Re: netbook remix , 9.10 and Samsung Q1U

[John Rudd]

Hm.  I didn't have to add any such GRUB option on mine.

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 14:35, Turgut Durduran  wrote:
> I have finally had some time to install it. The install went smoothly except 
> the "i915.modeset=0" option that needs to be entered at the kernel options in 
> GRUB for things to move forward. unfortunately, it works vryy veeeryyy 
> slowly. It looks like a launcher issue mostly. Does anyone have any clue 
> about this?
>
> ---
> http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~durduran
>
>
>
> - Original Message 
>> From: John Rudd 
>> To: Turgut Durduran 
>> Cc: ubuntu-mobile@lists.ubuntu.com
>> Sent: Mon, November 2, 2009 2:25:26 PM
>> Subject: Re: netbook remix , 9.10 and Samsung Q1U
>>
>> I've got 9.04 NBR on my Q1U.  No real problems with the touch screen
>> (other than screen rotation being wonky).  Wireless networking is just
>> fine.  I haven't tried wired networking.  I also don't do
>> suspend/resume.  I do have an on-going VGA problem with it, though (it
>> wants to down-grade to 800x600 resolution when I hook it up to a
>> standard monitor, instead of doing something sensible like
>> letter-boxed 1024x600 inside 1024x768 or something ... or doing what
>> my Dell mini-9 does, which is display 1280x1024 on the external
>> monitor, while only showing you the upper left 1024x600 on the LCD).
>> Audio output is fine, haven't tried input.  Neither of the cameras
>> works for me (I wish the picture camera did; I don't care about the
>> webcam).  The battery life is about what I expect (comparable to my
>> dell mini-9).
>>
>> I've mentioned the screen rotation thing here before, with no response
>> (nor, it seems, concern).  I don't remember if I mentioned the
>> external display part.
>>
>> That said ... I'd go with the non-NBR version of 9.04.  The NBR
>> launcher didn't really impress me.  I switched back to the
>> regular/normal desktop.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 03:48, Turgut Durduran wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > It is a pity that Samsung Q1U which was originally the platform for
>> ubuntu-mobile seems not to work out of the box with the UNR 9.10 (I think it 
>> was
>> the case with 9.04 too but I skipped that one and stuck the the now expired
>> ubuntu-mobile).
>> >
>> > The first one is a fatal error and there is a solution here:
>> >
>> >  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/404421?comments=all
>> >
>> > Then with the live USB, the touch screen does not work. Everything else is
>> extremely slow so I am bit uneager to install it and see if it works any 
>> faster.
>> Atleast ubuntu-mobile works, more or less, but I can't update/upgrade it.
>> >
>> > Anyone here had any luck with it on Samsung Q1U? If I installed it, would 
>> > it
>> be in working condition --touch screen, wired/wireless networking,
>>  suspend/resume, VGA output are the most important things for me. Secondary 
>> ones
>> are audio in/out, decent battery life and webcam (never got it to work even
>> before).
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ---
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>> >
>> >
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>> >
>
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Re: netbook remix , 9.10 and Samsung Q1U

[John Rudd]

I've got 9.04 NBR on my Q1U.  No real problems with the touch screen
(other than screen rotation being wonky).  Wireless networking is just
fine.  I haven't tried wired networking.  I also don't do
suspend/resume.  I do have an on-going VGA problem with it, though (it
wants to down-grade to 800x600 resolution when I hook it up to a
standard monitor, instead of doing something sensible like
letter-boxed 1024x600 inside 1024x768 or something ... or doing what
my Dell mini-9 does, which is display 1280x1024 on the external
monitor, while only showing you the upper left 1024x600 on the LCD).
Audio output is fine, haven't tried input.  Neither of the cameras
works for me (I wish the picture camera did; I don't care about the
webcam).  The battery life is about what I expect (comparable to my
dell mini-9).

I've mentioned the screen rotation thing here before, with no response
(nor, it seems, concern).  I don't remember if I mentioned the
external display part.

