Netbook Pro I've found a working linux distro!

I thought anybody could edit the wiki. I haven't looked at it in a while.

Not to hijack your thread, but I've been following this for awhile and recently saw the moblin distro announcement and thought finally, someone is getting lean enough to run on the psion pro.

Since it's all open source, I am hoping some ideas will migrate to the psion distro.

Paul

Bobbyshane,

Thanks a lot for your help. The day after I posted the message, I finally succeedded in installing Linux on a CF card, with the files and the method you describe. I was very happy. I also descovered a problem on my Netbook Pro. I used a nbkpro.img file with the command "nand partition e8". With such a small partition, Windows CE couldn't install anymore. I made another nbkpro.img file with the command "nand partition 7e8", and Windows CE could install itself.

I have two problems. Windows CE boots, I see the Psion Teklogix logo and the progress bar at the top of the screen. But when this bar reaches the end, the Netbook stops, and nothing more happens. I can't use Windows CE. The second problem is about the keyboard. Do you know how to switch to a french keyboard? I don't know which package and which command to use.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hello all,

Is the linux distro any good and updated?
Where can the downloads be found?

dvr,

no problem. Glad I could help. I'm not sure I can help with your wince problem. The only thing I can think of is that psion has a program listed in the /usr/bin folder that writes to the nand. But I know nothing about it.

I did find a page with info on how to change the locale in GPE which should work in the psion distro as well. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure changing the locale will change the language in programs that support locales as well as change the keyboard layout.
Go to: http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/GPENewbie and go a little less than halfway down the page where it says "How can I get GPE in my own language?"

Once again I hope this helps.

bobbyshane

update: It's rather late here tonight and I'm slow. I happened to see that just below the locale part of the gpenewbie page it tells how to change the keyboard setting so I guess it is seperate.

Edited by bobbyshane 2009-06-06 2:49 AM

rx_shorty,

There are two choices that can be tested without removing wince from your machine if you have a large enough cf card to test them with. Although neither of them are updated, they are both worth trying out and in my opinion better than wince. If you look at the page before this one in this thread you will find a post by me that details how to install either of these choices in detail.

Edited by bobbyshane 2009-06-06 2:42 AM

Wow from following the directions at http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/GPENewbie I was able to use my desktop's mouse and keyboard on my netbook pro through my network! You can set it up like a dual monitor setup and even change which direction you have to move your mouse from your desktop's screen into your mobile device's screen. This is awesome! Just connect your netbook to your local network (I'm doing it through my wifi and it works in real time!) and follow the directions at the link I listed above and find where it says this: I heard that I can use my desktop's mouse and keyboard. How do I do that?

to change the direction you have to go out of your desktop's screen to enter the netbook's screen change -east option to -west for the left side of the screen, -north for the top, and -south for the bottom. I'm going to attempt to add a mouse pointer so that I can see where it is. By default there isn't one so you can only see where the mouse is when it is over the terminal, a text or wp program. For some reason you can see a mouse pointer when you move the black bar on the left side of the terminal app, which moves the screen of the terminal up. I had been using my fingernail to do this as you can't do it with the stylus at all.

There is also a program for taking screenshots and a program for syncing your device with your desktop! I haven't tried either out yet though. I will report any progress I have with these.

Edited by bobbyshane 2009-06-06 3:17 AM

Nice bobbyshane,

What is working on it?
Touchscreen? Sounds? Battery status? SD-Card reader?
Wifi cards?

Sorry for the many questions, but I am thinking of buying one

rx_shorty

The only thing not working out of the box for me was the sd card reader. Haven't figured it out, but I'm still working on it. And unlike wince both 'distro's' not only have a battery monitor, but have it on the taskbar where it belongs so you don't have to go hunting for it. With the GPE image you have to calibrate the touchscreen before it will work good, the Psion image seems to be pre-calibrated. I also find that although firefox in the Psion image takes a minute or so to startup it loads pages way faster and better than ie in wince. When I stay in the Psion image (which is most of the time) I just leave firefox open in the background so I don't have to wait on it to load when I need it. It works great that way and doesn't take up a lot of background resources like the newer version does (it's firefox version 1). In fact the lack of working sd card reader is a big part of why I use the Psion image as I can just email files back and forth to my desktop. I'm in the process of trying to get the sync program working, hopefully that will be a better way of doing that.

