Mobilepro 900c and linux is possible?

cmonex: my 900c is in great, almost mint condition. Its not just mine, a few jlime devs have the same problem, and quite a few hpcfactor users as well. Doesnt matter if its ce.net/hpc2k or linux. Its not an OS issue. It IS a hardware problem on some machines. Calibration/touchscreen works flawlessly on 900/900c's that dont have this hardware issue some of us unfortunately have. YOU just got lucky and happen to have 20 of them that dont have this problem.. heh

Cheers.

encore: since im the one building the jlime userlands, i'd be interested in custom icons for icewm if you feel creative.

Edited by RTFM 2007-07-17 3:33 PM

mint condition does not correlate with physical flaws. it seemed from some posts here that the touch screen driver needed a little improvement, that's all.

btw, i don't have 20 of them yet
anyway, got one just now that does get slightly uncalibrated from time to time even after fix. so i'm sure some of these problematic 900c's have a different issue from the ordinary easily fixable one.

Awesome and thanks for the quick response. I'm siked for this project and would be happy to help with whatever.

Hello all,

I started tinkering with linux on my 900c when I first got it but didnt find this movement untill right before the FB got working. Im quite pleased with the progress and find it more enjoyable to poke linux for hours than actually use the device in win ce for any real purpose lol.

I was wondering a few things:

Key combos? What do we have sofar?
>> alt-tab for app switch
>> alt-f for full screen
>> ct-atl-esc for virtual desktops
Is their a combo for quick switching desktops?

Hows the current status for:
Power management
Battery Monitor
Sound
USB

I have the habit of using '# shutdown -hfn now' and then having to hard reset, whats causing the 900c to stop cycling its own power off?

Last question:
We should compile a list of working WiFi / Ethernet pcmcia cards.

I added a restricted user, and wrote a pretty basic script for auto login and startx but does anyone know of a text based login prompt that displays in the center off the screen?? I just think that would be cool and when you turn it on you get a slightly more sexy startup screen. Currently i use a script that clears and echos me to the middle but its pretty lame lol.

Well keep up the good work, Im gonna gonna wipe my sextupple boot linux box and set up my cross compiler and see if i can have some fun!

Hello again,
I recompiled the kernel with the patch you provided, but it couldn't find asm directory for a module called mpsomethingvesa. I commented those lines. However, I put the kernel started the boot loader and nothing happened. The mp just froze. I pulled out the battery and now it doesn't want to power up.
When I plug the power supply the LED doesn't start lighting.
The device is dead
Any sugestions?

Regards
Ipolit

Ipolit: remove the batteries for a longer time.

blu_alchemist: no power (resume/suspend) management, so shutdown of course doesnt work. that'll be worked on soon.

blu_alchemist: here is the current 900c icewm keycodes for icewm. I didnt change much, as i just wanted fullscreen to work. Once the F ( function ) keys are mapped i'll change it back... so feel free to edit /usr/share/icewm/preferences file to change any non working key combos for now. But heres the current default listing with 2 changes ( fullscreen and rollup ).


