Re: [iPAQ] Need Help with IPAQ H3835

On Friday 07 March 2008 01:19, KW wrote:
> I recently came across an Ipaq H3835 whose history and
> condition are unknown to me.
> I have no experience with this or any type of Pocket PC
> and/or PDA.
> The charging LED keeps blinking and nothing works unless
> it’s plugged into the AC adapter so I assume the battery will not hold a
> charge. Being a Linux geek, I’d like to run some form of Linux (Familiar
> and Opie probably).
I have an IPAQ in similar condition. I have found that having it on the
charger for some days allows me to take it off the charger for brief moments,
but for the most part it has to be on the charger to operate. It does however
operate just fine, so it's obvious the only fault lies in the battery. I
imagine if you are willing to try it out on the cradle, you will quickly see
if it functions correctly or not. I did need quite a bit of charging to get
mine to start up correctly at one point, so I'd suggest leaving it on the
charger a while first.
>
> My questions are how can I make sure the unit works properly
> before investing any more time and effort? Assuming it does work, how to
> get it to a known state and install Linux?
Since you already have the bootloader on there, you should be able to follow
the opie install instructions from handhelds.org, but seeing as the
bootloader is on there, it's likely there is already an installation of some
kind, it might be worth looking at that first. The boot sequence sometimes
fails to turn the screen backlight on for me, when the pda has such poor
batteries. I found at one stage I had to tilt it to the right angle to read
the prompts on screen, so I could reboot it which kicked the backlight back
in.
> Other suggestions as to what can use the unit to do are very
> welcome. Pointers to other forums, groups, documentation, etc would also be
> much appreciated.
I think I found all the info I needed (including a step by step install
process) linked from handhelds.org. Sorry I don't have any particular URLs
handy right now, it was a while ago I did my pie installation. I think it's
the best place to poke around. Once I had it up and running, I found the VNC
client to be very useful for remotelty operating XMMS on a headless audio
jukebox PC I had running...

> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If you need help with anything specific post here, I'm sure someone will help.
> kwat
Received on Thu Mar 06 2008 - 17:19:35 EST