[vox-tech] familiar review
hey all, so I got my ipaq 2 days ago (a gift from Marianne) and after a night of not sleeping, and a day of being extremely impressed with Familiar 0.5.1, I thought I'd share a bit. First of all, getting Familiar installed on the Ipaq was a piece of cake. I followed the instructions on the familiar website: first (under PocketPC) I set the Ipaq up for dialup, ie. ppp to my desktop over serial. Then using PocketExplorer I downloaded BootBlaster and a free FTP client called ScottyFTP, and backed up my boot sector and wince partition, then transfered those over to the desktop. Then I downloaded the bootldr and flashed the boot sector using bootblaster. Reboot time. Hold down the d-pad and hit the reset switch, and up came a nice Tux image and a bootloader picture. Since the Ipaq was still in the cradle I opened up minicom, and set up a serial connection to it, and was greeted by the boot loader command line. Wipe the wince partition, and type 'load root' to load the root image I had downloaded from the familiar page, and then used minicom to upload the image with xmodem. It wrote the image to flash and then I typed 'boot', and it booted the image. An X stippled pattern came up on the ipaq after boot messages on the serial console, and a login prompt on serial. So I logged in, and started ppp, then closed minicom, and started up ppp on the desktop. After that, I was able to ssh into the ipaq! :) From there, I used the dpkg'esque ipkg system to download 'task-complete' and 'task-mp3-play', the pseudo packages with most of the packages I wanted. The boring part came then, as I waited for the packages to install over 115200 serial. After that, I had a fully working, Linux installed handheld :) I didn't like the default install very much, so I went ahead and ditched the window manager (ios) and installed icewm. I also went thru the graphical package manager (very excellent) and installed vim and bash (essentials) and a lot of PIM stuff (lots of options, some taken from agenda IIRC), dillo and some small utilities. Everything works really nicely, the anti-aliased fonts look _nice_. And I mean _nice_ :) After the near-full install I still have 1.4mb left on the / partition, and half of the 32mb of ram mounted as a ramfs. As soon as I get the cha$$$nce, I'll probably get a nice 64/128 CF card to go with it, so I can carry some tunes around. It'll probably make a nice MP3 player, since you can shut the screen off completely, although not as nice as the Clie with dedicated DSP. One of the things that really impressed me is how easily the screen rotates from landscape to portrait (both directions each), and how the hardware (screen, audio, apm, launch buttons) worked out of the box. It also comes with an onscreen keyboard and xstroke, for handwriting. xstroke seems to understand my grafitti characters, so I'm assuming the default config is grafitti (there's a .conf in /etc you can change with character mappings). Suposedly familiar is binary and library compatible with the debian arm packages, but I still need to try that out. Overall I have to say this rocks. Being a geek I wouldn't mind having a newer model with more storage (I think the newer ones have 64mb flash/64mb ram, or 64mb flash/32mb ram, or similar), but 16mb seems to be more than enough for a good config. Anyways, off to play with the familiar :) -Gabe ___ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
Re: [vox-tech] familiar review
On Fri, Mar 15, 2002 at 12:28:27PM -0800, Gabriel Rosa wrote: snip I didn't like the default install very much, so I went ahead and ditched the window manager (ios) and installed icewm. I also went thru the graphical package manager (very excellent) and installed vim and bash (essentials) and a lot of PIM stuff (lots of options, some taken from agenda IIRC), Yeah - I heard that Agenda had been adopted/ported for Linux-on-iPAQ, at least as an alternative. Did you need to install FLTK, too, or were the binaries statically-linked to it. dillo and some small utilities. Dillo's great. :) Until I got my Zaurus (which has embedded Opera and now Konqueror/embedded - both awesome), I was really paying attention to ViewML (FLTK-based), Cheetah and Dillo browsers. I was really hoping one of them would get ported to the Agenda's smaller screen and stylus interface. Oh well... it's moot now :) Everything works really nicely, the anti-aliased fonts look _nice_. And I mean _nice_ :) Yeah - I heard you mention you've got AA'd fonts in the terminal. That's one thing the current terminal lacks on the Zaurus (it's just KDE's Konsole). Fortunately, both Opera and Konqueror support AA'd fonts. I think some of theKompany.com's apps support the available AA'd fonts, too. After the near-full install I still have 1.4mb left on the / partition, So / is flash? Is it mounted RW or RO? and half of the 32mb of ram mounted as a ramfs. As soon as I get the cha$$$nce, I'll probably get a nice 64/128 CF card to go with it, 64MB CF is only about $50 bucks at Fry's. You can probably find something somewhere cheaper. Do you have the appropriate sleeve (or whatever) to use a CF card? If not - how much do those run? I can't imagine it'd be much, since it seems like it should just be some kind of pass-thru with a different form-factor. BTW - Recently, people started pointing out PCMCIA-CF adapters, which will allow CF-based PDAs (like Zaurus iPaq) to use any old PCMCIA card. :) so I can carry some tunes around. It'll probably make a nice MP3 player, since you can shut the screen off completely, although not as nice as the Clie with dedicated DSP. What MP3 player are you using? The one that Trolltech wrote for the Zaurus is suitable, but it's currently lacking some useful features like forward- and backwards- seeking within a song. It supports MP3, MPEG1/2 and with a plug-in, MPEG4. There's a MOD plugin, but it sounds like it only works on iPaqs running Qtopia. Fortunately, theKompany.com is coming out with a product which will be a complete solution for all audio, video and image viewing needs. (And has built-in MOD support.) I'm eagerly awaiting that. :) One of the things that really impressed me is how easily the screen rotates from landscape to portrait (both directions each), and how the hardware (screen, audio, apm, launch buttons) worked out of the box. Can you rotate the screen while everything is running? Do all apps. rotate? Under Qtopia, screen-rotation affects the next application(s) you launch, so I can have a right-side-up (portrait) terminal, and a sideways (landscape) web browser. (It also supports all 4 degrees of rotation.) It also comes with an onscreen keyboard and xstroke, for handwriting. xstroke seems to understand my grafitti characters, so I'm assuming the default config is grafitti (there's a .conf in /etc you can change with character mappings). Eek... Are there tools that'll let you retrain it? The Agenda originally used Xscribble, and then moved to Xmerlin, which was WAY better. At least with the latter, you could run an application on your desktop to teach it your own strokes. On the Zaurus, the handwriting is /fully/ trainable (ie, you can even remove default strokes, rather than just create alternatives), and is managed on the device. If Xmerlin is available for iPaq (I'd be surprised if it wasn't), I strongly suggest trying it out. In the meantime, though, I would like to check out Xstroke and see how it compares. Suposedly familiar is binary and library compatible with the debian arm packages, but I still need to try that out. Sounds about right. :) Overall I have to say this rocks. Being a geek I wouldn't mind having a newer model with more storage (I think the newer ones have 64mb flash/64mb ram, or 64mb flash/32mb ram, or similar), but 16mb seems to be more than enough for a good config. I'm ok with the 32MB in my Zaurus, but that's only because someone came out with an entirely SD-card-based ROM, so rather than having 16MB of RAM and 16MB of storage (like Sharp's 1.10 ROM), or ~27MB of RAM and ~5MB of storage (like their 1.11 alternative), I've got ~32MB of RAM and 64MB of storage. :) Of course, after installing almost 20 IPKG's, including 3 really large games, a VNC server, and Konqueror, as well as a 5MB text-to-speech program and a 20MB install of GCC, I've only got about 12MB of space left. Thank goodness for the CF
Re: [vox-tech] familiar review
To answer Bill's question about the filesystem layout in Familiar, here's the scoop: / is a JFFS2 partition mounted RW. RW?! Yeah, but don't worry, it only gets written to when you make a change to something like /etc/foo or something else not in /var or /tmp. /var and /tmp are kept in a ramfs partition in RAM, allowing the frequent writes associated with these directories without slow write times and/or wearing out a sector of flash. The init scripts do populate /var with some necessary data on bootup, but for the most part I think the logs are lost on reboot. Hope this answers your ? sufficiently, Bill! - Geoff ___ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
Re: [vox-tech] familiar review
On Fri, Mar 15, 2002 at 02:52:36PM -0800, Geoffrey Herteg wrote: To answer Bill's question about the filesystem layout in Familiar, here's the scoop: Thanks. :) / is a JFFS2 partition mounted RW. RW?! Yeah, but don't worry, it only gets written to when you make a change to something like /etc/foo or something else not in /var or /tmp. Similar to the Agenda. Here's what the Zaurus has, on /my/ particular device. (Again, I'm running an alternative ROMdisk) # mount /dev/mtdblock0 on / type cramfs (ro) 16MB internal Flash ROM /proc on /proc type proc (rw) /proc /dev/ram1 on /dev type minix (rw) /dev /dev/mtdblock1 on /home type ext2 (rw,sync,noatime)64MB removable SD card none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw) /dev/pts /dev/hda1 on /usr/mnt.rom/cf type vfat (rw)64MB removable CF card # df Filesystem 1k-blks Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/ram1 44 24 20 55% /dev /dev/mtdblock1 58977 43804 12128 78% /home /dev/hda162436 21994 40442 35% /usr/mnt.rom/cf In comparison, here's the Agenda VR3 (running a non-altered ROM) $ mount /dev/hdc2 on / type unknown (rw,noatime) 16MB internal Flash proc on /proc type proc (rw) /proc $ df Filesystem 1k-blks Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mtdblock03328 3072256 92% /flash Where ROM lives for reset It's odd that / isn't listed on either unit's df output... -bill! ___ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
