first linux experience on jornada 7xx :)

well, after 1.5 years --- knoppix 5.0.x finally worked for formatting my cf card. (3.8 ......... avoid it!)

i used 720 instead of 728 because i'm afraid of the orange line problem

installed: 2.4 (sorry but i heard touch screen is better with it) basic opie image.

experiences: this is the exact same opie as on my zaurus? just less apps installed by default and a few little things missing (i bet no built in bluetooth support .. no nifty little connectivity icon in taskbar .. stuff like that but that can all be installed later)

well, maybe not exact same thing. for one, we need Geared2003 to get the icons and gui look properly on this 640x240 dstn. on the tft 640x480 it looks very nice, here, it is hurting my eyes. and this isn't due to good old dstn or the inappropriate resolution. winCE icons look ok.

then about hw support, isotherm was right, touch screen isn't good enough.
who says this is perfect and has no problems must be very biased.
i have no keyboard problems though, i guess they don't show up at my 50wpm
"suspend" (fake really ? ) and "resume" look stable and fast so far. alot faster than on zaurus (of course zaurus has real suspend).

anyway almost everything works like i expected it to work having already used my zaurus c760. so no real suffering with new things.

wlan drivers are the same really, i just plugged in my wlan card and it got recognized just like on my zaurus. the only things different are: the missing connectivity icon, the network config gui is quite different (but not worse.. maybe even better) and that my wlan card name is incorrect, the zaurus does realize it is a senao 2511-blablabla, this system named it some strange way when recognizing it

there's some small(ish) bugs, but it is not bad overall.

what is bad is that the system is no more stable than hpc2000. i get random slowdowns, and system crashed within 10 mins after first startup, when i tried to install konqueror and opie-irc at the same time, well, i guess that was too much. remove batt, restart, half a min or more :/ sorry, CE wins points here!

i will try on j728 (maybe) or with a swap file. but still if i take into account that i have 32mb only, this is really not stable enough. and i get the same feeling working my way around the system that it could crash sometimes, it is not the clean stable feeling i get on cenet, wm5 or with psions.

ok and some bugs that marred my first experience ...
the PIM is quite unusable sometimes due to touch screen and sometimes just due to the not fully adjusted gui. why can't i minimize apps fully? what's the shortcut for minimizing all apps to get to the desktop? rtfm i know - but the shortcuts i use on the zaurus are invalid here. OH and why don't the menu shortcuts work in the apps?! how am i supposed to use this thing from the keyboard?

apps i tried to install (only three):
konqueror. it is close to unusable on some pages because it causes system slowdowns just like IE4 on hpc2000. the accented chars in my language don't always appear properly on pages.
my fav test sites do show that it is usually fast, hpcfactor appears in 4 secs and fully loads in 8 secs, index.hu needs about 10 secs (amazing!), but it choked on origo.hu.. system slowdown (grinding to a halt really) and slow load times.
(all with wlan and with pics turned on.. turning them off didn't help much)
opie-irc.. well it's same as on zaurus
qpdf2 in the default feed is crap, i hope the complete qpdf2 package i installed on zaurus will work here too.

these questions don't need answers - i didn't hack or adjust anything at all, just wanted to show what it is like when you first install linux on the jornada... provided you already have some linux experience. i do, so it wasn't hard to start using it but it'd have driven me crazy if i didn't.

and all in all it wasn't a bad experience, it is funny to have a (slightly buggy) zaurus in a jornada body.
it just didn't show me too many new things. i expected the whole linux thing to be like this.

maybe to test stability, i'll try that more complete 200mb opie image i got sent over irc, on a 728.
and ok, i'll try some X distro too. just so i don't constantly get the zaurus feeling.

Edited by cmonex 2006-11-12 12:02 AM

Hey, cmonex, congratulations .. I should probably give Linux another chance anyway

Yeah, I don't really want to answer all those questions - but, it would be best.