That said ... I'd go with the non-NBR version of 9.04.  The NBR
launcher didn't really impress me.  I switched back to the
regular/normal desktop.


On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 03:48, Turgut Durduran  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It is a pity that Samsung Q1U which was originally the platform for 
> ubuntu-mobile seems not to work out of the box with the UNR 9.10 (I think it 
> was the case with 9.04 too but I skipped that one and stuck the the now 
> expired ubuntu-mobile).
>
> The first one is a fatal error and there is a solution here:
>
>  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/404421?comments=all
>
> Then with the live USB, the touch screen does not work. Everything else is 
> extremely slow so I am bit uneager to install it and see if it works any 
> faster. Atleast ubuntu-mobile works, more or less, but I can't update/upgrade 
> it.
>
> Anyone here had any luck with it on Samsung Q1U? If I installed it, would it 
> be in working condition --touch screen, wired/wireless networking,  
> suspend/resume, VGA output are the most important things for me. Secondary 
> ones are audio in/out, decent battery life and webcam (never got it to work 
> even before).
>
>
>
> ---
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>
>
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Dell Mini Ubuntu vs Ubuntu-NBR

[John Rudd]

Something I like about Dell Ubuntu 8.04.1 on my Mini-9, that I didn't
like about Ubuntu-UMPC/Mobile 8.10 (that I run/ran on my Samsung Q1
Ultra) is that Dell Ubuntu will let me clone my 9" 1024x600 Dell
screen onto my 19" 1280x1024 monitor (with the Dell just showing the
upper left portion of what's on the external monitor, as opposed to it
stretching the smaller display onto the larger display (what my iMac
G4 does)).  What Dell Ubuntu does is pretty much what I want (and I'm
going to refer to it as "asymmetric mirroring/cloning", because the
screen is cloned/mirrored, but the two displays aren't the same
size/resolution).

But when I tried 9.04-NBR on my Mini-9 (via booting to a USB
thumdrive), it didn't work.  I could use separate screen spaces just
fine ... I could even make the external monitor be the primary display
(but I don't know if it'll remember that configuration from session to
session, using the Dell as the primary when I'm away from my desk,
using the external monitor as the primary when I start up with it
attached).  But I couldn't duplicate the display arrangement that Dell
Ubuntu lets me have.

If I tried to do cloning with 9.04-NBR on my Mini-9, it would try to
step down to a common resolution (800x600) on both displays.  That's
completely unacceptable/brain-damaged.  It should have at least
offered to letter box the smaller display (1024x600) onto the larger
display (1024x768 or 1280x1024).  But the ideal type of screen
cloning, for me, is what Dell Ubuntu offers.

I suspect that it's because Canonical Ubuntu doesn't support that type
of asymmetric mirroring/cloning.  As I said, Ubuntu-UMPC 8.10 couldn't
do it either.  It behaved exactly like NBR, in this respect.  I
haven't tried the non-NBR version of 9.04, so I don't know what its
behavior is.

Is this a driver issue that I can download for Ubuntu-NBR 9.04?  Is
this something that's only offered by the Dell version(s) of Ubuntu,
and if I want this I'm going to have to stay with Dell Ubuntu, and not
Canonical Ubuntu?  Or is this an issue with NBR/Mobile/UMPC versions
of Ubuntu only, and regular Canonical Ubuntu does the right thing like
Dell Ubuntu does?

For the Ubuntu-Mobile mailing list: any plans to fix this?  or is it
already fixed and I just don't know where the option is located?

For the UbuntuMini google group: anyone know of workarounds that make
9.04 (NBR or regular) do the right kind of external display on the
Mini-9?


