Let's start things out by talking about the systems as we're currently using them.
I have a 128M linux progear with the Orinoco card that sticks out of the case (as opposed to the systems that have their wireless cards built in).
I've played a lot of games with the harddrive trying various installations, including the Progear developer load, Mandrake 8.0, as well as reimaging the basic load a couple of times. For now I'm running the RedHat 7.2 based installation that is floating around out there.
I've used it for the longest time as a basic web pad, with the standard old-old-old Netscape and the very simple window manager that all the linux systems come with. I tried more complicated stuff, including mozilla, phoenix and dillo. But with the first two, I've found the progear to be just too slow to be enjoyable. As for dillo, its feature set is too small for normal browsing.
But I've been upset with Netscape's slow performance and lack of some features on the Progear itself, like photo albums and graphics work. Ultimately, I see this thing being a portable photo album, a clock/weather/information alarm-clock sitting by the bedside, a remote for the stereo, TV and mp3 server and of course a good portable web browser.
So lately, I've been bringing up vnc. So far, I'm amazed.
If you don't know, vnc is an application that allows you to use one computer from another. Effectively, it attaches your keyboard, mouse and pen (in the Progear's case) to the remote machine and attaches the remote machine's monitor to your monitor. If you have a speedy network connection, it's amazing. Suddenly it seems like my Progear has the cahones (sp?) I always wish it had!
I'm still in the process of writing the scripts that get the progear to boot directly into vnc, to use ssh as its delivery mechanism and to be able to pop up an xkbd over the vnc session. I think this will be the first script/scripts that I release on this site.
Well, that's if one of you doesn't beat me to it first. If you have scripts or apps that you've written, please tell us about them and then post them. Posting them will likely be a process of becoming a developer to the project and then submitting them to cvs. I'll tarball them up and release them as actual files available on the summary page.
Important: everything that you release through this website will be given a GPL license. That has consequences... so if you were planning on making money off your script you might want to hang on to it. But hopefully that won't stop you from sharing your inventions with the community at large.
Thanks!
Rudy
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I have had a 64 Meg Linux ProGear for several months now. I initially just used it to browse the web from the sofa and as a dynamic picture frame. After a while I got tired of the long boot times for the GUI so started hacking up the system. I modified the X scripts so they would only start one app vs. the default desktop. That app is just a menu of commands to invoke(run my slide show, display a list of music, start netscape, ...). That cut the "boot" time in half!
After that I installed a 30 gig disk, copied over a bunch of mp3 files and installed the dev disk contents. Instead of "merging" the dev files into the root directory, I installed them all in a separate tree. I have a shell script "chroot" to that tree when I want to be in dev mode. I also added a few more options to my "startup control panels" to allow me to run all the apps that are on the dev disk. That includes a whole bunch of gnome and kde apps. Just a couple of days ago I started doing some development using the dev tools. It's actually pretty decent, I wrote several TCP/UDP apps ... Performance is comparable to my 350 Mhz and 400 Mhz desktop systems.
The environment is still not quite perfect for me, but it sure is complete enough to be very useful. The "starter panel" that I use is based on a remote control package that I wrote called xr3.
and is basically just a gateway between buttons and shell scripts. The panels are defined by simple text files and I have "gui drivers" that use Motif/Gtk or Qt. The gtk one works out of the box on the ProGear so I am using it at the moment.
Some of the newer apps use too many resources to be practical on the ProGear. Things like nautilus come to mind, but that even runs slow on my 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4 system! I think if you are carfeul about which apps you run that you can get a very nice and responsive system.
I have also used the ProGear as a Display from multiple systems and find it to be very fast in such cases. Just need to "xhost server" to make it available ... I even added some cgi scripts on one of my linux boxes so that it automatically starts an app and sends the displayed output back to the ProGear. Now I can just browse to an app and select it!
If anyone is interested in more details, let me know and I'll post scripts/code ...
