq while I wrote an article on cookies and session maintenance for transaction-oriented websites. Instead of carrying a laptop, I had slipped the ipaq in my back pocket, the headphones in my jacket pocket, and carried the folded keyboard.

Sun, 25 Aug 2002 19:09:14 GMT

Fixed two bugs in the cgi text buffer script I linked to a few days ago. The previous version wouldn't delete the previous contents of the text buffer. The new version also uses the correct hostname variable. The update is at the same url: text_buf.pl Please contact me if you find bugs.

Sat, 24 Aug 2002 16:36:27 GMT

For my next trick.... I took my ipaq 3800 and stowaway keyboard up to LinuxWorld. An HP guy went through the steps to get the keyboard working, and it wouldn't. Then he tried to get it working on one of his 3800s -- installed the driver, went through all the steps.... Didn't work. So the next trick is to go back to the ipaq mailing list and ask again.

Tue, 20 Aug 2002 23:35:35 GMT

Wrote a little cgi script that works as a clipboard-like text buffer on a web server. I find it useful as a way to copy/paste between computers. Only use it on an intranet -- protected from potential attacks. text_buf.pl Please contact me if you find bugs. I apologize in advance if you look at the code; it wasn't meant to be pretty. If you use Windows you could try out my clipboard microserver, which reads and writes the Windows text copy/paste buffer from a single-purpose web server. I found it very useful before I de-borged.

Sat, 17 Aug 2002 16:58:30 GMT

Spent some time at LinuxWorld this week. Here are some random impressions. Big companies took up the floorspace. IBM, Sun, HP. Oops. That's all the big companies that are left. (Ha, ha.) Looking around, there were lots of "suits" -- not wearing suits, of course. The intense discussions were about big hardware sales. The second day I was there I looked harder for fun stuff. Happy Hacker keyboards were there. KDE and Open Office were there. The folks that have Microsoft Office running on Linux were there. For $300 you could buy the Sharp handheld running Linux. Last year, the exciting thing was Linux on handhelds. This year you could actually buy one on the floor, but there was no "buzz". I mean, what I look for is clusters of little booths attacking the same problem in slightly different ways. Linux on handhelds didn't have much buzz. But there was progress, after all. I have Linux running on an ipaq, myself. Open Office 1.0 was released -- they were handing out CDs. Last year I asked the KDE guy about support for two monitors (at a time), and he said they were working on it. This year, the same guy was there, and said he has two monitors running, himself. He seemed to be rather proud of the way KDE supports two monitors, as well. Red Hat was there, but Ximian wasn't. I'm still looking for one smart vendor to sell a home server appliance for $500. It should be quiet, low power, and have a big hard drive and a raft of servers. The idea is that anyone with more than one computer could use a home server that's always on. The Cobalt Qube would have been the right thing, but the price needed to come down, rather than go up. Maybe next year?

Tue, 06 Aug 2002 03:15:02 GMT

More Stowaway.... Before I left for vacation, I reverted to Wince. The keyboard worked, but required frequent rebooting. I emailed Targus support, and they wrote back (promptely) that ActiveSync grabs the serial port, and so you have to reboot after that. This is to say that my hardware is known to work, and the Wince reboot problem is handled in the normal setup under Linux. So why doesn't my keyboard work under Linux?

Thu, 04 Jul 2002 23:41:04 GMT

Getting the Stowaway keyboard to work on the ipaq. Note that the ipaq 3800 needs a little adaptor that should now come with the keyboard, or you can get the adaptor separately from targus or "think outside". Stop the console from going to the serial port by creating a file called /boot/params with the following content (all on one line, even though it might wrap in your browser): set linuxargs "noinitrd root=/dev/mtdblock1 init=/linuxrc" After you do this and reboot, you should see console message scrolling on the screen when you boot. On my version of opie, console messages also burst onto the screen. Turn off getty.... In the file: /etc/inittab Comment out (put a pound sign aka hash) on this line, so it looks like: #T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L /dev/ttySA0 115200 vt100 To be sure you got it, after reboot you can run the following command: ps -ax That gives you a list of the processes that are running. If none of the lines have the word "getty", you're on the right track. The commands that are supposed to get the keyboard to work (once you've stopped getty and blocked the console from going to the serial port): insmod h3600_stowaway The respons I get is: Using /lib/modules/2.4.18-rmk3/kernel/drivers/char/h3600_stowaway.o Now type: cat /dev/stowaway Open another shell and you should be able to type. I'm not, but apparently that's a different problem.

Tue, 02 Jul 2002 15:34:34 GMT

Nifty opie trick for conserving battery juice: On the light and power settings screen there's a slider for the light. I slide it to off, but don't tap OK. The next tap anywhere on the screen puts the light back at the level it was. For example, when I want to listen to mp3s in the dark, I conserve power, but the light will come back when I tap anywhere on the screen -- way better than trying to adjust the light settings in the dark with the light off.

Mon, 01 Jul 2002 17:47:24 GMT

opie: Sometimes opie apps won't start for me. It's because opie seems to need a fair amount of space in /tmp to run anything. Why's that? I usually stick a bunch of mp3s in /tmp. Well, maybe soon I'll have a friendly MMC for my mp3s. Also, when I use the shell, I always want to press the center button of the cursor control to hit 'enter'. That usually worked with ice, but with opie, all heck breaks loose. Little bug, I guess. Ooh! It's a trifecta: opie's smart enough to time out. In general that's fine, but it's bad for playing mp3s. (Since I'm not smart enough to figure out how to use the media player, I'm just running a shell script to start madplay.) When I turn the ipaq off, then turn it back on, madplay doesn't resume. Or, let's say it does, but only with a buzzing sound. Using ice, that wasn't a problem; madplay would just pick up where it left off.