All I can say, as far as your large list of problems, is those are small fry. Those are more distro-related problems that I would like to be working on; however, it seems that the Linux community expects 720degrees to be working on hardware-based issues, far from distribution development. In other words, I am trying to get things working, and whether your icons fit the screen or not are not an issue for me at the moment. As well, most mainstream gui programs in the Debian repository will not display properly, which is why we would need to modify them and release our own packages - you know, the initial goal of the distribution.

Moving on, of course the keyboard problems don't show up at 50wpm. That is because the keyboard driver has been perfected as much as it needs to be. If any users feel the need to type on the 720 keyboard at 90wpm, that is their own problem, and I do not need to waste my time supporting them. If they want to work on the keyboard driver themselves, or complain about the outdated NetBSD drivers having better control of the device, they can go right along, and show users how to install NetBSD. They call our install process complicated? Pah! I would like to see a competent Linux user take that on, and complete it in the amount of time it takes to install 720degrees. And for those who batter me, and the rest of the 720degrees team, with comments on our reliance on the Jlime kernel, and question the existance of this distribution - can go right ahead and join the Jlime team. Fortunate to the Jlime team, however, these people would prefer to insult rather than contribute, and for all I care, they can keep complaining until the efnet servers cease to function. And for any wondering, the Jlime kernel is not the Jlime kernel anymore - no, Kristoffer is the official 720 kernel maintainer - Jlime has no control over the kernel, it is for anyone in the Linux community to use. I would rather not state this again: I am a distribution maintainer, not a kernel maintainer. That should be clear enough.

Anyways, I am glad that Knoppix 5 worked out for you - there were many improvements in that release. And after hearing from filip about what he did to his screen (which recovered) - the orange line probably cannot do much harm.
I am aware of the fact that the touchscreen does not work very well, and did notify you of this before. There is some sort of jitter program, and I believe a kernel developer is working on it. As well, I never heard anyone say the touchscreen works perfect, but I did mention that it works well enough.

In 2.4, the suspend is indeed fake. However, it looks like 2.6 will have a better suspend than 2.4 did, giving it another advantage over its predecessor. This trend should continue, with the eventual better sound support under alsa, more accurate battery management, and an even better display driver (by using the existing one in the kernel, rather than the hacked one from the kernel patch).

About the 640x480 - did you actually resize the screen to that resolution? I don't know what you are talking about tft for.

As far as memory goes, I have mentioned that the swap speed is about equal to or faster (at times) than the system ram on the Jornada. Though many would like to religiously send strings of curses to prove that this is not true, I will get the results of a benchmark test to the forum eventually. Or I could just have Kirk paste his. In my experience, compiles go twice as fast with my noisy old microdrive, which should make this point obvious. However, with the endless hard-headed members of the Linux community who prefer to stand by cult values rather than facts, it will not be.

I would also recommend against using the Debian OPIE or Konqueror, as those are anything but light versions, requiring the installation of 250mb of KDE software (for konqueror), and simply not working right (for OPIE). They will eventually be included in the 720degrees repository, but unless if we get another developer (since we essentially have two - who are rather busy with their lives, by the way), I cannot promise this to occur soon.

Menu shortcuts should be possible if a short script is written - that really should not be a difficult matter, same with the hard keys on the screen (just touchscreen coordinates). And will, of course, happen when they happen.

The reason why your web pages did not go very fast (compared to what konq/e can really do), is because you were not using a light version. On those tougher pages that caused slowdowns, your system was probably close to running out of memory. You see - on the 720, everything is a memory game (unless if everyone gets microdrives with 64mb of swap). Only programs that I compile, optimize as necessary, and release can be guaranteed to run well, anything in the Debian repository is hit-and-miss. This would also explain your crashes - this occurs when the 720 runs out of ram. While sometimes it can recover itself and kill the programs, it is usually better off to just reboot. I don't have any solution to this but to not run huge programs on the 720.



I don't know how you can compare it to the zaurus - it is definitely not Debian based, so everything behind the GUI is completely different. As well, I don't see why on earth you would think of trying a 200mb OPIE image, that is ridiculous. An OPIE image should not be more than several mb really..

