Re: X11 on small systems? (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Joshua Judson Rosen  writes:
> > Joshua Judson Rosen  writes:
> > >
> > > I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
> > > now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:
> > >
> > > http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
> > >
> > > They're $99, but they ship from Hong Kong so shipping a single unit
> > > adds ~$30 to the price; shipping more units together increases
> > > the shipping-price but only ~logarithmically, so there's an opportunity
> > > to spread the shipping-cost out with a `group buy'; for example,
> > > it looks like shipping goes down to $11/unit if I order 5.
> > >
> > > Anyone interested?
> >
[long thread about how likely it is that Xorg can run on Ben Nanonote...]
>
> If you just want to know whether Xorg can run on Ben Nanonote,
> it'd probably be most straight-forward (and maybe even more
> cost-effective, if your day-job pays hourly ;)) to just...
> buy one and try it out. :)

On that note..., I'm looking to place my order sometime this week;
if anyone's actually interested in co-shipping in that timeframe,
let me know.

I hear that Freedom Included  is also
likely to start selling Nanonotes some time in the next couple/few months,
if anyone is interested `but not right now' (maybe you want to wait and
see how I make out...).

-- 
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Re: X11 on small systems? (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Benjamin Scott]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
 wrote:
> Yes, however: several of the libraries that are exclusive to
> the X server are actually things that would (or could) be eliminated
> in different use-cases; the 4-MB Intel DRI module, for example,

  Good point.  X.org doesn't necessarily have to be as heavy as it is
on a desktop PC.   And has been mentioned, there are more lightweight
X servers out there.

>> Virtual size can include things which aren't main RAM.
>
> I'm going to go a step further, contradicting the prevailing wisdom
> of the Internet, and say that VSZ can even include that aren't even
> properly `allocated *virtual* memory'. What I mean is:
>
>    RSS != (VSZ - (amount of memory paged out to swap))

  Contrary to popular belief and several OS GUIs, "virtual memory"
does not mean "using disk as virtual RAM".  That is, "virtual memory"
is *not* synonymous with "swap space".  Virtual memory is the address
space seen by a process and provided by the MMU.  On i386, the virtual
memory space is always 4 GiB (per process).

  The MMU can map pages of virtual memory to the hardware address
space, or leave them unmapped.  Hardware address space includes both
main RAM and other hardware stuff (like ROMs, often video RAM, some
other kinds of hardware buffers (depending on design), etc.).

  Pages which aren't mapped cause a page fault if the process tries to
read or write that page.  At that point it's up to the kernel memory
manager to decide what to do.   If it's a page written out to swap,
the kernel can read it back in.  If it's a page from a mmap'ed file,
the kernel can do the I/O to put that block in RAM.

  I don't actually know what the "virtual size" figure represents.

  My expectation was that "virtual size" was the total size of all
objects the kernel memory manager had associated with a given
process's virtual memory space (not necessarily mapped).  That would
include all "regular" memory allocated, plus every mmap'ed file (and
thus every shared library).  For X, that might also include video card
RAM.  It might even include things which have no "real" representation
at all:

blackfire$ sudo memstat | grep nvidia0
  42560k: PID  3000 (/dev/nvidia0)
3278332k: /dev/nvidia0 3000
blackfire$

  That's over 3 GiB.   My video card has 256 MiB RAM, main RAM is 1
GiB.  So whatever that is, it isn't hardware.

  However:

blackfire$ ps u 3000
USER   PID %CPU %MEMVSZ   RSS TTY  STAT START   TIME COMMAND
root  3000  0.6  4.6  72248 48448 tty7 SLs+ Aug16 255:59 /usr/bin/X :0
blackfire$

  Note that ps is reporting X as having a virtual size of roughly 72 MiB.

  The ps(1) man page says, of VSZ, that "Device mappings are currently
excluded".  I guess that helps explain the difference, but I'm still
not really sure what VSZ actually represents.

  But in any event, "virtual memory" doesn't have any necessary
correlation to committed primary or secondary storage (i.e., RAM or
disk).

>> It would appear that memstat breaks out memory-mapped files, but how
>> does it treat things like pages swapped to disk?
>
> Oh, it doesn't--at all. If you care about anything other than
> making sense out of VSZ figures ...

  Pages which are not mapped (which includes swapped pages) still
exist in virtual memory.  That's what lets the OS swap them back in as
needed.

>>  (I wouldn't expect RSS to include RAM mapped from the video card,
>> but I didn't know that for sure, hence my qualification earlier.)
>
> I could be mistaken, but my bet is based on the idea that Xorg
> just mmaps /dev/mem (and /dev/dri/card0 and stuff like that, too,
> I guess?) to get at graphics cards' resources.