In summary:
   1) Forcing to step down to a resolution that looks awful on both
displays, when screen cloning: BAD BAD BAD
   2) Stretching the smaller screen onto the larger one, when screen
cloning: bad
   3) Letterboxing the smaller screen onto the larger one, when screen
cloning: acceptable
   4) Showing the larger screen at full resolution, and showing small
portion of that on the small screen, when screen cloning: GOOD
   5) Offering all four of those as explicit choices for the user: BEST
   6) Dell Ubuntu 8.04.1 (for the Mini-9 at least) lets you do #4
   7) Ubuntu-UMPC 8.10 and Ubuntu-NBR 9.04 only appear to do #1
   8) Anyone know how I can make #4 work on all flavors of Ubuntu?
   9) When will the Ubuntu-Mobile team fix things to allow #4 or #5?


Thanks,


John

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Re: Mer details meeting

[John Rudd]

Where can we go to get information on this like "will this include
both ARM and x86 based MIDs", etc.


John

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 09:08, Emmet Hikory  wrote:
>    As many of you may know, Ubuntu MID will be using Mer as upstream
> for Karmic Koala.  We'll be holding an IRC meeting at 19:00 UTC on
> Tuesday June 2nd in #ubuntu-mobile to cover the following topics:
>
> 1) Organisational overview
> 1.1) Introductions
> 1.2) Workflows
> 1.3) Sources of information
>
> 2) Implementation outline
> 2.1) Identification of software not yet in Ubuntu
> 2.2) Review of Mer cycles against Karmic schedule to define milestones
> 2.3) Image creation
>
> 3) Testing Review
> 3.1) Issues with testing (kernels, etc.)
> 3.2) Developing Test Plans
> 3.3) Test Coverage and Test compliance requirements
>
> 4) Other Discussion
>
>    Anyone with an interest in helping with the effort is welcome to attend.
>
> --
> Emmet HIKORY
>
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Re: Android and Ubuntu

[John Rudd]

Thanks!

When it's ready, I would love to install it on my netbook.  I also
hope the folks working on Maemo and Mer are able to leverage what
you're doing to get it ported to their ARM platforms.


On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 07:57, Michael Frey  wrote:
> There is an effort :)
>
> http://mjfrey.blogspot.com
>
>
> John Rudd wrote:
>> Hm.  Those topics sound almost like there's an effort to get Dalvik
>> ported to Ubuntu...
>>
>> (please tell me that's true)
>>
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 07:26, Neal McBurnett  wrote:
>>
>>> I just joined this list, but I've been active on the Server team and
>>> Colorado Ubuntu Local Team for years.
>>>
>>>  https://launchpad.net/~nealmcb
>>>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NealMcBurnett
>>>
>>> I'm not at UDS because I've been diving into Android recently and I'm
>>> headed to the Google I/O developer conference later today in San
>>> Francisco.  It takes place Wed and Thu.
>>>
>>> I see several blueprints related to Android:
>>>
>>>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/AndroidExecutionEnvironment
>>>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/specs/KernelKarmicAndroid
>>>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/MobileKarmicAndroidPackaging
>>>
>>> on the agenda at UDS from this morning, and a plenary on Moblin and
>>> Android.  (Who is giving that?)
>>>
>>> Is anyone involved with Ubuntu going to Google I/O besides me?
>>>
>>> Thanks for quickly getting the notes on AndroidExecutionEnvironment
>>> up, Ogra!
>>>
>>> I look forward to seeing the notes on the other sessions.  And if you
>>> have any questions that I could ask while I'm at Google I/O, let me
>>> know.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Neal McBurnett                 http://neal.mcburnett.org/
>>>
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>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-mobile
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

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Re: Android and Ubuntu

[John Rudd]

Hm.  Those topics sound almost like there's an effort to get Dalvik
ported to Ubuntu...