Overall, good report on your experience, and I hope you do not format that drive too quickly - I would like to test some things out with you.

EDIT: Cmonex - bluetooth support is included in the kernel. Actually, there is more built-in support in the kernel than you will ever find in CE.

Edited by ProgramSynthesiser 2006-11-12 1:16 AM

programsynth, as you never really read my post thoroughly it is kind of pointless to explain where and what you completely misunderstood. but why not try

1) i used opie, and an 50mb image, the 200 was just a plan! (it includes a lot more apps hence larger)
2) bluetooth modules aren't there. doesn't matter how good the kernel is if the modules aren't there - zaurus has them but of course they can be installed separately.
3) the touch screen is not good enough.
4) konqueror didn't need 250mb! what i installed is just about a couple of mb's or so... ever heard of embedded konqueror (or maybe that's the wrong name but you get the idea)? i had 70mb free space on a 128mb cf card when i started installing it, way more than 65 remained.
5) 640x480 and tft, would be easier if you reread my sentence. i was talking about zaurus...
6) menu shortcut: i meant key combinations for menu items for example "ctrl+s" for save
7) i did appraise the speed of konqueror on a lot of pages. i mean it was fast.
8) yup i can compare to zaurus, both of these are opie! and same apps run

anyway konqueror on the jornada 728 fared better, it still became non responsive with origo.hu but the system continued working without slowdowns.
system felt a little more responsive overall too but still would crash sometimes

testing ended for now, some files on card got corrupted and opie cannot boot any more, gets stuck at pcmcia services line. i guess that was why it was always freezing upon insertion of a second card in the pcmcia slot (cf after wlan or wlan after cf)

and i forgot... scrollbars are complete crap in this opie thing on the jornada.

---

off topic or not. biggest problem with linux is no one seems to know a listing command so that i don't have to guess card names. (sda, hdb, hdc, wtf?)

---

oh and i'm curious how the others are going to react to programsynth


Edited by cmonex 2006-11-12 1:58 AM

Oh, Monica. You always find a way to irritate me.


It does not make a difference to me, and more apps should not indicate a larger file. Mine won't be so innefficient.


You did not make it obvious that you did not install 720degrees. Our kernel does have that support - someone else's kernel is not my problem.


I said that.


You did not make it obvious that you did not install 720degrees.


If I recall correctly, I was troubleshooting this other person's image with you while replying.


Ah, I was referring to the function keys for PIM on the top of the Jornada's keyboard. Key combos are possible too (probably even in the OPIE config file).


Not as fast as it will be.


Have fun with that...


Maybe if you use poor software...


Dance puppets! DANCE!

-

well, i did make it obvious i installed opie and not your distro (see, your distro's server was down ).
reread first few lines i said: i installed opie.

disagreement about touch screen, you said it works well enough, i don"t think so

and the crashes weren't due to poor software..


good dancing

Anything that crashes is poor software.

The site will be back up as soon as possible.

If you're using a 2.4 kernel you can expect slowdown, especially if you are using it with an image designed for 2.6. Where did you get all the files from?


I tried that on my 32MB Jornada 690 and it works. From what i can tell you may be using some strange version, because Konq/e should definalty allow that.


Take a look in the "Appearance" option under Settings. Theres Windows CE style scrollbars.


They should work. Assuming you're using a JLime package (e.g. a kernel from our site and a JLime opie-image).


Which feed? The JLime one (unfinished) or a 720degrees one?

We'll try to improve these aspects in our release.

Chazco: She is just using a custom image by someone. It is irrelevant.

Her konq/e is not the newest version compiled by you guys through OE. As far as we know, it is the 2003 version, or worse.

And it is doubtful that she is using any Jlime package. And no, we already mentioned that this is not 720degrees, or Jlime. There is nothing for either of us to improve for our releases. (Unless if you are talking about hardware support, which is, once again, official kernel development now).