  That's similar to my understanding as well, but again, I don't know
for sure.  :)

-- Ben

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Re: X11 on small systems? (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Tom Buskey]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
wrote:

> Benjamin Scott  writes:
> >
> > On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
> >  wrote:
> > > > X reports a resident size of 40 MB, although how much of
> > > > that (if any) might actually be video card RAM I dunno.
> > >
> > > I bet none of it is video-card RAM; a significant (not necessarily
> > > majority, but significant) portion of the RAM `used by X', though,
> > > is shared libraries that are also used by other processes--and those
> > > are basically `gratis' since you'd be using them regardless.
> >
> >   I'm approaching the limits of my understanding now, but:
> >
> >   I note that several of the shared libraries you list are specific to
> > the X server, and thus aren't shared by any other process.
>
> Yes, however: several of the libraries that are exclusive to
> the X server are actually things that would (or could) be eliminated
> in different use-cases; the 4-MB Intel DRI module, for example,
> is unnecessary even on my laptop (unless I want accelerated 3-D,
> which I *almost* never do--even on my laptop); libfreetype could
> presumably be eliminated if we just used bitmap fonts (which is
> probably what one wants on a QVGA display, anyway).
>
> And, of course: there are plenty more, in the full listing,
> of all types--ones that are specific to the X server, ones that are
> specific to other applications (some of them X clients), and ones that
> are shared between all sorts of processes. I wasn't trying to prove you
> wrong (at all, let a lone by by slight of hand), just pointing out that
> there's deeper analysis necessary in order to actually figure out what
> the top-level memory-usage figures really mean.
>

http://tinycorelinux.com/ manages to get X trimmed down into a 10MB image
using 48MB of RAM.  With the 2.6 kernel.

The RAM requirements will be different on ARM.  I know I see differences
with BSD and Solaris on intel vs sparc.
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X11 on small systems? (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Benjamin Scott  writes:
>
> On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
>  wrote:
> > > X reports a resident size of 40 MB, although how much of
> > > that (if any) might actually be video card RAM I dunno.
> >
> > I bet none of it is video-card RAM; a significant (not necessarily
> > majority, but significant) portion of the RAM `used by X', though,
> > is shared libraries that are also used by other processes--and those
> > are basically `gratis' since you'd be using them regardless.
> 
>   I'm approaching the limits of my understanding now, but:
> 
>   I note that several of the shared libraries you list are specific to
> the X server, and thus aren't shared by any other process.

Yes, however: several of the libraries that are exclusive to
the X server are actually things that would (or could) be eliminated
in different use-cases; the 4-MB Intel DRI module, for example,
is unnecessary even on my laptop (unless I want accelerated 3-D,
which I *almost* never do--even on my laptop); libfreetype could
presumably be eliminated if we just used bitmap fonts (which is
probably what one wants on a QVGA display, anyway).

And, of course: there are plenty more, in the full listing,
of all types--ones that are specific to the X server, ones that are
specific to other applications (some of them X clients), and ones that
are shared between all sorts of processes. I wasn't trying to prove you
wrong (at all, let a lone by by slight of hand), just pointing out that
there's deeper analysis necessary in order to actually figure out what
the top-level memory-usage figures really mean.

Though...:

>   I've never used memstat before, but the manual page states that it
> reports "virtual memory".  I was looking at the "RSS" (resident
> segment size) column of ps.

Oh, right--you did say "resident", but I managed to miss it

I think the whole bit about picking through with memstat is
basically irrelevant, in that case, because...:

> Virtual size can include things which aren't main RAM.

I'm going to go a step further, contradicting the prevailing wisdom
of the Internet, and say that VSZ can even include that aren't even
properly `allocated *virtual* memory'. What I mean is:

RSS != (VSZ - (amount of memory paged out to swap))

Skimming & grep'ing through Linux 2.6 source that I have on hand,
it looks like mmap() contributes to VSZ but never to RSS, which
I guess makes sense--and it would explain why, even though
I'm *zero bytes* into swap, I still have a huge mismatch
between VSZ and RSS for many of my processes. And that mmap
business applies to shared libraries, if I recall correctly

The only thing that comes to mind about how RSS might be misleading,
here, is maybe some `unused regions' that *could* be swapped out
(if you had /proc/sys/vm/swappiness cranked up, or had more disk I/O)
but aren't.

I guess, in general, you have to worry about copy-on-write
pages from forks, but that's probably not so relevant here.

The bit I mentioned earlier, about how a bunch of the memory
that appears to be used by the X server process is actually
allocated on behalf of client processes (some applications--
and toolkits--are *much* `worse' about this than others),
may be most relevant, depending on whether you were actually
running any X clients when you did your measurements.


> It would appear that memstat breaks out memory-mapped files, but how
> does it treat things like pages swapped to disk?

Oh, it doesn't--at all. If you care about anything other than
making sense out of VSZ figures, memstat's basically too dumb
to be of service. But I'd say that the VSZ figures are what're
most in need of a tool like memstat to explain them, so... :)

Though, it *would* be nice to be able to get an idea about
how much of that RSS figure was actually due to loading
and using particular libraries. I don't know how one could
go about doing that.

If you just want to know whether Xorg can run on Ben Nanonote,
it'd probably be most straight-forward (and maybe even more
cost-effective, if your day-job pays hourly ;)) to just...
buy one and try it out. :)

>   (I wouldn't expect RSS to include RAM mapped from the video card,
> but I didn't know that for sure, hence my qualification earlier.)