Fri, 28 Jun 2002 23:33:50 GMT

Update.... Konqueror on opie/linux/ipaq *does* support stylesheets. But it *doesn't* use the handheld stylesheet if there is one. I was so thrilled at the idea, that I didn't keep testing. In fact what happens is that Konqueror loads *both* stylesheets, so that the last one overrides the first. So Konqueror on the desktop looks just like Konqueror on the handheld. Try my other site. Here's a konq screenshot [new window]. Oops. Konqueror also doesn't have the brains to wrap lines of text at the width of the screen, rather than the width of the table. Dillo is smarter in that respect.

Thu, 27 Jun 2002 15:25:34 GMT

CF ethernet weirdness.... I put the ipaq in the sleeve, then stuck the ethernet card in. No connection. Turn the ipaq on. No connection. I removed the ethernet, turned the ipaq off, removed the ipaq, turned the ipaq on, inserted ethernet, and now the connection works. That's better than rebooting, but darn!

Tue, 25 Jun 2002 23:26:24 GMT

Hey, stop the presses! Konqueror on opie/linux/ipaq *does* support stylesheets, and it uses the handheld stylesheet if there is one. This is great! Update: Alas, Konq does *not* know to use a handheld stylesheet -- it just uses stylesheets in order -- so if the handhelds stylesheet is listed second, Konq uses it -- regardless of the device. Try my other site. Here's a konq screenshot [new window]. Oops. What it doesn't have is the brains to wrap lines of text at the width of the screen, rather than the width of the table. Dillo is smarter in that respect.

Tue, 25 Jun 2002 17:57:42 GMT

A problem with Konqueror and thttpd: I have a copy of Twelfth Night on my ipaq, in a file with a .txt extension. Dillo displayed it as a text file. Konqueror treats it as html -- ignoring carriage returns, so that the whole thing appears as one paragraph. Boy does that suck. Also, the opie text editor is one of these stupifaction devices that will only open files *it* thinks it should open. I couldn't edit /boot/params with it, for instance. Meanwhile the opie terminal program wastes so much screen space that you only have nine lines visible when the handwriting recognition pane is visible. That's ok for entering a command, but isn't much good if you want to use an editor. I also couldn't just comment out the line of text in nano, because it forced a carriage return into the middle of the line. And as far as I know, you can't rotate opie to landscape mode. (There is a command to get nano not to wrap lines, but I forget what it is.)

Mon, 24 Jun 2002 23:26:56 GMT

If your ipaq 3800 battery runs dead, you don't have to try to reboot while it's in the cradle, of course. I forgot. You can unhook the power from the cradle, and plug it into the ipaq directly.

Sun, 23 Jun 2002 22:45:31 GMT

Meanwhile, the mailing list archive at handhelds.org has changed a bunch of urls. You can find things in Google's cache, but any links from the cached item will be as broken as the regular links in the search results, or any links in archived email messages. This is a disaster, given that searching the mailing list is basically your only hope of finding useful information.

Sun, 23 Jun 2002 20:59:49 GMT

Using opie. It looks ok. The handwriting is a little weird, but mostly works fine. I can't figure out how to enter "control" so I can save a document in nano, though. I switch to the keyboard, press the control key combination, then switch back to handwriting recognition. Konqueror is much nicer to use than Dillo. It's mostly a matter of less wasted chrome, but it also supports javascript and lets me magnify text. No css, alas. What's up with that? Konqueror also fails to display character entities -- at least everywhere I've seen Konqueror. Why is that hard? Are they asleep? The biggest gui flaw is that there's no way to get to the application-launching tabs while an application is running. Not that they really need the tabs, but if they're there, why not let them be useful. Oops. I just found the Set Application Key program on the settings menu. This makes it easy to assign software to the buttons. One of the buttons is assigned to "Home", and that means to display the tabs. The media player is beyond me, and crashed the system. Maybe someone else knows how to make it work. I will admit that I want a Mine Hunt game. Opie's is decent. The tap and hold is better than Palm's game. But Palm's doesn't have a stupid smiley face. Why should a gui be degrading? In fact, tap-and-hold is the big advantage of opie over x-windows with the ICE window manager. I found the "Today" setting so it wouldn't come up whenever I turn the power on. But changing the setting didn't affect the behavior. The good news is that opie lets you uninstall "Today". (Wince 3.0 doesn't let you do that.)

Sat, 22 Jun 2002 05:40:45 GMT

installing opie -- stream-of-installation notes at my other website.

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 21:36:08 GMT

Upgraded to Familiar 0.5.2. I think my error message yesterday was because I upgraded the kernel without getting the matching distribution. I use the ICE window manager (for no particular reason). With the new version of Familiar, the theme "metal-small" appeared. This is a *big* improvement. It's easy to hide the menu/status bar at the bottom. The bar at the top has a drop-down list of tasks, and over on the right are arrows to step forward or back through the tasks. Alas, the keyboard still doesn't work.