720degrees Linux for the Jornada 720

We always knew it was possible, by erasing the ram. This sounds like a freak, and very lucky, event. Somehow, all of his ram was erased on the reset. Anyone know of a shutdown log?

Some cool news - I figured that gps support would be an interesting addition to the distro. Well, I just got my Delorme Earthmate to work on my Linux pc. It is usb, but does have a serial cable available, and it has been successfully used with a usb to serial converter on a Zaurus. There are some good gps programs for Linux, one of which should definitely run on the 720. More on this later.

I had just been messing around with X and some window managers, and doing some apt-get install, and apt-get remove.. you know, the usual stuff. The exact shutdown command was shutdown -r now! I did not have to push the soft-reset button. Maybe CE dosen't check the whole ram, but just some part of it, and in my case, maybe this part was cleared?

Another interesting thing, about kismet- the wlan scanner. It installed OK, configuration was no problem, and it ran, only problem was that no UI was shown, only the startup log which ends at "Gathering packets". Log files was created also, with all the wireless lans around my house, and everything works like a charm, except no UI. I was using the kernel with the backported orinoco-drivers on a orinoco gold card. Anyone have any clues here?

I don't know anything about the program. Link please?

Kismet is probably the best wireless site survey/wardriving application out there. One of its more novel features is the ability to detect networks with beaconing turned off, as well as the ability to detect clients. It requires a card that can operate in RF monitor mode.

I'll look into it, but will need to research it myself to understand how the UI works. Anyways, for the gps support, qpegps looks like a program that will do the job. If anyone knows of others that will run on the 720, please post.

Right now there may be an issue with the j720 serial port not working on the newest kernel. you may have to use a PCMCIA serial card to get a working port.

We are working on this distro for a reason, aren't we?

Getting the serial fixed is one of our higher priorities right now. I am almost positive that the kernel is fine (even though it was a bit wacky this time), but we just have not properly configured the serial. By the way, PM, email, or contact me via IM. I would like to talk a few things over with you.

Any word on the X Server?

Development should resume in a week. It will be fixed by then, at least.

Hi to all!

First, I would like to thank snickersmd, ProgramSynthesiser, MattimeoZ80 and the rest of developers for their great job!
I give weblacky his credit too, as his knowledge about linux seems quite vast and he brought up the WPA encription, which I'm very interested at, and even has got it working! (Was it with kernel 2.6? I don't remember)
Maybe now you should consider accepting him as a developer.
I have spent last few days reading along all 30 pages of this post and I've found it very interesting.
I own a Jornada 720 about 3 or 4 years ago.
As it was a present from a German friend, my German is null and I didn't have any sync cable nor power adapter, I made a cable to charge it through a connector to my computer mainboard and it worked great.
After this I wanted to translate it into Spanish, but I found the only way was physically changing the ROM card, and there was no Spanish ROM, or I wasn't able to find it. (I think that in Spain and Latin America, HP just sold the Englih version).
I didn't use it very much at first because it couldn't sync.
Then I researched about linux on the Jornada and I followed instructions here:
http://homepage1.nifty.com/kyou-kyou/jornada/en/howto_install001.html
but my linux knowledge was very poor by then, and I gave up very soon.
Then I discovered eBay and bought the craddle, an external batt charger, an english ROM, a wifi card - Enterasys Roamabout PCMCIA 11Mbps and a black OtterBox. I also got a Socket CF Bluetooth card with PCMCIA adapter (I changed it for a bluetooth usb stick).

Then I forgot about linux and started enjoying my Jornada

After that I started using Linux as a second OS in my PCs. I started with Knoppix, then Mandrake but I switched to Debian and Ubuntu. I'm not very tecnical, but I've compiled some apps and even I dared some kernels.

Last month my CF slot stopped working and I bought at eBay a 720 with a non-working keyboard for 70$. The seller had bought another keyboard (a 728 one) and it didn't work too, so he sold it for parts.
As this Jornada was by far in a better state than mine, I tried to switch keyboards and I found that german keys are a bit smaller as they have 3 more keys. Then I joyfully discovered that the original english keyboard (not the 728 one) worked ok!!!
This will make my Jornada journey some longer...

I researched about WPA encription on HPC2000 (noo way), because WEP was breakable and I luckily found this thread. All my home wifi appliances support WPA but my Jornada.
I've finally switched to WPA and I use bluetooth for networking with the Jornada when I'm home, and the wifi card when I'm out (most wifi networks here in Spain still use WEP). But WPA would be great.
So now I want to give a second try to linux and I've downloaded all the stuff from the 720degrees page.
As I've seen at the Wlan-ng list my wifi card has an Orinoco chip, so I first tried with the Orinoco Driver Backports and Etch package. PCMCIA didn't work at all. The link light was off all the time. I couldn't do lspci. I tried with a NE2000 10Mbps PCMCIA network card that worked in CE out of the box even without any driver, but the light continued off.
Then I've tried with initrd, modules, and vmlinuz files build by Michael with the stable release.
The NE2000 worked ok. So I run base-config and it changed to testing, so I changed the 720 repository to testing too, and updated, dist-upgraded and cleaned the apt cache. After this I installed ntpdate and jclock and runned them both. No errors.
I installed ipkg ok, but then apt-get couldn't find xserver-kdrive-fbdev.
I decided to try X later so I rebooted.
After this I haven't been able to boot linux again. I'm stuck with the fsck error.
Can you please (maybe ProgramSynthesiser?) tell me where can I download the right version?
What about xserver-kdrive-fbdev?
It would be great having a Bluetooth GPS working too, but I'm afraid qpegps will not have Europe maps... I use ViaMichelin Mapsonic on CE and works great.
Sorry if this post got too long, but as now the forum is a bit stuck till your exams end, I'm sure someone will have time to read it through.