I could be mistaken, but my bet is based on the idea that Xorg
just mmaps /dev/mem (and /dev/dri/card0 and stuff like that, too,
I guess?) to get at graphics cards' resources.

If you go through a full listing fro mmemstat, you'll actually see
things like /dev/dri/card0 and /dev/mem as separate maps (in use
exclusively by the X server, hopefully).

-- 
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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Tom Buskey]

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 2:07 PM, Ryan Lee Stanyan wrote:

> On Thursday, September 09, 2010 12:59:40 pm Tom Buskey wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Lloyd Kvam  wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 09:00 -0400, Tom Buskey wrote:
> > > > I'm not sure I'll ever buy a $400 tablet.
> > >
> > > I agree with that sentiment for myself.  We have an iPad here on loan
> to
> > > make sure the web sites we support display nicely.  The iPad is a great
> > > device for those folks who have trouble with "regular" mouse/keyboard
> > > interfaces.
> > >
> > > We expect to see iPads getting used by patients in hospital settings
> > > filling out forms (multiple choice - little or no typing).  Earlier
> > > attempts with other tablets (running Windows) proved unworkable.
> >
> > My Dr.'s office has been using TabletPCs  since 2000.   It's fantastic
> when
> > he can look up all my records to see a graph of my cholesterol.
> >
> > He has a custom "Family Practice" suite behind it all, I'm sure.  It
> works
> > very well for him.
>
> This seems to be a very good application for slate computers.  Instead of
> bringing in a huge folder of charts which I can only assume are originals,
> you
> could bring in a slate.  Although I can only imagine issues arising from
> sanitation and HIPPA compliance.
>

Well, it's a Family Practice office, not a Surgery room.  Sanitation is the
same as for the clipboard & folders he used to use 10 years ago.  It's
probably cleaner then the folders were.

For HIPPA, it's the same as any other computer on the network in his
office.  He doesn't have access to records in the parent hospital.
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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Lloyd Kvam]

On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 12:59 -0400, Tom Buskey wrote:
> It works very well for him. 

The tablets we tried could be mastered with a little practice, but they
were frustrating when simply handed out to "Grandpa".  An interviewer
was required to drive the tablet.

The iPad seems to just work for anyone.  We'll see what happens when
they actually start using iPads for real.

-- 
Lloyd Kvam
Venix Corp.
1 Court Street, Suite 378
Lebanon, NH 03766-1358

voice:  603-653-8139
fax:320-210-3409

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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Ryan Lee Stanyan]

On Thursday, September 09, 2010 12:59:40 pm Tom Buskey wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Lloyd Kvam  wrote:
> > On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 09:00 -0400, Tom Buskey wrote:
> > > I'm not sure I'll ever buy a $400 tablet.
> > 
> > I agree with that sentiment for myself.  We have an iPad here on loan to
> > make sure the web sites we support display nicely.  The iPad is a great
> > device for those folks who have trouble with "regular" mouse/keyboard
> > interfaces.
> > 
> > We expect to see iPads getting used by patients in hospital settings
> > filling out forms (multiple choice - little or no typing).  Earlier
> > attempts with other tablets (running Windows) proved unworkable.
> 
> My Dr.'s office has been using TabletPCs  since 2000.   It's fantastic when
> he can look up all my records to see a graph of my cholesterol.
> 
> He has a custom "Family Practice" suite behind it all, I'm sure.  It works
> very well for him.

This seems to be a very good application for slate computers.  Instead of 
bringing in a huge folder of charts which I can only assume are originals, you 
could bring in a slate.  Although I can only imagine issues arising from 
sanitation and HIPPA compliance.
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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Tom Buskey]

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 10:34 AM, Lloyd Kvam  wrote:

> On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 10:08 -0400, Benjamin Scott wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Lloyd Kvam  wrote:
> > > We expect to see iPads getting used by patients in hospital settings
> > > filling out forms (multiple choice - little or no typing).  Earlier
> > > attempts with other tablets (running Windows) proved unworkable.
> >
> >   I'm curious; what makes the iPad better for that than the 'doze
> > tablet?  I would think a form is a form, regardless of platform.
>
> Essentially the touch features were "bolted on".  The issues were dumb
> things such as the touch area of a radio button being too small - still
> sized for a mouse pointer.  It was easy for your finger to miss it.
> There was poor alignment between the touch sensitive spot and the screen
> image.  Screen size handling still depended on the menus or touching the
> drag boundaries exactly right.  I've heard that Win7 has improved the
> touch support, but I have not checked myself.  The folks at the medical
> school are Apple fans anyway so once the iPad proved to be a nice
> device, I don't think they saw any point in checking back on the Windows
> tablets.  (I have no Droid experience.)
>

Microsoft really missed out on the tablet market.  OneNote is a fantastic
pen enabled, note taking app.  But everything else seems like they bolted it
on.  MS Office had a chance to really integrate Pen, but the director didn't
like tablets.  You think having your CEO as a big proponent of Pen would've
been incentive.  Also, Windows TabletPCs seem way too expensive.