(please tell me that's true)


John


On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 07:26, Neal McBurnett  wrote:
> I just joined this list, but I've been active on the Server team and
> Colorado Ubuntu Local Team for years.
>
>  https://launchpad.net/~nealmcb
>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NealMcBurnett
>
> I'm not at UDS because I've been diving into Android recently and I'm
> headed to the Google I/O developer conference later today in San
> Francisco.  It takes place Wed and Thu.
>
> I see several blueprints related to Android:
>
>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/AndroidExecutionEnvironment
>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/specs/KernelKarmicAndroid
>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Specs/MobileKarmicAndroidPackaging
>
> on the agenda at UDS from this morning, and a plenary on Moblin and
> Android.  (Who is giving that?)
>
> Is anyone involved with Ubuntu going to Google I/O besides me?
>
> Thanks for quickly getting the notes on AndroidExecutionEnvironment
> up, Ogra!
>
> I look forward to seeing the notes on the other sessions.  And if you
> have any questions that I could ask while I'm at Google I/O, let me
> know.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Neal McBurnett                 http://neal.mcburnett.org/
>
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Re: Jaunty Mobile

[John Rudd]

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 04:38, Turgut Durduran  wrote:
>
>>     There is no separate UMPC release for Jaunty.  In many ways, the
>
>> goals of the UMPC flavour were identical to the goals of the Netbook
>> Remix, and there were several sets of instructions on partially enabling
>> the Netbook Remix interface for the UMPC release in intrepid.  During
>> the Jaunty cycle, the code and packages previously in the Netbook Remix
>> were brought up to date and integrated with Ubuntu, resulting in a
>> release as a flavour of Ubuntu, rather than a derivative.
>>
>>     Those that prefer the previous interface are probably best served by
>> installing Desktop, and then installing the intrepid ubuntu-mobile
>> package.  I'm not sure if this works (I haven't tried it).  If someone
>> wants to take over maintenance of the settings package and associated
>> bits to work in Karmic, that is certainly a solution, but those
>> previously maintaining it have merged their efforts with the Netbook Remix.
>
> I have just tried the Netbook Remix via live USB. I see that *some* bugs that 
> haunted me with UMPC and intrepid were resolved -- for example, wireless now 
> wakes up after suspend. This is on a Samsung Q1U.
>
> To my dislike, it still did not recognize the builtin cameras, did not turn 
> the arrow keys into scrollers (I guess I still need to set the keycodes 
> accordingly still), touch screen calibration froze the unit, I can not find 
> an easy way to edit and reduce the clutter of the netbook interface.
>

What about screen rotation?  Under Intrepeid, at least early on, it
was lousy.  The mouse and touch screen axes didn't properly update
with the rotated screen, so pointer movement was WAY off.   Have you
tried screen rotation with Jaunty, on the Q1U?

I think it'd be nice to do Google Reader in portrait mode, for example :-)

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Re: Jaunty Mobile

[John Rudd]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 09:00, Ramaddan  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just upgraded, and had the dreaded netbook launcher which does not
> integrate well with a TabletPC (gave issues, apart from looking ugly on a
> TabletPC),


What "issues" did it give?


> so after upgrading, I just removed the "netbook-launcher" package, and I
> was back to normal again, but as Emmet said, the best is to test the
> release for yourself first before doing anything else.
>
> The upgrade removed the "Ubuntu-mobile" package, but after removing the
> "netbook-launcher", the settings were still there, probably in the user's
> folder.
>
> So I'm thinking of making a Jaunty package of "ubuntu-mobile" from the
> Intrepid package. Will see how that goes with me when I get some time.
>
> Regards,
> Ramaddan
>
> Emmet Hikory  wrote on 29 Apr 2009, 10:44 AM:
> Subject: Re: Jaunty Mobile
>>Turgut Durduran wrote:
     You might try with a live USB session first, just to see if you like
 it.  That's the safe way to determine if something would meet your
>>needs.
>>>
>>> I am in a very similar boat as the other poster -- using Samsung Q1U. I
>>started with the earlier version that had the hildon desktop and really
>>hated it (mainly because of the difficulty to switch between windows etc)
>>and moved to the mobile and I find it quite useful.
>>>
>>> I will test the live USB session but just to confirm, I should not
>>attempt to a distribution upgrade with my present installation.Is that
>>accurate?
>>
>>    I believe a distribution upgrade should mostly work.  There's no
>>special hints in update-manager to support UMPC though, so you may find
>>the results a bit unpolished.  If you're comfortable working with a
>>package manager, then you should be able to resolve any confusion.  If
>>you're not comfortable, a fresh installation may be easier.
>>
>>--
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>>
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Re: Jaunty Mobile