# KeyWinRaise="Alt+F1"

#
# KeyWinOccupyAll="Alt+F2"

#
# KeyWinLower="Alt+F3"

#
# KeyWinClose="Alt+F4"

#
# KeyWinRestore="Alt+F5"

#
# KeyWinPrev="Alt+Shift+F6"

#
# KeyWinNext="Alt+F6"

#
# KeyWinMove="Alt+F7"

#
# KeyWinSize="Alt+F8"

#
# KeyWinMinimize="Alt+F9"

#
# KeyWinMaximize="Alt+F10"

#
# KeyWinMaximizeVert="Alt+Shift+F10"

#
# KeyWinMaximizeHoriz=""

#
KeyWinFullscreen="Alt+f"

#
# KeyWinHide="Alt+Shift+F12"

#
KeyWinRollup="Alt+r"

#
# KeyWinMenu="Alt+Space"

#
# KeyWinArrangeN="Ctrl+Alt+KP_8"

#
# KeyWinArrangeNE="Ctrl+Alt+KP_9"

#
# KeyWinArrangeE="Ctrl+Alt+KP_6"

#
# KeyWinArrangeSE="Ctrl+Alt+KP_3"

#
# KeyWinArrangeS="Ctrl+Alt+KP_2"

#
# KeyWinArrangeSW="Ctrl+Alt+KP_1"

#
# KeyWinArrangeW="Ctrl+Alt+KP_4"

#
# KeyWinArrangeNW="Ctrl+Alt+KP_7"

#
# KeyWinArrangeC="Ctrl+Alt+KP_5"

#
# KeySysSwitchNext="Alt+Tab"

#
# KeySysSwitchLast="Alt+Shift+Tab"

#
# KeySysWinNext="Alt+Esc"

#
# KeySysWinPrev="Alt+Shift+Esc"

#
# KeySysWinMenu="Shift+Esc"

#
# KeySysDialog="Alt+Ctrl+Del"

#
# KeySysMenu="Ctrl+Esc"

#
# KeySysWindowList="Alt+Ctrl+Esc"

#
# KeySysWinListMenu=""

#
# KeySysAddressBar="Alt+Ctrl+Space"

#
# KeySysWorkspacePrev="Alt+Ctrl+Left"

#
# KeySysWorkspaceNext="Alt+Ctrl+Right"

#
# KeySysWorkspaceLast="Alt+Ctrl+Down"

#
# KeySysWorkspacePrevTakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Left"

#
# KeySysWorkspaceNextTakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Right"

#
# KeySysWorkspaceLastTakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Down"

#
# KeySysWorkspace1="Alt+Ctrl+1"

#
# KeySysWorkspace2="Alt+Ctrl+2"

#
# KeySysWorkspace3="Alt+Ctrl+3"

#
# KeySysWorkspace4="Alt+Ctrl+4"

#
# KeySysWorkspace5="Alt+Ctrl+5"

#
# KeySysWorkspace6="Alt+Ctrl+6"

#
# KeySysWorkspace7="Alt+Ctrl+7"

#
# KeySysWorkspace8="Alt+Ctrl+8"

#
# KeySysWorkspace9="Alt+Ctrl+9"

#
# KeySysWorkspace10="Alt+Ctrl+0"

#
# KeySysWorkspace11="Alt+Ctrl+bracketleft"

#
# KeySysWorkspace12="Alt+Ctrl+bracketright"

#
# KeySysWorkspace1TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+1"

#
# KeySysWorkspace2TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+2"

#
# KeySysWorkspace3TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+3"

#
# KeySysWorkspace4TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+4"

#
# KeySysWorkspace5TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+5"

#
# KeySysWorkspace6TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+6"

#
# KeySysWorkspace7TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+7"

#
# KeySysWorkspace8TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+8"

#
# KeySysWorkspace9TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+9"

#
# KeySysWorkspace10TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+0"

#
# KeySysWorkspace11TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+bracketleft"

#
# KeySysWorkspace12TakeWin="Alt+Ctrl+Shift+bracketright"

#
# KeySysTileVertical="Alt+Shift+F2"

#
# KeySysTileHorizontal="Alt+Shift+F3"

#
# KeySysCascade="Alt+Shift+F4"

#
# KeySysArrange="Alt+Shift+F5"

#
# KeySysArrangeIcons="Alt+Shift+F8"

#
# KeySysMinimizeAll="Alt+Shift+F9"

#
# KeySysHideAll="Alt+Shift+F11"

#
# KeySysUndoArrange="Alt+Shift+F7"

#
# KeySysShowDesktop="Alt+Ctrl+d"

#
# KeySysCollapseTaskBar="Alt+Ctrl+h"

#

Hey RTFM,

just the person,
I dug out my ubuntu live cd and got my umount, dmesg etc learned off for getting the linux onto compact flash =-)


Chose the wrong distro though, not henchman if you see my post on jlime

Anyway seeing all the keycodes here what about putting the winkey to use?
I mean I have an old bull systems keyboard w/o a win key I took from a dual PII server but might be good to save ctrl+esc-ing all the time? If poss

Once I get henchman running I'll have a look at the icons, from intial sight w/o touchscreen I saw a couple of MS like icons that need purged

Bloddy ell,

Anyone know they key combo to access the virtual consols?

