720degrees Linux for the Jornada 720

I've installed 720degrees on my Jornada twice, and I keep on getting the same problem:

(none):~# base-config new
-bash: base-config: command not found

Am I missing something here?

apt-get install base-config

Sorry about that, it seems to be happening occasionally. Are you root when you do it? As in, not su'ed, but with a full PATH.

And about the hibernation, it is more complicated than that, like I said. There is an entire hibernation kernel patch available somewhere. It would be integrated into the shutdown command, somehow. That is the complicated part. How can we clear ram and reload it at the same time? Maybe we could do things incrementally, like clear the upper ram and go on down, and at the first address we would be back in CE?

base-config is not included anymore on the Etch release of Debian, as they want to isolate the install process from the OS itself.

If the image is based on Etch it's very likely that base-config won't be available anymore. Too bad for us :/ We will have to do all the task manually. No big deal with that tough...

By the way, any news with the rebooting to CE thing? I guess that we are still out of look in that point. Anyway the distro is really awesome

Um, what do you mean too bad? We will simply upload the package onto the 720degrees repository then, and solve the problem. We could also include it in the etch base itself no problem.

Rebooting CE? Lets wait until Gernoth is ready to be contacted again. I need to get better at C anyways. Anyone check my latest on the long winded thread?

The etch base has no base-config...just do adduser and tzconfig stuff.


Um question here, My linux OS froze up while in sleep mode for the first time in like 8 days of running. Don't know why, anyway I really don't like the fsck and reboot thing. How can you tell the kernel to fix the fs system and NOT reboot...but instead mount it and continue booting (it just fixed it after all!!!)


Other than that a few pointers to others. My headphone port never got used and the sensor spring it in was a little hard, a few insertions of a headphone jack got it working and switching from speaker to headphone correctly. When you launch mpg123 to play an MP3 do mpg123 -o oss file.mp3. To change the volume use the program aumix. Don't try to set the MIC is crashes aumix (not a huge deal).


Anyway the fsck reboot issue needs some fixing...any info?




Edited by weblacky 2006-04-04 1:49 AM

I didn't think that you could fix it and not reboot...it probably has some *deprecated* reason for doing so.

Aumix? Thanks for the tip - but what does it use to control it? OSS? Anyways, use madplay. Your performance will be much greater. Or use mocp, it controls the volume and plays mp3's well.

Nope, no info.

The sound system is OSS (Open Source Sound system) Aumix is both an app and a service you can use just for OSS. Aumix provides console ncurses display of slides and sources you have on your system that you can adjust. it can also be launched at start/sthudtown to save/restore mixer settings. I use it on my desktop to make sure that the sound settings I shutdown down with are what it present after startup.

Yeah, I'll look at the fsck init script...

I'll try mocp...

Edited by weblacky 2006-04-04 4:08 AM

Hey everyone,

As my co-developers know, I have been on vacation. Now that I am back, I still have a bunch of other life issues to juggle but we can get the ball rolling again on the distro.

Firstly, I am aware of base-config missing in the etch base. This is because base-config has been deprecated by Debian mainline due to the new graphical Debian installer. The graphical Debian installer however does not work on bootstrap/base-image installs like ours, so we still need base-config (or manually handle the tasks). I'll be cranking out a new etch base image that has the old base-config image pinned.

For those who know how long it really takes for me to put out a new base image after I've announced it (heh) the relevant command is

apt-get install base-config=2.53.10

Secondly, this fsck reboot issue, I don't understand the problem. I don't have it. When a reboot is forced from, say, system crash or power failure, of course fsck needs to check and repair the disk. After checking it, I have *never* had a problem using tune2fs -T 2006xxxx /dev/hda2 to set the date of last check and reboot, where xxxx should be one day before the last jclock setting. i.e. jclock sets the clock to April 3, then xxxx = 0402. I don't have anything special in my system to make it work, I have the same kernel, same ext2 filesystem. If it's not working for you we need to find out what's wrong with your particular setup.

If you're totally frustrated, you could of course just skip boot fsck altogether by deleting the symlink checkroot in the startup directory. But this solution is far from ideal.

Also, I know I've promised a lot of packages that need to be uploaded to the repository, a lot of them basic needs like the battery monitor, new xserver, and I know everyone is waiting on the Firefox package. I will really really try to get these done and up this week. You gotta blame Vegas for the delay.

We don't need to wait to contact Gernoth. He actively participates in the Jornada mailing list hosted at Handhelds.org. Team members and other 720degrees users would do well to subscribe to this mailing list and actively participate. I have seen a lot of messages posted by people trying to use 720degrees but running into problems that have been easily solved on this forum.

Speaking of which, z80 is waiting on us to come up with a working list of subforums so that he can set up the dedicated 720degrees forum. I'd like a sound-off from the users on what topics need to be addressed as separate categories. This is probably the most important announcement of this post, as we NEED to have a centralized place (besides Factor) that we can discuss this distro and guide newbies looking for help. It seems there are dozens of potential users out there on the mailing lists looking for help but just not on this forum. One post I read declared a particular need for an ultra-compact Linux for the 720, i.e. 256 MB CF, so PS, better start prepping goPhaSt.

That's all for this update

I can't start on gophast until the basics are completed.

Also, you misread his problem. His ext2 filesystem was corrupted, which requires a log in to single user mode, and a reboot afterwards, so the filesystem can be repaired. Think of it like Windows 95 exiting into scandisk, then continuing into Windows. But it does not need a reboot.

Yes ProgramSynthesiser has it right.

Reboot, repair FS, then it demands to reboot AGAIN before booting normally! Why on earth would you need a reboot after fixing the FS during boot? it does not change the disk, parititions, or layout. And becasue it was fixed BEFORE it was mounted it should just go ahead and mount it after the fix and keep going.


Instead it says you must reboot after the fix and then shuts down...not what I want.


Also besides new packages (please try to get minimo built for those of us without 64MB 728 chips) what other real problems are there? I mean the shutdown script only seems to work some of the time for me but other than that I have been very satisfied. WPA supprt works, card support works, screen works, the only other complaint is the [] and {} keys on the keyboard (along with the caps lock) isn't mapped ( or cannot be mapped, I have tried yet).


What real issues are people having?

Oh, *that*. Of course, I launched into that because IIRC weblacky also had the jclock/tune2fs problem before. Must've been a reflex response.

But besides that, that's hardly a problem, more of a nuisance. I think the answer is in fsck itself.

Yes I know that gophast requires the basics to be done, but what I meant by prepare is what you've already been doing: identifying things to trim and choosing lean application alternatives. Plan early, plan ahead

Naah, too much work.

I'll figure out the slackware packaging thing when I have more time. The reason for the shutdown is probably related to being in single user mode. Maybe you could figure a way to get out of that. Choosing apps? Agh, so much work. Lol, I really do need a bigger microdrive. Oh well, it does its job.

On the bright side, if you had done as everyone on the forum has been saying, and ponied up a couple extra bucks for a larger drive, you'd no longer have motivation to develop a tightly compacted install. I for one have made it clear that I'll be tolerant of bloat so long as the system works well, but then I've got plenty of space. The demand is up for space constrained installs, and since you have a space impaired microdrive, I think that will ultimately make it very easy for you to focus on optimization.

Fine. Then you buy a ridiculously large microdrive, and I will give you a list of 300 applications to test for me. Deal?

I do not have the tune2fs date issue anymore because once I did an update I got a new fsck which doesn't crash. the previous issue was fsck would crash at 30% and then you'd be SOL. Now fsck always goes all the way through so the whole set date thing isn't needed because the fsck acutually works.