[John Rudd]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 05:04, Emmet Hikory  wrote:
> Jeff wrote:
>> I can not find Mobile in the Jaunty folder in " releases.ubuntu.com
>>   ". Did it get moved? I only see NetBook Remix
>
>    There is no separate UMPC release for Jaunty.  In many ways, the
> goals of the UMPC flavour were identical to the goals of the Netbook
> Remix, and there were several sets of instructions on partially enabling
> the Netbook Remix interface for the UMPC release in intrepid.  During
> the Jaunty cycle, the code and packages previously in the Netbook Remix
> were brought up to date and integrated with Ubuntu, resulting in a
> release as a flavour of Ubuntu, rather than a derivative.
>
>    Those that prefer the previous interface are probably best served by
> installing Desktop, and then installing the intrepid ubuntu-mobile
> package.  I'm not sure if this works (I haven't tried it).  If someone
> wants to take over maintenance of the settings package and associated
> bits to work in Karmic, that is certainly a solution, but those
> previously maintaining it have merged their efforts with the Netbook Remix.
>

I'm on a Samsung Q1 Ultra with Intrepid Ubuntu-UMPC, use the touch
screen a bit (especially with Ubuntu-UMPC's web browser).  What will I
lose if I just do Jaunty's Netbook Remix and not
JauntyDesktop+IntrepidMobile you mentioned?

What's in the Intrepid Mobile package that I would want to add to
Jaunty Desktop (or to Jaunty Netbook Remix, for that matter)?

Is there just a package for the touch screen version of the browser,
that is ready for Jaunty?


I haven't used (or really even SEEN) the various Netbook Remix front
ends ... but 90% of what I do on my Q1U boils down to 4 programs
(Terminal, one of the VNC clients, Browser, Firefox (keeping certain
things separate from each other)), I don't imagine it'd be hard to get
used to something that's just going to present me with a few options.
Especially if I can just select it from the touch screen.

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Convertible Tablet Netbook

[John Rudd]

Does anyone know of, or know which, convertible tablet netbooks work
with Ubuntu UMPC?  I'm looking at devices with 7" or 8.9" screens (as
my gadget bag can only barely hold a device 24cm long), such as:

CTL 2Go's new convertible tablet netbook
Kohjinsha SX3
Kohjinsha SC3
Fujitsu Lifebook U810/U820 series
Gigabyte M912 series
Vye S41
Asus EeePC T91 (waiting quite impatiently)


(or, with Netbook Remix, for that matter)

Things I'm concerned about:

1) On the Samsung Q1 Ultra (running Ubuntu UMPC 8.10), screen rotation
doesn't really work (it rotates the display, but the mouse/pointer
information is completely wrong, so your screen clicks and
joystick-mouse movements are off in lala land); this would be a
concern for me when trying to use the convertible tablet in portrait
orientation.

2) I'm also worried about, from my Raon Everun Digital Note, that wifi
may not work on whatever device I end up buying.  Apparently, Raon's
wifi wasn't able to work with Ubuntu, so they ripped it out of their
ubuntu version, and make you use an external dongle.  Completely
unacceptable.  So I need to be sure the wifi capabilities of whatever
device I buy will be supported by Ubuntu. (probably technically off
topic, since I don't know which flavor of Ubuntu that device runs,
just that it's Ubuntu of some type (NBR? Mobile/UMPC? standard?
dunno).