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
This sounds like exactly the type of thing that I put this project together to host. I'd definitely like you to post your configuration scripts and a link to your xr3 project. I haven't exactly figured out a good format for this site, but for now, I think just growing the table that's on the home page would be a good start.
Since your xr3 project is mostly aimed at the RedRat remote, what do you think about writing a web page that talks about configuring the ProGear to use xr3. SourceForge can host the configuration scripts that are specifically for the ProGear and we can just provide a link to your xr3 site. I'm open to any other scheme that you'd prefer, too. Should I add you to the developer list so you can get into it?
Rudy
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I am thinking about how to get someone bootstrapped from a typical "out-of-the-box" Linux based ProGear. I went through the typical sequence of opening an xterm via Netscape, and then pulling down tarballs ... It took me a while before I started hacking on the Xinit scripts, didn't want to kill my system till I knew how to pull the disk and repair it.
I'm thinking that the first project should be something to make it easier to pull down and install software on the basic system. The simplest mechanism I can think of is:
1: Have someone use Netscape to download an executable file(a statically linked GTK installer, that's setuid to root). Put it in the /home/webzine directory.
2: Then have them download a slightly modified .Xinitrc that automatically starts the above program.
3: Then using the "installer" program, pull down and install programs from a web site.
Hmm, that's somewhat duplicating what an RPM installer does. Would it be worth setting up a RPM DB and toolchain on each platform just to track dependencies? Or stick with simple tarball distributions? I suppose one could also try to figure out the ProGear app installer. Well to start with, one has to use tarballs anyway. Then there is the space issue! Not a huge amount left on the default disk layout! Should a bootstrap mechanism include repartitioning the disk, building a new filesystem, ... I never tried that on my default disk(only on my upgraded 30 gig).
I'll get started on a revamped xr3 web site oriented to the ProGear. I think I'll put up a log of my experience with the ProGear as well.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I've added you in. Whenever you're ready to, just replace the links and files in the xr3 directory with information as you'd like it. The SourceForge documentation can tell you how to get in and look around a bit.
More on your ideas in a new thread...
Rudy
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Anonymous
-
2003-02-18
About about my PG...
It's a 128MB unit w/ the integrated orinico.
I've gone through tons of variations, trying to get missing functionality with a replacement distribution before the SDK was available. I do have it now, and have made many mods to their system level software to get things like battery status and backlight control working.
I use a 2.4.20 kernel with APM enabled and ACPI disabled. I've created a phoenix compatible hibernation partition on the disk, and enabled suspend-to-disk in the BIOS. This gives me a power button that hibernates the system (and sends a "suspend system" to apmd, which unloads the usb and network drivers). It works great, and it's a ton better than their S1 standby because I can leave it off days at a time before I get back to it.
In order to get this functionality and the backlight/power connect information, I had to modify their fpPowerMgr. I've stripped it down to a basic module that provides the ioctl interface and /proc information, and just about nothing else. I've eliminated the kernel and user space daemons, and plan to write a daemon that will incorporate the battery status information from their i2c smart battery interface, power control and status from the modified fpPowerMgr, and APM control for enabling standby (setting S3 from apm just freezes the computer, you have to use the power button to get the S4 functionality).
I've also modified a little toolbar launcher to act as a launcher and battery status provider.
I used to use dillo as my main browser, but have switched to links w/X11 graphics. It's extremely fast, and it supports frames (and some javascript). The navigation commands are a littly quirky for it; I was thinking about making a custom xkbd to launch with it that could provide a little better interface. It works for most things I need, though, and when my progear is in range of my home network I use phoenix on my linux server with the remote display on the progear.
My primary use for the progear right now is on the road. It interfaces with my LG-5350 and SprintPCS service to provide me a real browser and ssh client for remote system management. I have a Thinkpad also, but the PG is much more compact, and the battery lasts much longer.
- Mike
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Thanks for the great information. We definitely would like to bring your mods and brain into this project.