>
> >   (I've only used an iPad once briefly, in a store.  I thought it
> > seemed like a neat toy, but couldn't see myself spending $400 just to
> > play an electronic marble maze game.)
>
> True.
>
> Still people buy digital picture frames, book readers, and such.  The
> iPad is great at *all* of those kinds of uses.
>
>
FWIW - I have a SmartQ 7 MID (no keyboard).  It runs a customized Ubuntu.  I
can apt-get debian and Ubuntu for ARM packages.  Some dialog boxes run off
the screen (800x480).  An Xterm goes under the virtual keyboard (matchbox).
For the most part, it works decently w/ the pen.  Nothing like an
iPhone/IPad or Palm.  I've heard updates to the OS (firmware) or to Android
work better on the SmartQ.  I'd imagine stock Ubuntu/Fedora would have
issues with dialogs on a screen that isn't 1024x768 (netbooks) too.

I mainly wanted a color ebook reader (comics) with some web browsing.  The
SmartQ was ~$220 and it fits.  There will be a number of Android Tablets RSN
that will be better and hopefully as cheap.
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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Tom Buskey]

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Lloyd Kvam  wrote:

> On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 09:00 -0400, Tom Buskey wrote:
> > I'm not sure I'll ever buy a $400 tablet.
>
> I agree with that sentiment for myself.  We have an iPad here on loan to
> make sure the web sites we support display nicely.  The iPad is a great
> device for those folks who have trouble with "regular" mouse/keyboard
> interfaces.
>
> We expect to see iPads getting used by patients in hospital settings
> filling out forms (multiple choice - little or no typing).  Earlier
> attempts with other tablets (running Windows) proved unworkable.
>
>
My Dr.'s office has been using TabletPCs  since 2000.   It's fantastic when
he can look up all my records to see a graph of my cholesterol.

He has a custom "Family Practice" suite behind it all, I'm sure.  It works
very well for him.
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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Lloyd Kvam]

On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 10:08 -0400, Benjamin Scott wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Lloyd Kvam  wrote:
> > We expect to see iPads getting used by patients in hospital settings
> > filling out forms (multiple choice - little or no typing).  Earlier
> > attempts with other tablets (running Windows) proved unworkable.
> 
>   I'm curious; what makes the iPad better for that than the 'doze
> tablet?  I would think a form is a form, regardless of platform.

Essentially the touch features were "bolted on".  The issues were dumb
things such as the touch area of a radio button being too small - still
sized for a mouse pointer.  It was easy for your finger to miss it.
There was poor alignment between the touch sensitive spot and the screen
image.  Screen size handling still depended on the menus or touching the
drag boundaries exactly right.  I've heard that Win7 has improved the
touch support, but I have not checked myself.  The folks at the medical
school are Apple fans anyway so once the iPad proved to be a nice
device, I don't think they saw any point in checking back on the Windows
tablets.  (I have no Droid experience.)

>   (I've only used an iPad once briefly, in a store.  I thought it
> seemed like a neat toy, but couldn't see myself spending $400 just to
> play an electronic marble maze game.)

True.

Still people buy digital picture frames, book readers, and such.  The
iPad is great at *all* of those kinds of uses.

> -- Ben
> 
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-- 
Lloyd Kvam
Venix Corp.
1 Court Street, Suite 378
Lebanon, NH 03766-1358

voice:  603-653-8139
fax:320-210-3409

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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Benjamin Scott]

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Lloyd Kvam  wrote:
> We expect to see iPads getting used by patients in hospital settings
> filling out forms (multiple choice - little or no typing).  Earlier
> attempts with other tablets (running Windows) proved unworkable.

  I'm curious; what makes the iPad better for that than the 'doze
tablet?  I would think a form is a form, regardless of platform.

  (I've only used an iPad once briefly, in a store.  I thought it
seemed like a neat toy, but couldn't see myself spending $400 just to
play an electronic marble maze game.)

-- Ben

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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Benjamin Scott]

On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 9:10 AM, David Rysdam  wrote:
> I just call them "tiny computers" or "portable computers".

  If I'm being serious, I call them "handhelds".  (I kind of liked
"palmtop" (by analogy with desktop and laptop) but it never took off
and so sounds funny.)

  I would usually make a distinction between something like my Palm
Centro (which is a general-purpose computer which can play music) and
an early-generation iPod (which can only play music).  The former is a
handheld computer, the later is a music player.

-- Ben

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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Lloyd Kvam]

On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 09:00 -0400, Tom Buskey wrote:
> I'm not sure I'll ever buy a $400 tablet.

I agree with that sentiment for myself.  We have an iPad here on loan to
make sure the web sites we support display nicely.  The iPad is a great
device for those folks who have trouble with "regular" mouse/keyboard
interfaces.

We expect to see iPads getting used by patients in hospital settings
filling out forms (multiple choice - little or no typing).  Earlier
attempts with other tablets (running Windows) proved unworkable.