3) Also on the Samsung Q1 Ultra, the VGA output is wonky.  It will
only display 1024x600 (which my monitor doesn't grok) or 800x600,
which is completely inadequate.  It doesn't do something sensible,
like display 1024x600 letter boxed onto my monitor's 1024x768 mode.
Having letter boxed versions of "display mirroring" would seem to be a
pretty sensible way to handle devices with odd display resolutions on
conventional displays ... I can't be the only person to have thought
of this idea ...  (on the Raon, the VGA port doesn't appear to work at
all)

4) On the Q1 Ultra, lots of apps expect more Y resolution than 600
pixels...and thus their config screens run off the bottom of the
screen.  Pidgin is a perfect example of this, where there are some
config options I just can't get to.

5) I don't know if this is a general ubuntu issue, or my being
relatively new to ubuntu ... but I can't figure out how to get a
static IP address working with the wifi on my Q1 Ultra.  If I go fully
dynamic, it works fine.  If I try to give it a static IP, then it
doesn't pick up a reasonable default route... and it's completely
unclear to me how to enter that default route, and have it actually
take effect.  I can do it via a shell script, but I shouldn't need to
run a shell script every time I connect to my home wireless.

6) I've told my Ubuntu UMPC device (the Q1 Ultra), many times, not to
dim/blank the screen, ever, when I'm hooked up to AC power.  It even
remembers this configuration in the settings.

7) While I am a unix sysadmin, with 15 years experience, I don't want
to be a sysadmin for my mobile gadget -- if it can't be done via
simple, stable, well supported packages ... I consider that to be "not
supported at all".  I wont be doing any "rebuilding from source", so
please leave out any answers that depend upon that kind of "hobbyist"
level of activity to make it work.


Those are all things that make me a little shy about what device I'm
going to buy.  I don't know how many of them are "because the hardware
is poorly supported by Ubuntu" or "because Ubuntu UMPC is not fully
baked yet (ex: I am pretty sure the screen rotation issue falls into
this category)" or "because the device itself is deficient (the Raon's
wifi situation)".  I'm not willing to run Windows (in any capacity),
so I want/need a well supported linux device.

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My first experiences and questions with Ubuntu-UMPC

[John Rudd]

I finally figured out what was wrong with my SD card (I noticed that
the imagewriter utility was doing a slightly different dd command, and
at first I thought it was wrong, and stopped it to do the dd by hand,
but realized maybe I was wrong and let imagewriter re-try -- sure
enough, I was wrong, it worked fine).

There's still lots of rough edges here.  To be fair, I know
Ubuntu-UMPC is still rather new, so I expect lots of rough edges.  The
following criticisms are meant to be constructive, and not flames.
And, to be clear, this is on a Q1 Ultra Premium.  If you'd like me to
post these somewhere else, please say so.

Not everything is finger friendly, not even all of the scroll bars.
It's kind of annoying to have to pull out stylus or fiddle with the
mouse-joystick a lot.  It would be nice if the midbrowser had inertial
scrolling (it stops dead when I let go of a dragged scroll, instead of
continuing on like it had inertia ... for examples, see drag scrolling
on the iPhone or on Android).  It also seemed to frequently get
confused between "dragging" and "clicking" (I go to swipe, but I
happened to land on a link, so it goes to the url, despite the fact
that I was clearly making a dragging motion).  Or it recognizes a
click, but only to move the mouse there ... not to actually click the
URL.

(and, note, I'm not saying I dislike that the mouse has been retained,
both the hardware mouse/joystick and the mouse pointer -- I like that
the mouse and stylus/finger modes are being blended where they can ...
I'm finding it to be much more useful than what Maemo did)

It would be nice if the pop-up menu in midbrowser would show you the
application menu (File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools, Help).
I can't even figure out how to set my start page in midbrowser (and,
no, "about:config" isn't good enough -- that's hardly a friendly
interface).  Given the choice between "partial drag scrolling" in
Midbrowser, and "fully accessible options/menus/preferences" in
Firefox, I'm about to give Firefox a try.  I can see a couple possible
solutions here:

1) Make an easy to select method for making the menu and bookmark
toolbars visible.  Perhaps a button on the toolbar at the base of the
screen.  OR ... there's an unused "Menu" button at the top edge of the
screen.  Ubuntu-UMPC recognizes the vol- and vol+ buttons there (and
the UDF button, though I don't know what exactly that does), so why
not fully utilize that Menu button by making it something like a
toggle for the visibility of an application's menu bar?
2) Make the usual menus visible on the pop-up menu from right clicking
the browser pane.
3) Make a System->Preferences app/panel that acts as the
menu/settings/preferences system for Midbrowser.
4) Does Firefox control the same config files as Midbrowser? That
would at least allow you to set configurations and preferences in a
friendly manner.