Did you start with the standard install (presumably upgraded to the DevGear with the SDK)?
With your 2.4.40 kernel, did you import the nipple code? (One of my projects I've been aiming toward is making its scroll function work better.... it currently just inserts keypresses. This is a good start, but I imagine a lot more: maybe scroll-wheel functioning, maybe some type of joystick menu system...)
What did it take to build the hibernation partition? How long does it take to come out of hibernation?
How much of the lwm/ProGear tools remains on your machine (well, in use, I mean)?
How does the interface to your cell phone work? Does the phone have a USB port, or??
Anyway, that's a bunch of questions. I hope you'll write a few HOWTOs and bring in your code and configuration... Let me know if you'd like to be added to the project.
Rudy
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i needed a hibernation partition and i wanted to add it without formating. you can use the 'parted' command to resize then use the lphdisk tools to format the partition as a hibernation partiton. here is a link lphdisk source:
check out the README for instrucitons, its pretty easy :)
-DaBoo
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Anonymous
-
2003-02-19
I use the n9joy module for nipple functionality. Mine doesn't seem to work very well, so it hasn't been a big priority to integrate it any more. I would love to use it as a "shift" for a second mouse button though, but haven't started on that.
The setup I'm using now started with an empty ext2 partition, with packages added from my Slackware 8.1 development system until things started to work (I wanted the absolute smallest installation possible). There is zero of the original system installed on that partition, only the tools I've re-built from the SDK. The original partition remains in-tact, though, unused.
lphdisk to create the hibernation partition. It has to be a "real" (primary) partition.
Yes, I bought a $20 USB cable for my cellphone from the Radio Shack at the same time I purchased the phone. I compiled the prolific 2303 USB to serial converter into the new 2.4.20 kernel and it works great.
Code/binaries/questions are fine by me but I'm afraid that I don't do too well with documentation! :)
- Mike
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Let's start things out by talking about the systems as we're currently using them.
I have a 128M linux progear with the Orinoco card that sticks out of the case (as opposed to the systems that have their wireless cards built in).
I've played a lot of games with the harddrive trying various installations, including the Progear developer load, Mandrake 8.0, as well as reimaging the basic load a couple of times. For now I'm running the RedHat 7.2 based installation that is floating around out there.
I've used it for the longest time as a basic web pad, with the standard old-old-old Netscape and the very simple window manager that all the linux systems come with. I tried more complicated stuff, including mozilla, phoenix and dillo. But with the first two, I've found the progear to be just too slow to be enjoyable. As for dillo, its feature set is too small for normal browsing.
But I've been upset with Netscape's slow performance and lack of some features on the Progear itself, like photo albums and graphics work. Ultimately, I see this thing being a portable photo album, a clock/weather/information alarm-clock sitting by the bedside, a remote for the stereo, TV and mp3 server and of course a good portable web browser.
So lately, I've been bringing up vnc. So far, I'm amazed.
If you don't know, vnc is an application that allows you to use one computer from another. Effectively, it attaches your keyboard, mouse and pen (in the Progear's case) to the remote machine and attaches the remote machine's monitor to your monitor. If you have a speedy network connection, it's amazing. Suddenly it seems like my Progear has the cahones (sp?) I always wish it had!
I'm still in the process of writing the scripts that get the progear to boot directly into vnc, to use ssh as its delivery mechanism and to be able to pop up an xkbd over the vnc session. I think this will be the first script/scripts that I release on this site.
Well, that's if one of you doesn't beat me to it first. If you have scripts or apps that you've written, please tell us about them and then post them. Posting them will likely be a process of becoming a developer to the project and then submitting them to cvs. I'll tarball them up and release them as actual files available on the summary page.
Important: everything that you release through this website will be given a GPL license. That has consequences... so if you were planning on making money off your script you might want to hang on to it. But hopefully that won't stop you from sharing your inventions with the community at large.