If anyone on here has been able to get the sd card slot working I would love to know where you got the module. If I find one that works I'll post it on here.

Thank you bobbyshane! I will try to install more software on LX. Any hope of gcc since you have make?

Marus
I actually have reinstalled since then and no longer have make installed. I want to say that I did end up installing gcc but I do not remember if I was able to use it or not. I have been bouncing around trying new stuff with it and really need to just start keeping a blog on what all I am doing since I have the memory of an Alzheimer's patient. I would say try installing make and gcc and see where you get with it. It seems like any software I have tried to install outside of ipkg has not worked properly. I keep meaning to learn how to use bitbake and don't seem to get around to it. I would love to learn how to cross compile software over to this setup as there are still several programs that I need that do not seem to work properly. Several programs I have tried to install from some of the openzaurus feeds try to upgrade gtk and glibc and end up causing the system to be unusable. I have found that dd is your friend with these kinds of tests. I've gotten so when I want to backup I backup the whole second partition to a file on my desktop. Works like a charm. Thunderbird and FBreader on the openzaurus feeds are two particular culprits. I have been trying to find a work around, however I am on vacation this week and do not have access to my desktop so I have no way of restoring from a backup if something goes wrong, so I will have to hold off my tests until I get back. Let me know if you manage to get anything compiled with make. I have only been focusing on specific programs that I really want and/or need that I cannot install via ipkg. The biggest hurdle to cross seems to be the architecture. On one hand it seems like there is not much software out there that is not architecture dependent even in source form.

I would be interested in hearing everybody else's success or failure stories with this. Particularly with what software you have been able to get installed and how, whether by ipkg feeds, make, bitbake, or whatever. I will try to compile a list of what I have been able to get installed on which image (there have been some apps that will install on one and not the other both ways) and post it.

Edited by bobbyshane 2009-06-13 1:30 AM

Hi, bobbyshane:

You mean the PCMCIA slot works in both Pison and GPE image? Or do you need special driver?

Thanks

Does anyone know if there is there kernel source available? What version is it running? And what works? If there is kernel source I'd like to make a newer image, maybe from another project.

hm i have following files for the Psion LX distribution (sorry not if the gpe image)... also the sources and a kernelpatch:


soho-image-netbook-pro-20050104074212.rootfs.tar.bz2
linux-2.6.9-pre1-bk18-nbp1.patch
mk-nBkProOsImg.c
nBkProOs.img
netbook-booting.txt
netbook-linux-sources.tgz (full kernel sources of 2.6.9 included)

maybe this could help you? msg me if you want something of it.




Edited by scops 2009-07-31 4:22 AM

Hello everyone,

I've followed bobbyshane's instructions and everything worked first time when installing the psionlx distribution. I normally use Ubuntu on my desktop PC.

I am having trouble mounting USB flash disks. I plug the disk in and issue a "dmesg" command to see where the disk is mounted (normally /dev/sda1). Then I simply "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb" where /mnt/usb is a directory I previously created. I am doing all this after becoming root (su).

Now I can read and write files to the disk no problem. I issue a "umount /mnt/usb" command before removing the disk. I insert the disk into another PC and it still works fine.

But.... if I try and mount another USB flash disk (it can be the same disk or a different one) it mounts OK, but I can't see any files on it. In fact sometimes the keyboard stops responding altogether and I have to perform a cold start (remove all batteries) and then press the rest button and ESC-CTRL-D to reboot into Linux. The touch screen still works, but I just can't turn the machine off before the cold start.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Alastair

havent had that kind of trouble..i have tried both images (LX and GPE) and both worked flawlessly ...but what are permissions on the files .. i think that some1 already mentioned that is bad idea to copy files as su ...so change owner with "chown" and give rwx permissions to grp/owner/other ..hope that helps