Bug: I was playing the included freecell, and it killed X.  Ubuntu
re-started X in a safe mode (800x600), but it wouldn't let me go back
to the full display.  To do that I had to restart the system ... but
it wasn't clear that that would restore the full display.

Speaking of that, screen rotation is broken.  It doesn't swap the
mouse axes (axises?) ... so you're left with an awkwardness of trying
to navigate the pointer up/down using left/right movements, etc.  And
the touch screen is similarly out of whack.  I'd love to see this get
resolved, for some full document type reading.

Are there any camera applications?  Either for the webcam on the
front, or the portrait camera on the back?

It'd be nice if the systems administration apps had a front end for
formatting different storage devices (and this is  really an "Ubuntu
in general" issue, as I know it happens on the laptop I built just for
evaluating Ubuntu until I could install Ubuntu-UMPC on my Q1UP ... but
it's even more important on the Q1UP, and on other mobile devices, as
it has a built in SD card reader).  I know I can format a floppy by
right-clicking on the desktop icon ... but:

1) that doesn't help with SD cards (they don't list the "Format" option)

2) that forces me to put things on the desktop, which I abhor.  I
greatly prefer a clean desktop.  Goes back to my NeXT days.  (is there
a way to make the file browser right-click menu for a storage device
include the format option? and a way to tell the system to not put
devices on the desktop?)

3) I have no idea if there's anything similar for removable USB hard
drives/etc.  It would be nice if there was one "Storage Device
Manager" application that was a front end for: format/newfs floppy
drives, format/newfs SD cards, format/newfs hard drives (including
removable USB ones), burning CDs and DVDs (from a .iso, from a .img,
from a .tar or .tgz, from a directory to use as the CD/DVD root,
etc.), and for making .iso and .img files.  Maybe also for managing
RAIDs (since it's a "storage manager").  Note: it only needs to be a
front-end, so it could invoke other, mor

Re: ubuntu-umpc mirroring

[John Rudd]

Oliver Grawert wrote:
> hi,
> Am Montag, den 03.11.2008, 16:43 +0100 schrieb Loïc Minier:
>> On Mon, Nov 03, 2008, hito wrote:
>>> But http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-umpc/ does not provide
>>> rsync protocols. So, Im worried about manual operations...
>>>
>>> Must I wget-mirroring?  Anyone know a right method?
>>  Rsync works for me on this URL; make sure you use the cdimage component
>>  though: cdimage/ubuntu-umpc/intrepid/current/ubuntu-umpc.img
> thats not the released image though, 
> http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/intrepid/release/ubuntu-8.10-umpc-i386.img
> is the right one ...

As far as I can tell, they're the same image.

Not that that helps any.  Neither one works for me.

I dd'ed it onto an SD card, using the arguments given in the 
instructions (with the correct path and device name).  I could even read 
it on the ubuntu laptop I have.  But when I put it into my Samsung Q1 
Ultra _Premium_, with the bios set to boot to the USB stick before the 
hard drive, it just loops back and forth:

1) Show the BIOS screen
2) blank the screen like it's going to try to boot up
3) light up the USB stick's LED
4) Dim the USB stick's LED
5) Go to #1


The quirks of my set up:

* It's a USB SD card reader, with a microSDHC card stuck into a micro-SD 
to SD card adapter.  I assumed that'd look just like a USB stick -- am I 
wrong?  If I need to get a "real USB stick", what kind do I need to look 
for?

