New/Upcoming z2sidX preview

UPDATE: I packed up my current rootfs for anyone who would like to test it. If anyone has suggestions please post some comments. I'm really looking for a good panel type app that is light, has a menu and can display stats (cpu/batt/wifi). Autologin is setup for the username "user" with the password "user". Root has the password "root".

z2sidX_v7_rc1.tar.bz2 (mirror) Jul-7-2011 (md5sum 826d74c7a37a3d747a7a08aa1500a8da)

It's been a while since my Zipit(s) got some playtime, but lately I've been working on a new z2sidX. X is probably not the best interface for the Z2 but getting it to run is still fun, entertaining and I've learned a bit. This post is mostly for me to keep track of the changes/fixes I've made to z2sid so I apologize if it sounds like unorganized rambling. When will this be released? Probably soon, but I would like to get some more applications installed and tested.

X server would crash on resume or when trying to switch VT's. Found this patch http://www.xora.org.uk/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/openembedded/tree/recipes/xorg-x... which does the trick. Recompiled libfbdevhw and you can suspend/resume directly from X without crashing.

Backlight-daemon changes. Now that we are running X and console, the backlight-daemon must set screen blanking using setterm for console or xset for X. It now runs the proper util depending on if X is running. Implemented a workaround to "disable" keyboard input when the lid is closed. Got the idea from rkdavis' screenblanker source. Basically it works by switching to an empty virtual term when you close the lid and back when you open. There was one time after a resume where I got stuck on the wrong VT. Not sure what went wrong but this could be a potential problem (added resume script that changes the vt to 2 if X is running or 1 if not so you won't get stuck). This wouldn't be possible (in X) without the hack above. I am not a programmer so please be nice if my code is very sloppy. backlight-daemon source code.

Keypad would not work after leaving X. Certain console utilites and some compose/string entries in the default keymap were causing this problem. Removing the compose/string lines from the keymap and installing the following packages fixed the problem: console-tools console-data libconsole kbd.

Ebindkeys only works with one input. Z2 mouse emulator grabs keyboard input on another input device it creates. So, you must kill and reload ebindkeys with different config files for X and console. This is done with ~/.xinitrc when startx is run and /usr/local/bin/quitx when Quit X is chosen from the logout/shutdown menu.

Console and X Keymap changes. Volume up and down work as vol+ and vol-. Pgup and Pgdn moved to Alt-Up and Alt-Dn

I successfully compiled mplayer with anarsoul's pxa overlay patch. It runs but the video loses sync with the audio and is generally slow. Possibly the codecs? http://wejp.k.vu/zipit-z2/pxa270_overlay_patch_for_mplayer_1_0rc4

Currently using lxpanel for menu/panel. Having a visible panel on the zipit is nice, but takes up screen real estate. Lxpanel seems to use a lot of cpu (maybe it's the cpu monitor ). Lxlauncher is installed also and works but isn't started by default. Tried fbpanel but it constantly flickers and is unusable. (any suggestions for a panel?)

Using conky for stats. CPU Freq Display in conky was causing the zipit to freeze for some reason so it is disabled. (cpu scaling works, only conky display causes problem). CPU Freq is removed from the conkyrc file so it is still safe to run conky.

Pm-utils for suspend/resume. Made a z2 network script to auto connect after resume at /etc/pm/sleep.d/70z2wifi.

USB host and device modes can be switched with two scripts that must be run as root. "usbmodesw" will switch to the opposite mode it's currently in (if it's currently set for device it switches to host and vice versa). "usbhost" switches from device mode to host mode which will also trigger a scan of the USB bus and redetect devices. This is helpful since the Zipit doesn't have a built in hub. You can just run usbhost after plugging in a new device. http://anarsoul.blogspot.com/2011/04/usb-on-zipit-z2.html

Not in the pre-release (v7-rc1):
Working Pianobar (console pandora client). Pianobar from the repos works, but audio is choppy because of libfaad using floating point. Recompiled libfaad2 from debian repo's with tip from anarsoul (http://mozzwald.com/irclog/readlog.php?chan=zipit&date=2011-4-14 at 15:30). You can download and install this deb package (as root: dpkg -i libfaad2_2.7-1_armel.deb) which will replace the currently installed libfaad2. Also, let the system know where to look for the new libs (as root): echo "/usr/local/lib" > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/locallibs.conf && ldconfig

Update: Pianobar stopped working on Jul-9. Apparently there was an update to the Pandora protocol. I compiled the latest version from http://6xq.net/projects/pianobar/ and all is working again. You can get my deb package here.