Thanks!
Rudy
I have had a 64 Meg Linux ProGear for several months now. I initially just used it to browse the web from the sofa and as a dynamic picture frame. After a while I got tired of the long boot times for the GUI so started hacking up the system. I modified the X scripts so they would only start one app vs. the default desktop. That app is just a menu of commands to invoke(run my slide show, display a list of music, start netscape, ...). That cut the "boot" time in half!
After that I installed a 30 gig disk, copied over a bunch of mp3 files and installed the dev disk contents. Instead of "merging" the dev files into the root directory, I installed them all in a separate tree. I have a shell script "chroot" to that tree when I want to be in dev mode. I also added a few more options to my "startup control panels" to allow me to run all the apps that are on the dev disk. That includes a whole bunch of gnome and kde apps. Just a couple of days ago I started doing some development using the dev tools. It's actually pretty decent, I wrote several TCP/UDP apps ... Performance is comparable to my 350 Mhz and 400 Mhz desktop systems.
The environment is still not quite perfect for me, but it sure is complete enough to be very useful. The "starter panel" that I use is based on a remote control package that I wrote called xr3.
http://www.orbit2orbit.com/gmd/RedRat/index.html
and is basically just a gateway between buttons and shell scripts. The panels are defined by simple text files and I have "gui drivers" that use Motif/Gtk or Qt. The gtk one works out of the box on the ProGear so I am using it at the moment.
Some of the newer apps use too many resources to be practical on the ProGear. Things like nautilus come to mind, but that even runs slow on my 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4 system! I think if you are carfeul about which apps you run that you can get a very nice and responsive system.
I have also used the ProGear as a Display from multiple systems and find it to be very fast in such cases. Just need to "xhost server" to make it available ... I even added some cgi scripts on one of my linux boxes so that it automatically starts an app and sends the displayed output back to the ProGear. Now I can just browse to an app and select it!
If anyone is interested in more details, let me know and I'll post scripts/code ...
Hi George,
This sounds like exactly the type of thing that I put this project together to host. I'd definitely like you to post your configuration scripts and a link to your xr3 project. I haven't exactly figured out a good format for this site, but for now, I think just growing the table that's on the home page would be a good start.
Since your xr3 project is mostly aimed at the RedRat remote, what do you think about writing a web page that talks about configuring the ProGear to use xr3. SourceForge can host the configuration scripts that are specifically for the ProGear and we can just provide a link to your xr3 site. I'm open to any other scheme that you'd prefer, too. Should I add you to the developer list so you can get into it?
Rudy
Yes please add me to the developers list.
I am thinking about how to get someone bootstrapped from a typical "out-of-the-box" Linux based ProGear. I went through the typical sequence of opening an xterm via Netscape, and then pulling down tarballs ... It took me a while before I started hacking on the Xinit scripts, didn't want to kill my system till I knew how to pull the disk and repair it.
I'm thinking that the first project should be something to make it easier to pull down and install software on the basic system. The simplest mechanism I can think of is:
1: Have someone use Netscape to download an executable file(a statically linked GTK installer, that's setuid to root). Put it in the /home/webzine directory.
2: Then have them download a slightly modified .Xinitrc that automatically starts the above program.
3: Then using the "installer" program, pull down and install programs from a web site.
Hmm, that's somewhat duplicating what an RPM installer does. Would it be worth setting up a RPM DB and toolchain on each platform just to track dependencies? Or stick with simple tarball distributions? I suppose one could also try to figure out the ProGear app installer. Well to start with, one has to use tarballs anyway. Then there is the space issue! Not a huge amount left on the default disk layout! Should a bootstrap mechanism include repartitioning the disk, building a new filesystem, ... I never tried that on my default disk(only on my upgraded 30 gig).
I'll get started on a revamped xr3 web site oriented to the ProGear. I think I'll put up a log of my experience with the ProGear as well.