-- 
Lloyd Kvam
Venix Corp
DLSLUG/GNHLUG library
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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[David Rysdam]

An agent or agents purporting to be Tom Buskey said:
> On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Benjamin Scott wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 10:43 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
> >  wrote:
> > > (Oh, and: is there a better shorthand than "PMP"? I keep reading
> > > "android pimps", and it just... doesn't sit right...)
> >
> >   PIMEED.[1]
> >
> > -- Ben
> >
> > [1] Portable Individual Media Experience Enablement Device.  Now
> > available with Genuine People Personalities!  Only from Sirius
> > Cybernetics Corporation!
> >
> >
> MID - Mobile Internet Device.  See SmartQ, CrunchTablet, even the Archos
> devices.
> 
> PMP is a Portable Music Player.  Most MIDs can do music.
> 
> If the Palm PDAs had WiFi, they'd qualify as MIDs. 

Which kind of proves that's not the right name for the category.  I
just call them "tiny computers" or "portable computers".  And one day,
that will sound as strange as "electronic computers" does today.
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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Tom Buskey]

On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 11:05 PM, Benjamin Scott wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 10:43 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
>  wrote:
> > (Oh, and: is there a better shorthand than "PMP"? I keep reading
> > "android pimps", and it just... doesn't sit right...)
>
>   PIMEED.[1]
>
> -- Ben
>
> [1] Portable Individual Media Experience Enablement Device.  Now
> available with Genuine People Personalities!  Only from Sirius
> Cybernetics Corporation!
>
>
MID - Mobile Internet Device.  See SmartQ, CrunchTablet, even the Archos
devices.

PMP is a Portable Music Player.  Most MIDs can do music.

If the Palm PDAs had WiFi, they'd qualify as MIDs.  They may not have had
the functionality of today's Android devices, but they got the price point.
I'm not sure I'll ever buy a $400 tablet.
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Re: Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Benjamin Scott]

On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 10:43 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
 wrote:
> (Oh, and: is there a better shorthand than "PMP"? I keep reading
> "android pimps", and it just... doesn't sit right...)

  PIMEED.[1]

-- Ben

[1] Portable Individual Media Experience Enablement Device.  Now
available with Genuine People Personalities!  Only from Sirius
Cybernetics Corporation!
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Android PMPs (was: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?)

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Joshua Judson Rosen  writes:
>
> "Shawn O'Shea"  writes:
> > On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Posted this at work also, then figured maybe someone on this list
> > > would be interested:
> > >
> > > I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
> > > now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:
> > >
> > > http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
> >
> > Looks interesting. I'm waiting for the crop of Android-based PMPs coming out
> > from the big names for my next iPod replacement. A few are in the pipe like
> > the two announced at IFA in Germany this week.
> > Samsung Galaxy Player 50 - http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/03/
> > samsung-galaxy-player-50-hands-on/
> > Philips GoGear Connect - http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/01/
> > philips-gogear-connect-hands-on/
> 
> Have you seen the Archos Android tablets? There are 2 of them out,
> right now (first hit the market late last year), also with other
> models on the way; it looks like Archos is actually behaving as a
> good member of the FOSS community, too.

And, on that note..., it looks like Archos just added a whole
slew of new Android (Froyo) PMPs-etc. devices to their listing,
a week ago; to put it concisely: they come in 10.0", 7.0", 4.3",
3.2", and 2.8". There's also now an 8" one with a form more like
a `picture-frame' (not to mention the 5" one that was introduced
last year). It looks like, out of the new batch, they're currently
selling the 3.2" one with the others due to sell next month.

(I haven't seen this posted to Slashdot, yet--if anyone here would
like the karma, go for it ;)).

There's no indication (yet?) whether they're going to support the
FOSS developer community on the new devices to the same extent
they they support us on the ones from last year--but here's hoping.

(Oh, and: is there a better shorthand than "PMP"? I keep reading
"android pimps", and it just... doesn't sit right...)

-- 
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Benjamin Scott]

On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
 wrote:
>> X reports a resident size of 40 MB, although how much of
>> that (if any) might actually be video card RAM I dunno.
>
> I bet none of it is video-card RAM; a significant (not necessarily
> majority, but significant) portion of the RAM `used by X', though,
> is shared libraries that are also used by other processes--and those
> are basically `gratis' since you'd be using them regardless.

  I'm approaching the limits of my understanding now, but:

  I note that several of the shared libraries you list are specific to
the X server, and thus aren't shared by any other process.

  I've never used memstat before, but the manual page states that it
reports "virtual memory".  I was looking at the "RSS" (resident
segment size) column of ps.  Virtual size can include things which
aren't main RAM.  It would appear that memstat breaks out
memory-mapped files, but how does it treat things like pages swapped
to disk?

  (I wouldn't expect RSS to include RAM mapped from the video card,
but I didn't know that for sure, hence my qualification earlier.)