Edited by ramoncio 2006-05-30 6:52 PM

I too am having the problem with installing the xserver. With regards to the fsck error, this error occurs because fsck takes note of the last time it was mounted/dismounted. It is designed like that so that the system can do an automatic "scandisk" type check every x many days (60, 90 or something like that). The problem occurs because when you reboot (resulting in a hard reset of your device), the system clock gets set back to the year 2000 or so. When you then boot into Linux, fsck goes "what the heck? the current date is actually before the last time I was run? Something is wrong, I better check the disk..." What you need to do is make sure to set the date every time you boot into CE, before booting into Linux. I usually set the date 1 day forward of the current date and then run "ntpdate time.nist.gov" once booted (because fsck only runs the check if it hasn't been run in a couple months, or if the date appears to be in the past). It would be really nice if there were some documentation of this issue on the 720degrees page, as this is an issue that virtually everyone will experience and most people will just scratch their head and go "hmmm, now what?"

pool.ntp.org is better for general use, in all locations.

Ramoncio, I have one major suggestion - go with stable, and do not use etch. If its issues bother me, it will surely drive you mad.

As for X, I will attempt to get the package from snickers myself, and host it by some other means. I will also push to get access to the server that hosts the distribution I am working on...then things will be kept much more up-to-date. Although, the whole team will be back soon, really.

Ah, you think it is a good idea to get weblacky on the team? Who needs him - Ha! Just kidding with you all. As of May 25th at 5:05:19, weblacky has joined the 720degrees team. We just needed to get to know him first...

Yeah, qpegps is not that great. But last time I checked, not only can it take any map you put into it (as long as it is the correct format) but you can scan your own. I will check into it, but international maps should not be a major problem. And we still need to install qpe libraries just to get it to work.

And currently, nothing works on kernel 2.6. Although, I have good news - Michael Gernoth is still alive. He confirmed it with this email:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 02:58:04 +0200
From: Michael Gernoth <michael@zerfleddert.de>
To: Andrew K <programsynth@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: Kernel checkup - Do you still exist?

Hi,

On Wed, May 24, 2006 at 05:52:16PM -0700, Andrew K wrote:
> Hi, just checking to see if you are alive. Some of us are anxious for some
> 2.6 information, and want to know how to help.

Yep, I'm still alive. But I'm in my final phase of my diploma thesis
which is due next month, so I'm currently not looking at anything else.
That's also the cause why there were no updates from me for so long...
It will definately get better in about a month and I will have time
to look at the jornada again. :-)

Regards,
Michael
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, he will be back and developing again eventually. That will bring a big boost to 2.6 progress. In the meantime, Kristoffer over on the dark side of Linux: Jlime, is trying desperately to get the 2.6 kernel to boot from his compactflash card. Watch, I am going to get it to work on the first try.

Hi all,
In regards to the WPA question it works on BOTH a 2.4 and 2.6 kernel (I was using the 2.4.32 kernel because that's where all the jornada support is right now but instructions work the same for 2.6 kernels, on a laptop for example). I sent instructions to Programsynthesiser some time ago on how to include them in the kernels. I'd dare to say that you'll see wpa support in newer distro images :-)

The only issue I have is I haven’t figured out a way to keep packet errors messages from showing up in the syslog. I’d like to isolate errors and not write them out to the disk. When I get back on this I’ll see what can be done. Also Debian (at least for the PC distros) has just made a rather disappointing backstep in WPA packages so I’ll have to see if that affects the ARM stuff and figure out a way to make it painless to turn off and on again.

I do need to say however that I can ONLY guarantee WPA support for cards using the hostap driver (prism chipsets). Orinocos MIGHT work but I do not own any and you have slightly alter the config files to use the iwconfig interface to set the card's key correctly. I can tell you how to alter them but testing will be needed. I use both a Senao EXT2 and a Linksys WPC11 v3 card (prism –based) and they both work great!

I have forcibly updated there firmware (which I can help people with...only works on win2k or lower though...) but that's not required to run WPA (only to better support AP mode so you could later turn the PDA into an access point if you wanted).

Things should prove interesting starting in the next couple weeks…

My hope is once the peripherals are all working smoothly you’ll see more apps become available to make the j72x more productive in terms of PIM and things like that.

It’s great be a part of the team and I look forward to adding whatever I can into this PDA in the near future. Wireless already works on mine so I just have to tidy up a bit in terms of the syslog.

-Weblacky