I have tried every alt/ctrl/shift/win/esc/func/num combo i can pull but cant get to the other concoles...
Sence were running 3 in the inittab if its inaccesable its kinda pointless.


I have an autologin binary:
gcc -o autologin autologin.c

autologin.c:
int main(){
execlp{"login","login","-f","username",0;}
}

It works great on my fedora core and knoppix distro but on the 900c i always get a cannot execute binary error.

Anyone know of a good way to autologin and run the startx command??

My old method was too shady and was kinda a crapshoot.

blu_alchemist: Yea the commands *will be* ctrl+alt+f1 through f4, but the function keys ( windows quicklaunch keys ) arent mapped in the kernel yet. So out of luck there currently.
Also about your autologin. Did you build it on the 900c? x86 code wont run on arm/xscale. If yes, maybe it wasnt made exectuable ( chmod a+x filename ). I may in time look at xdm or gdm or the like, but alot of users like myself dont like X starting at boot.

encore: It can be mapped to the winkey, if i only knew the key mapping for it Also you dont have to always ctrl+esc to open the menu, tapping the menu bar (start bar) also opens the menu.

Cheers.

Sry RTFM,

Didn't think about that aspect. yeah I'll be grand once I get the right distro on with a working touchscreen

Guys,

Ive been trying all weekend to get Linux running on my 900c. Im using DSL which is booted from CD. I log in as root using the "sudo su" command. I then find my CF card which happens to be SDA. I follow the instructions to the word and everything is fine. I finish the disk partitions and then use the # mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1 command but it is not reconised...nor are the commands after. Also how can I transfer the files from my Windows XP comp to the linux DSL? I am using the guide located at http://www.belxs.com/michel/mp900/LinuxonMobilepro900.htm - Thanks.

Try using mke2fs /dev/sda2 and mkdosfs /dev/sda1 instead. Its the same utility, just named different on some distro's.

As for accessing the files from windows... I havent used DSL in ages, and im not sure windows drives are automatically mounted. Check and see if it is. If not, as root run 'fdisk -l' which will list all connected drives. See what device is labeled as FAT32 or NTFS. Thats your windows drive. DSL may not have a windows folder in /mnt by default, so as root type 'mkdir /mnt/windows'. Then you will have to manually mount it if its not automounted with 'mount -t vfat (or ntfs) /dev/hda1 (or whatever its listed as) /mnt/windows'.

I believe Midnight Commander is installed in DSL, so i hope you have at least 512 meg ram ( 256 might be ok ). As root type 'mc' in a terminal. Now use mc ( filemanager ) to navigate to /mnt/windows/folder/you/have/900c-linux-files-in/. Then highlight each file and copy somewhere to DSL, say /home (it'll actually copy to ram). To copy hit f5 key.

Now make sure your CF card is mounted. Using mc again as root, navigate to your FAT16 partition on the CF card in 1 pane of mc, hit tab to switch to next pane, and navigate to where you copied the files over. Now highlight the fat files ( haret, zimage, startup.txt ) and hit f5 to copy them over to CF. To copy the rootfs to ext2 partition do the same thing, except this time highlight the 900crootfs tarball and hit enter, wait a few seconds, as mc will extract the files to ram. Once the tarball is extracted to ram highlight each directory (/bin, /boot etc etc) and hit f5 to copy them over to the ext2 partition. Copying takes a few minutes, wait for CF reader led to stop blinking, unmount your CF card.

Plop card in 900c and boot with haret.

P.S. If this sounds a bit over your head, i'd recommend Puppy Linux live cd, as it has nice GUI tools which make using a live cd for this purpose easier, and it auto mounts windows drives, and there is a nice tutorial on using puppy linux on this forum and jlimes forum.

Good luck.

RTFM - Thanks for your reply. I got hold of Puppy and put it on CD. I tried it out and it is much easier. Problem is though - I can't get back on to windows. I take the CD out and reboot and then at the start of the reboot it says "cant find bootable CD..." Am I doing something wrong?

hey,

maybe go into your bios on the desktop pc and change the 1st boot device to your harddrive? Strange it doesn't skip to the next boot device but worth a try