Edited by ProgramSynthesiser 2006-11-12 4:34 AM

She's using the stuff found at Running Linux on HP Jornada 720. The 200MB OPIE image she mentioned is based on that image but simply has a huge selection of OPIE apps installed - games, emulators, and all sorts of things. Yes, it's old, but the 720degrees site was down, I couldn't find any links to the needed 720 stuff in the JLime Downloads section, and she wanted to try it (with some kind of GUI) right at that time. I warned her she'd get no sympathy if she didn't use the canonical 720degrees files.

I didn't report the keyboard dropping keys (nor will I waste my time fixing it) because I don't intend to use Linux, and I know that most people don't type 90wpm on a Jornada, so I figured it wasn't worth bothering anyone with. It and the touchscreen were simply examples (regarding the CE 4.2 project) of why driver development is a long process, with many small nuances that have to be addressed. Unfortunately, you decided to hijack the conversation as being an insult to Linux and all that is holy, to which your first response was "it wasn't 720degrees" (which is irrelevant since it uses the same kernel) followed shortly thereafter by "it's impossible" (which you have absolutely no way to know since you can neither type that quickly nor have a clue how the keyboard driver works). That's a completely unreasonable way to react to a bug report (which I wasn't even trying to file). I've also seen you refuse multiple times to help people simply because they used a 2.4 kernel rather than 2.6, even though a 2.4 kernel is more useful at this time. Whether a 2.6 kernel exists on someone's hard drive somewhere which is purported to be better is irrelevant. It's not available to a normal user to download and use. I can't imagine why anyone would use a distribution with such an approach to "support".

At this time (one month ago anyway), NetBSD was both the easiest to install and had the best hardware support. Whether the drivers are "outdated" is irrelevant. (Did the 720 hardware change and I didn't notice?) The point is that they work and work well. I'm an experienced *NIX user, and no I wouldn't call the installation process for any of them overly complicated for me, but for the average user who doesn't like console, it's unacceptable. Once there is a nice JLime installer, that will change. I don't have any particular allegiance... I will be happy to recommend Linux once it's actually better.

I never considered Linux holy either - I do not have a cult-like devotion to the OS.

As far as 2.4 goes, I did not want to help them because I did not want to waste my time supporting something I did not have installed, and their problem was always the same: they installed the wrong base.

Yes, we will make sure to use the Jlime installer. I was actually just checking filip for an easier way to identify which device file the cf card is on to ease the current installation method.

I also mentioned that 720degrees uses the same kernel, so problems we did not have, no one should have. And you did like to mention the 90wpm thing quite a bit.

And yeah, I can't give her much sympathy for using an install I have not - to support her would require installing it on my 720 (which is currently missing), playing with it for a while, and getting back to her.

chazco: yes 2.4, and the image is designed for 2.4. isotherm answered the question as to where it is from.

i didn't use jlime 7xx because it is so elusive, i never seem to find it.
i'll be absolutely glad to try it if you give me a working link to it. (and it has to have gui and maybe installation instructions too) thanks in advance

konqueror did load the page but it stopped responding during loading it. then of course after it finished loading and rendering it became available again. so you misunderstood or i wasn't clear. i used the konqueror available in the preconfigured feed (i'll check which feed that was).

scrollbars, haha good idea. as soon as i reinstall the whole stuff i'll check it

qpdf2: same as above.
when i set out to install my complete package (version 2.2.1, render-freetype) system crashed and got corrupted so dunno yet how well it'll work.

i did not ask for support. you still didn't reread my post?

I know that, I was referring to what Isotherm said. And no, I refuse to reread it.

I'll complete with my experience : I won't try anything as long as there is no working power management.
As the boot procedure involves running CE, then booting linux, it takes a very long time like maybe 2 minutes and if you have to drain and kill your battery life do get the instant-on (or shall we call it never-off) feature, it's not interesting.

It seems that Jlime for 680 managed to get a working true standbye, I'll try it this winter when I'll come back in my parent's home where my J680 is. Now I'm waiting for a 720 Jlime, but as cmonex said, there is almost nothing on their website to try a (ghost, does it exist or not ?) 720 Jlime distro.

I'm waiting and hoping...