Hi George,
I've added you in. Whenever you're ready to, just replace the links and files in the xr3 directory with information as you'd like it. The SourceForge documentation can tell you how to get in and look around a bit.
More on your ideas in a new thread...
Rudy
About about my PG...
It's a 128MB unit w/ the integrated orinico.
I've gone through tons of variations, trying to get missing functionality with a replacement distribution before the SDK was available. I do have it now, and have made many mods to their system level software to get things like battery status and backlight control working.
I use a 2.4.20 kernel with APM enabled and ACPI disabled. I've created a phoenix compatible hibernation partition on the disk, and enabled suspend-to-disk in the BIOS. This gives me a power button that hibernates the system (and sends a "suspend system" to apmd, which unloads the usb and network drivers). It works great, and it's a ton better than their S1 standby because I can leave it off days at a time before I get back to it.
In order to get this functionality and the backlight/power connect information, I had to modify their fpPowerMgr. I've stripped it down to a basic module that provides the ioctl interface and /proc information, and just about nothing else. I've eliminated the kernel and user space daemons, and plan to write a daemon that will incorporate the battery status information from their i2c smart battery interface, power control and status from the modified fpPowerMgr, and APM control for enabling standby (setting S3 from apm just freezes the computer, you have to use the power button to get the S4 functionality).
I've also modified a little toolbar launcher to act as a launcher and battery status provider.
I used to use dillo as my main browser, but have switched to links w/X11 graphics. It's extremely fast, and it supports frames (and some javascript). The navigation commands are a littly quirky for it; I was thinking about making a custom xkbd to launch with it that could provide a little better interface. It works for most things I need, though, and when my progear is in range of my home network I use phoenix on my linux server with the remote display on the progear.
My primary use for the progear right now is on the road. It interfaces with my LG-5350 and SprintPCS service to provide me a real browser and ssh client for remote system management. I have a Thinkpad also, but the PG is much more compact, and the battery lasts much longer.
- Mike
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the great information. We definitely would like to bring your mods and brain into this project.
Did you start with the standard install (presumably upgraded to the DevGear with the SDK)?
With your 2.4.40 kernel, did you import the nipple code? (One of my projects I've been aiming toward is making its scroll function work better.... it currently just inserts keypresses. This is a good start, but I imagine a lot more: maybe scroll-wheel functioning, maybe some type of joystick menu system...)
What did it take to build the hibernation partition? How long does it take to come out of hibernation?
How much of the lwm/ProGear tools remains on your machine (well, in use, I mean)?
How does the interface to your cell phone work? Does the phone have a USB port, or??
Anyway, that's a bunch of questions. I hope you'll write a few HOWTOs and bring in your code and configuration... Let me know if you'd like to be added to the project.
Rudy
i needed a hibernation partition and i wanted to add it without formating. you can use the 'parted' command to resize then use the lphdisk tools to format the partition as a hibernation partiton. here is a link lphdisk source:
http://www.procyon.com/~pda/lphdisk/
check out the README for instrucitons, its pretty easy :)
-DaBoo
I use the n9joy module for nipple functionality. Mine doesn't seem to work very well, so it hasn't been a big priority to integrate it any more. I would love to use it as a "shift" for a second mouse button though, but haven't started on that.
The setup I'm using now started with an empty ext2 partition, with packages added from my Slackware 8.1 development system until things started to work (I wanted the absolute smallest installation possible). There is zero of the original system installed on that partition, only the tools I've re-built from the SDK. The original partition remains in-tact, though, unused.
lphdisk to create the hibernation partition. It has to be a "real" (primary) partition.
Yes, I bought a $20 USB cable for my cellphone from the Radio Shack at the same time I purchased the phone. I compiled the prolific 2303 USB to serial converter into the new 2.4.20 kernel and it works great.
Code/binaries/questions are fine by me but I'm afraid that I don't do too well with documentation! :)
- Mike