Re: Angstrom Opie 1.2.3 testing

On Tue January 15 2008 02:53:08 pm Paul Eggleton wrote:
> Robert E. Anderson wrote:
> > Yesterday I installed this on my hx4700.
> > I have to say that it works better than the Familiar 0.8.4 on the same
> > device.
>
> Well that's progress :) At least the Opie part should work a bit better
> since it has moved forward two versions between them.

So far I haven't noticed all the NEW features of Opie. My comment is just
that the power button is working correctly on the Angstrom build!

> > 1. The networking doesn't work out of the box. I needed to modprobe
> > one module before it would work. I'm not sure it that should be done for
> > me on bootup or held off until I configure the network. I think on boot
> > might not be good because it starts the power drawing device. I'm not
> > sure if a hook exists for the Network setting tool to load the module,
> > but it didn't work.
>
> You're referring to WiFi? It's not something I've looked into too closely
> yet, but I know of no way that it could load a module for a built-in
> device on-demand other than at boot time. Not sure how to attack this one.
> My gut feeling is that the module ought to be able to be loaded at boot
> with the device powered off, and then it should power on when you bring up
> the device with ifup, but I'm no expert in WiFi driver conventions so I
> could be wrong here.

If I can ever get a build env working I'll take a look at the bb files to see
if there's anything else that might help. My guess is that there will be a
hook someplace for the machine type to add there modules. I too am not an
expert with the Wifi modules but noticed that as soon as I modprobed it, the
light went on and it started working (drawing power). If that's always the
case I could see why it might not be automatically done, as there might be
somebody how never uses it. To be honest this is the first PDA I've had wit
h networking built in. Before I used a CF card solution on my 3835 and 2200.

> > 2. The joypad buttons are oriented incorrectly. I know that was
> > recently fixed in a patch for Opie 1.2.3, so perhaps using either a newer
> > CVS date or back porting patch to bitbake would fix this one.
>
> I did not know hx4700 was suffering from this as well. I am very confused
> by this, if someone can shed some light on why so many machines seem to
> have this problem it would be great. I'd rather not have to apply hacks
> for each one.

If I followed the fix, I think the hx4700 was in those that made the move over
the the default case of 0 rotation. I do not know if that is correct or not
but I noted the file it was it. Once I get a build env working I can submit
the correct fix (if it hasn't been done already).

> > 4. It powered up from a sleep for an alarm. I didn't notice it make
> > any noise, but it's at least waking up fine!
>
> Hmm, perhaps it's just certain hardware that suffer from alarm wakeup
> issues then. At least it might prove that it's not a bug in Opie at any
> rate.

I'm not sure there is a problem here. I just didn't hear the alarm. I was
making dinner and noticed it was on. After all the problems I've had with
the device NOT turning off with Familiar I worried it was happening here to,
until I noticed the alarm notice.

I needed a little more time to get my environment working, so I left it home
today. Hopefully I'll get a chance tonight to finish my setup and report
anything else I find. If it wasn't for the snow day yesterday I probably
wouldn't have had the time to do the install.

I'm really glad to see the work being done on Opie and a distro. I recently
surveyed the market to see what else could replace my Opie iPAQ and found
that nothing really can at this time. The Nokia might if it ever gets a
decent PIM set. And once Qt releases a Wince port, it would at least have a
good windowing environment, if I could only put up with wince. Thanks so
much for this work!

-- 
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 Robert E. Anderson  		 	email: rea_at_sr.unh.edu
 Systems Programmer			phone: (603) 862-3489
 UNH Research Computing Center		  fax: (603) 862-1761
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