-- Ben
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Tom Buskey  writes:
> On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 8:11 AM, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> > On 09/05/2010 07:52 PM, Tom Buskey wrote:
> > >
> > > I have 2 systems running recent OpenBSD releases for SSH portals.  One
> > > is a Sun Sparc with 96 MB ram and the other is a VM with 32 MB
> > > allocated to it.  I'm not sure I could do that with any major current
> > > Linux dist.  Maybe Slackware on i386.  Open + Net BSD installs seem
> > > similar to Slack.
> >
> > I have Debian Lenny running on a Linksys NSLU2 (32MB RAM).
> 
> And I run Ubuntu on a SmartQ 7 mid, an ARM based tablet w/ 256 MB and X11.
>  And apt-get works.
> 
> Is there a Debian based dist for the MIPS (?) chip in the Bennote?

There are two Debian MIPS ports--big-endian and little-endian:

http://www.debian.org/ports/mips/

There are multiple ways of installing the little-endian MIPS build
of Debian documented on the Qi Hardware website:

http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Debian

Caveat:

http://sdschulze.dnsalias.org/~soeren/content/debian-nanonote-kernel.txt

Debian is compiled with FPU support required.  Our processor
doesn't have any.  Luckily, Linux can emulate it in software.
Unluckily, this is very slow[...]

I guess that might explain why Debian felt a little more sluggish on
my FreeRunner than any of the OpenEmbedded-based systems did, too

-- 
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Benjamin Scott  writes:
>
> On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Tom Buskey  wrote:
> > >RAM may or may not be a problem.  It's got 32 MB, which is more
> > > than anything Project Athena had at first, but software seems to take
> > > up more and more memory as times goes on.  Maybe swapping to flash?
> >
> > My 1st linux box was a 486 w/ 16MB ram and ran X just fine.   I think
> > it could w/ just 8MB.  More was better of course.
> 
>   Yah, and these days the kernel takes up more than that.  On my
> desktop here, vmlinux is 2.2 MB, initrd is 8.4 MB, and those are both
> compressed.  X reports a resident size of 40 MB, although how much of
> that (if any) might actually be video card RAM I dunno.

I bet none of it is video-card RAM; a significant (not necessarily
majority, but significant) portion of the RAM `used by X', though,
is shared libraries that are also used by other processes--and those
are basically `gratis' since you'd be using them regardless.

You need to pick over it with something like memstat; on my laptop,
for example, the top allocations associated with an Xorg process
(hosting an xterm) are, as per mstat:

   9404k: PID  6649 (/usr/bin/Xorg)
   4401k: /usr/lib/dri/i915_dri.so 6649
   3364k: /lib/libc-2.7.so 1 1226 2874 2892 2930 3297 3312 3331 3347 3365 
3366 3402 3511 3544 3550 3947 3970 4031 4054 4056 4112 4226 4243 4260 4261 4318 
4320 4321 4344 4374 4376 4388 4402 4547 4560 4595 4621 4804 4805 4806 4807 4808 
4955 5144 5151 5243 6561 6598 6648 6649 6655 6656 6683
   2584k: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libpcidata.so 6649
   2564k: /lib/libm-2.7.so 3511 3947 3970 4056 4112 4226 4260 4388 4955 6649
   2552k: /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6.3.18 4226 6649 6655
   2436k: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so 6649
   2432k: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so 6649
   2428k: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libxaa.so 6649
   2300k: /usr/lib/libXfont.so.1.4.1 4226 6649
   2288k: /usr/lib/libdbus-1.so.3.4.0 3365 3366 3511 3970 4226 4243 4260 
4261 4318 4320 4321 4344 4388 4402 4547 4560 5144 6649


The leading number is the amount of memory allocated privately by that item,
and the trailing numbers after shared libraries are the PIDs of all
of the processes using the shlib.

Also, bear in mind that much of the memory-allocations associated
with *X client* applications are inside the X server process

-- 
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Tom Buskey]

On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 8:11 AM, Mark Komarinski wrote:

> On 09/05/2010 07:52 PM, Tom Buskey wrote:
> > I have 2 systems running recent OpenBSD releases for SSH portals.  One
> > is a Sun Sparc with 96 MB ram and the other is a VM with 32 MB
> > allocated to it.  I'm not sure I could do that with any major current
> > Linux dist.  Maybe Slackware on i386.  Open + Net BSD installs seem
> > similar to Slack.
>
> I have Debian Lenny running on a Linksys NSLU2 (32MB RAM).
>
> -Mark
> ___
>

And I run Ubuntu on a SmartQ 7 mid, an ARM based tablet w/ 256 MB and X11.
 And apt-get works.

Is there a Debian based dist for the MIPS (?) chip in the Bennote?
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Mark Komarinski]

On 09/05/2010 07:52 PM, Tom Buskey wrote:
> I have 2 systems running recent OpenBSD releases for SSH portals.  One
> is a Sun Sparc with 96 MB ram and the other is a VM with 32 MB
> allocated to it.  I'm not sure I could do that with any major current
> Linux dist.  Maybe Slackware on i386.  Open + Net BSD installs seem
> similar to Slack.

I have Debian Lenny running on a Linksys NSLU2 (32MB RAM).