Re: [vox-tech] familiar review
On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, nbs wrote: Yeah - I heard that Agenda had been adopted/ported for Linux-on-iPAQ, at least as an alternative. Did you need to install FLTK, too, or were the binaries statically-linked to it. Yes, there are the Agenda PIM utilities, plus some other PIM things, most notably an all-in-one thing called Storm that seems pretty. The agenda utils install libfltk as a dependency :) After the near-full install I still have 1.4mb left on the / partition, So / is flash? Is it mounted RW or RO? To add to Geoff's answer, yes, /var is on the ramfs partition. I suspect that when I get CF, I'll move $HOME and /etc over to CF, since that's probably what I make the most changes to. and half of the 32mb of ram mounted as a ramfs. As soon as I get the cha$$$nce, I'll probably get a nice 64/128 CF card to go with it, 64MB CF is only about $50 bucks at Fry's. You can probably find something somewhere cheaper. Do you have the appropriate sleeve (or whatever) to use a CF card? If not - how much do those run? I can't imagine it'd be much, since it seems like it should just be some kind of pass-thru with a different form-factor. I saw a nice, sleeker-than-compaq's sleeve going for $45. http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/silverslider-review.html BTW - Recently, people started pointing out PCMCIA-CF adapters, which will allow CF-based PDAs (like Zaurus iPaq) to use any old PCMCIA card. :) Hrm... I think that would be a bad idea power wise. I'd like to keep my battery life to a useful length :) What MP3 player are you using? The one that Trolltech wrote for the Zaurus is suitable, but it's currently lacking some useful features like forward- and backwards- seeking within a song. It supports MP3, MPEG1/2 and with a plug-in, MPEG4. There's a MOD plugin, but it sounds like it only works on iPaqs running Qtopia. Fortunately, theKompany.com is coming out with a product which will be a complete solution for all audio, video and image viewing needs. (And has built-in MOD support.) I'm eagerly awaiting that. :) I've been using a Python frontend to madplay called Scream. It has playlist, shoutcast, seeking, mixer, etc support. Unlike the Zaurus, the Ipaq has an external speaker ;) Can you rotate the screen while everything is running? Do all apps. rotate? Under Qtopia, screen-rotation affects the next application(s) you launch, so I can have a right-side-up (portrait) terminal, and a sideways (landscape) web browser. (It also supports all 4 degrees of rotation.) Yes, you can rotate while things are running, but everything rotates. I can see how having multiple orientations could be useful, but it creates complications for the d-pad (which way is up, etc). The rotate script loads an alternate xmodmap to change the d-pad (ya, 4 degrees of rotation). Eek... Are there tools that'll let you retrain it? The Agenda originally used Xscribble, and then moved to Xmerlin, which was WAY better. At least with the latter, you could run an application on your desktop to teach it your own strokes. On the Zaurus, the handwriting is /fully/ trainable (ie, you can even remove default strokes, rather than just create alternatives), and is managed on the device. Nope, no training, but I happen to like grafitti, so it's not an issue for me. If Xmerlin is available for iPaq (I'd be surprised if it wasn't), I strongly suggest trying it out. In the meantime, though, I would like to check out Xstroke and see how it compares. Ya, I'm sure I can easily build it if there's no package for it. I'm pretty happy with Xstroke, but it has some quirks with rxvt where writing on the terminal window selects instead of drawing, so to do handwriting on a terminal you need to have some desktop space available. Doesn't seem to happen on any other app though. I'm ok with the 32MB in my Zaurus, but that's only because someone came out with an entirely SD-card-based ROM, so rather than having 16MB of RAM and 16MB of storage (like Sharp's 1.10 ROM), or ~27MB of RAM and ~5MB of storage (like their 1.11 alternative), I've got ~32MB of RAM and 64MB of storage. :) 16mb of ram seems to be pretty good. It would be neat to hack up a script to auto-resize the ramfs (ala WinCE), but I suspect that's really a non issue, specially if I move /var over to cf maybe. I'll bring it to LUGOD on monday and let you fiddle with it. -Gabe ___ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