* It's an Ultra Premium, not an Ultra.  Someone on this list had 
previously said that shouldn't matter ... but, just in case, I'm 
pointing it out again.

* I made no other efforts to prepare the card, pre-dd'ing it, nor 
post-dd'ing it.  Did I miss or skip a step?  What are the full steps 
required?  Do I need to fully format it, then mkfs it, and then dd it? 
Do I need to follow up with some command to make it bootable? (I'm a 
unix sysadmin, but not a linux sysadmin (mostly solaris, BSD, and OS X, 
and a smattering of lots of other actual unix platforms, but very little 
hard core linux stuff), so when it gets down to this level of issue, 
where things don't "just work", I need a little bit of instruction)  (If 
I do need more steps, those commands should have been in the 
instructions... )

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Re: HP mini 1000 using Ubuntu-based Linux MIE

[John Rudd]

Are you sure it's running Ubuntu?  I thought the HP netbooks were all
running Suse?  It was one of the reasons I didn't buy an HP.

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 10:14, Tal Beno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In the past few days we have learned about HP's new Mini 1000 flavor using a
> brand new Ubuntu-based Linux MIE.
> I am curious if this is a standard desktop variation or it is based on the
> Mobile project. If not do you intend working with HP and offering them the
> mobile edition as the base for their alteration?
> I must reveal that I am currently working for HP, but I have no connection
> whatsoever to that department so I know nothing about it nor know any person
> making decisions for the hardware/OS products. I just thought as an Ubuntu
> fan that this might be the best chance to leverage this OS mobile flavor ...
>
> Best,
> Tal
>
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Installing

[John Rudd]

With the new Intrepid release, yesterday, do I just need to get the USB
version of that dist. and use that to install it on my Samsung Q1 Ultra?  Do
I need to do anything special, or get a Mobile/UMPC specially cooked version
of Intrepid, or will the main version of Intrepid "just work"?

Thanks,


John
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New to Ubuntu and Ubuntu-Mobile

[John Rudd]

So, while I have _some_ background with Linux, and a ton of background 
with Unix, I'm new to Ubuntu, and even more new to Ubuntu-Mobile.  But I 
saw a review of it on UMPC Portal running on a Samsung Q1 Ultra 
(800Mhz).  I liked it so much I went out and bought a Samsung Q1 Ultra 
_Premium_ (1.3GHz) on ebay. (it should get here late this week)

My hope/plan is to install Ubuntu Mobile directly on the Hard Drive (via 
the USB stick, I assume), and use Ubuntu as my primary OS.  But I have a 
ton of questions, so hopefully this is the right place to ask them, and 
I wont annoy all of you.


First, I didn't realize until after I bought it that the Premium isn't 
just a faster chip, but a slightly different CPU ... is that going to be 
a problem? (does anyone know?)

Second, while I saw a post over at UMPC Portal about how to install from 
the stick to the hard drive, I am curious about how updates will be 
done.  My ancient laptop that I installed Ubuntu upon for basic testing 
notifies me of updates, and asks me when I want to install them.  Does 
Ubuntu Mobile install from its own separate repository?  Or the same 
one?  If the same one, does it keep track of conflicts, so that I don't 
have to worry about "oh, that update might make my UMPC stop working!"? 
  And, will the Ubuntu Mobile mods make it into the main-line Ubuntu OS 
distributions, or will it always be "that other code base" type thing?

Third, does anyone know which, if either, of the Premium's cameras work? 
  I actually don't care much about the chat cam, but the photo cam might 
be nice to have working.

Fourth, what USB 3G modems are known to work?  I'm currently leaning 
toward AT&T's 3G USB modems (or an express card in a USB adaptor, not sure).

Last, I'm not just wanting to 'take' here.  I'm not a linux expert, not 
a kernel hacker, not even really a GUI programmer.  I'm mostly a 
professional sysadmin.  But I'll help in whatever way I can.  What can I 
provide?  Are there any diagnostics you'd like me to run on that system 
to give you feedback about how it is or isn't performing?


Thanks,


John


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