-Mark
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Benjamin Scott]

On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 7:52 PM, Tom Buskey  wrote:
> I have 2 systems running recent OpenBSD releases for SSH portals.  One
> is a Sun Sparc with 96 MB ram and the other is a VM with 32 MB
> allocated to it.  I'm not sure I could do that with any major current
> Linux dist.  Maybe Slackware on i386.  Open + Net BSD installs seem
> similar to Slack.

  Well, as a counterpoint to my own complaint: My home router has 16
MB RAM and 4 MB flash; it runs DD-WRT, which is a Linux system.  It's
built using a stripped-down kernel and various small footprint,
reduced functionality packages, such as BusyBox and dropbear.  I dunno
if X.org or contemporary mainstream "Linux software" would run on such
a system, even if it had more RAM.

-- Ben

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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Tom Buskey]

I have 2 systems running recent OpenBSD releases for SSH portals.  One
is a Sun Sparc with 96 MB ram and the other is a VM with 32 MB
allocated to it.  I'm not sure I could do that with any major current
Linux dist.  Maybe Slackware on i386.  Open + Net BSD installs seem
similar to Slack.

On 9/5/10, Benjamin Scott  wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Tom Buskey  wrote:
>>>RAM may or may not be a problem.  It's got 32 MB, which is more
>>> than anything Project Athena had at first, but software seems to take
>>> up more and more memory as times goes on.  Maybe swapping to flash?
>>
>> My 1st linux box was a 486 w/ 16MB ram and ran X just fine.   I think
>> it could w/ just 8MB.  More was better of course.
>
>   Yah, and these days the kernel takes up more than that.  On my
> desktop here, vmlinux is 2.2 MB, initrd is 8.4 MB, and those are both
> compressed.  X reports a resident size of 40 MB, although how much of
> that (if any) might actually be video card RAM I dunno.
>
> -- Ben
>
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Benjamin Scott]

On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Tom Buskey  wrote:
>>RAM may or may not be a problem.  It's got 32 MB, which is more
>> than anything Project Athena had at first, but software seems to take
>> up more and more memory as times goes on.  Maybe swapping to flash?
>
> My 1st linux box was a 486 w/ 16MB ram and ran X just fine.   I think
> it could w/ just 8MB.  More was better of course.

  Yah, and these days the kernel takes up more than that.  On my
desktop here, vmlinux is 2.2 MB, initrd is 8.4 MB, and those are both
compressed.  X reports a resident size of 40 MB, although how much of
that (if any) might actually be video card RAM I dunno.

-- Ben

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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Tom Buskey]

My 1st linux box was a 486 w/ 16MB ram and ran X just fine.   I think
it could w/ just 8MB.  More was better of course.

On 9/3/10, Benjamin Scott  wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Thomas Charron  wrote:
http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
>>>
>>>  Am I right in that this thing cannot run an X server?
>>
>>  It presents a framebuffer, so I see no reason why it couldn't except for
>> RAM.
>
>   I mean as in, "you won't find a working X server", not "sure it can,
> just write one yourself".  :)
>
>RAM may or may not be a problem.  It's got 32 MB, which is more
> than anything Project Athena had at first, but software seems to take
> up more and more memory as times goes on.  Maybe swapping to flash?
>
> -- Ben
>
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>

-- 
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Thomas Charron]

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 6:32 PM, Benjamin Scott  wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Thomas Charron  wrote:
        http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
>>>  Am I right in that this thing cannot run an X server?
>>  It presents a framebuffer, so I see no reason why it couldn't except for 
>> RAM.
>  I mean as in, "you won't find a working X server", not "sure it can,
> just write one yourself".  :)

  The fbdev driver for x.org's server works with any framebuffer.  :-P
 That was my point.

-- 
-- Thomas

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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

"Shawn O'Shea"  writes:
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen 
> wrote:
> >
> > Posted this at work also, then figured maybe someone on this list
> > would be interested:
> >
> > I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
> > now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:
> >
> > http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
>
> Looks interesting. I'm waiting for the crop of Android-based PMPs coming out
> from the big names for my next iPod replacement. A few are in the pipe like
> the two announced at IFA in Germany this week.
> Samsung Galaxy Player 50 - http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/03/
> samsung-galaxy-player-50-hands-on/
> Philips GoGear Connect - http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/01/
> philips-gogear-connect-hands-on/

Have you seen the Archos Android tablets? There are 2 of them out,
right now (first hit the market late last year), also with other
models on the way; it looks like Archos is actually behaving as a
good member of the FOSS community, too.

Radio Shack and Best Buy both carry some selection of them in stores,
if you haven't seen them; if you have..., thoughts?

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr."

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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Benjamin Scott  writes:
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Thomas Charron  wrote:
> > > >http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
> > >
> > >  Am I right in that this thing cannot run an X server?
> >
> >   It presents a framebuffer, so I see no reason why it couldn't
> > except for RAM.
> 
>   I mean as in, "you won't find a working X server", not "sure it can,
> just write one yourself".  :)
> 
>RAM may or may not be a problem.  It's got 32 MB, which is more
> than anything Project Athena had at first, but software seems to take
> up more and more memory as times goes on.  Maybe swapping to flash?

Maybe.

Swapping to flash is often a more realistic option than people expect--
partly because modern flash-disks (with onboard controllers performing
wear-levelling) are *way* more resilient than people expect, and partly
because the way that swap ends up being used is vastly different from
what people expect--most notably, if there are parts of a program's
in-memory image that are rarely (or never) used, then those parts
can get swapped-out (once) to make room in RAM for disk-buffer/-cache,
and then may never be touched again.

Of course, it all depends on the program--if Xorg and whatever client
applications you want to run actually, *actively* use all of the memory
that they allocate all the time, then maybe `swap to flash' (or even
`swap' at all) isn't such a great option. One interesting thing to note,
though, is that `active' doesn't just mean `the program is running';
even if something is running, if you're not interacting with it,
and it's not doing something of its own accord, then there's a good
chance that the entire process can safely be swapped out and then
not touched until you switch back to it.

It looks like a fresh instance of Xorg occupies ~14 MB of RAM
on my laptop. Hmm

-- 
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Benjamin Scott]

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Thomas Charron  wrote:
>>>http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
>>
>>  Am I right in that this thing cannot run an X server?
>
>  It presents a framebuffer, so I see no reason why it couldn't except for RAM.

  I mean as in, "you won't find a working X server", not "sure it can,
just write one yourself".  :)

   RAM may or may not be a problem.  It's got 32 MB, which is more
than anything Project Athena had at first, but software seems to take
up more and more memory as times goes on.  Maybe swapping to flash?

-- Ben

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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Thomas Charron]

  It presents a framebuffer, so I see no reason why it couldn't except for RAM.

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Benjamin Scott  wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
>  wrote:
>> I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
>> now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:
>>
>>        http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
>
>  Am I right in that this thing cannot run an X server?
>
> -- Ben
>
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-- 
-- Thomas

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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Tom Buskey]

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

> Posted this at work also, then figured maybe someone on this list
> would be interested:
>
> I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
> now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:
>
>http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
>
> They're $99, but they ship from Hong Kong so shipping a single unit
> adds ~$30 to the price; shipping more units together increases
> the shipping-price but only ~logarithmically, so there's an opportunity
> to spread the shipping-cost out with a `group buy'; for example,
> it looks like shipping goes down to $11/unit if I order 5.
>
> Anyone interested?
>
>
Is this the same as the Bennote in the latest Linux Journal?
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Benjamin Scott]

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
 wrote:
> I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
> now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:
>
>        http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben

  Am I right in that this thing cannot run an X server?

-- Ben

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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Tom Buskey  writes:
>
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen 
> wrote:
> >
> > Posted this at work also, then figured maybe someone on this list
> > would be interested:
> >
> > I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
> > now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:
> >
> >http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
> >
> > They're $99, but they ship from Hong Kong so shipping a single unit
> > adds ~$30 to the price; shipping more units together increases
> > the shipping-price but only ~logarithmically, so there's an opportunity
> > to spread the shipping-cost out with a `group buy'; for example,
> > it looks like shipping goes down to $11/unit if I order 5.
> >
> > Anyone interested?
>
> Is this the same as the Bennote in the latest Linux Journal?

You caught me with my pants down--I have to admit that I don't
subscribe to Linux Journal..., though someone's pointed out to me
at least one interested article in it every month for the last
six months or so.

But, yes--it is. Now I'll have to go ask my friend for his LJ,
again

-- 
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Re: Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Shawn O'Shea]

Looks interesting. I'm waiting for the crop of Android-based PMPs coming out
from the big names for my next iPod replacement. A few are in the pipe like
the two announced at IFA in Germany this week.
Samsung Galaxy Player 50 -
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/03/samsung-galaxy-player-50-hands-on/
Philips GoGear Connect -
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/01/philips-gogear-connect-hands-on/

-Shawn

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

> Posted this at work also, then figured maybe someone on this list
> would be interested:
>
> I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
> now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:
>
>http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben
>
> They're $99, but they ship from Hong Kong so shipping a single unit
> adds ~$30 to the price; shipping more units together increases
> the shipping-price but only ~logarithmically, so there's an opportunity
> to spread the shipping-cost out with a `group buy'; for example,
> it looks like shipping goes down to $11/unit if I order 5.
>
> Anyone interested?
>
> --
> "Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr."
>
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Qi-Hardware Nanonote group purchase?

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Posted this at work also, then figured maybe someone on this list
would be interested:

I'm going to buy one of these to see how well it can replace my
now-defunct, Rockbox-running iPod:

http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Hardware-Ben

They're $99, but they ship from Hong Kong so shipping a single unit
adds ~$30 to the price; shipping more units together increases
the shipping-price but only ~logarithmically, so there's an opportunity
to spread the shipping-cost out with a `group buy'; for example,
it looks like shipping goes down to $11/unit if I order 5.

Anyone interested?

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr."

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