re,

I read:

...

I use remote X11 forwarding that works fine

OK, thanks, I'll give it a whirl.

mind you with guenter's tcl/tk on ipaq you'll also get those empty object boxes and all the text will still sit in the upper left corner - I meant to send this to the list some time ago, but I had to re-sub pd-list since my sender adress slightly change during our last server moving.

Sorry, can you clarify? Is there an OSC object compiled somewhere for the ARM? And if it's server only, does that mean it can't receive OSC messages???

OSC should come with pda butg only the server side i.e. dumpOSC so you can receive but not send.

Will try this as well. Right now, "ipkg update" isn't working for me, seems it can't find its way to the WIFI, even though everything else can.

try the iw* cmd line utilities (I always have to rerun udhcpc eth1 after sleep) those GUI tools that come with gpe/opie are a bit .. ahem ...

Yup, only getting sound out the speaker. Since my project depends on using the record line-in, I better get this one sorted out fast! The Audio Settings menu lists only "OSS Device #1", so I don't think I'm using ALSA at all. Is that a different kernel or module set than what comes stock in Familiar?

I tried several things and dug up some info on this on irc and google, I'll see if I can find my notes and bookmarks and pass them on to you.

Maybe you know, can the 5550 record stereo from the line in? I was under the impression it is only a mono input.

0 idea sorry,

take care,

x

Hi Chris,

CK wrote:

...

1. The "PDa development environment" you mention on the PDa site, which

you run on your desk/laptop to make PDa patches... when is that available?

I use remote X11 forwarding that works fine

I'd like to make some screenshots for Guenter, so could you give me a short how-to on this? I can't find anything on the IPAQ resembling /etc/ssh/sshd_config (except for a Vim conf file...), so I just tried:

$ ssh -2 -X -C root@192.168.17.212

and then

# x-window-manager

but then a window flashes open and closed and I get a huge string of errors in the terminal:

matchbox-wm: X error warning (0x2000003): BadWindow (invalid Window parameter) (opcode: 3)

Suggestions appreciated.

best, derek

Hi Chris,

CK wrote:

...

but then a window flashes open and closed and I get a huge string of errors in the terminal:

I _think_ for me it was solved after ipkg install xauth or similar

root@h3900:~# ipkg install xauth Package xauth (0.0cvs20050222-r1) installed in root is up to date.

root@h3900:~# ls -alh /home/root/ | grep .Xauthority -rw------- 1 root root 51 Mar 17 15:55 .Xauthority

I guess that's not the problem. I'll bug the Familiar list ;-) derek

derek holzer wrote:

Next thing: what about ALSA? I know ALSA support for normal PD is kinda wacked, but could you possibly get it working better for Familiar? Reason I ask is that the ALSA drivers have patches to get the sound to come out of the headphone jack for the IPAQ 5550. Otherwise, you're stuck with the built-in speaker!!!

Correction!!!!

The following binary executable switches to headphone out:

http://hovland.org/familiar/hpswitch

Sources available on the [h5400-port] list if anyone's interested.

d.

This mail sums up the hardware research I've been doing on the IPAQ 5550's audio/hardware capabilities using Linux over the last two weeks as part of a short residency at STEIM in Amsterdam. The aim was to set up PDa as a sound processing platform on the IPAQ: http://gige.xdv.org/pda/

__CONTENTS___________

• BASIC INSTALLATION NOTES
• GETTING THE FIRST BOOT
• SETTING UP POWER MANGEMENT
• AUDIO CONFIGURATION NOTES
• REMOTE X11 OVER SSH
• BLUETOOTH GPS
• PDa NOTES
• panDEV PROJECT PAGE

• BASIC INSTALLATION NOTES:

In general, the Familiar 0.8.1 distribution of Linux runs pretty well with the HP IPAQ 5xxx series. I am using the GPE version, but an OPIE version and a "barebones" developer version are also available.

A few tricks are employed to get it booting at first, power management needs to be properly set up and the audio needs some tweaking, but once everything has been done, you can use the Compact Flash slot, audio line-in, audio line-out, WIFI, Bluetooth and many external "jackets" without much difficulty.

Here are some older but helpful install notes: http://umbrella.sourceforge.net/article.php?story=20040311042139896

But make sure to get the latest installer files from here: http://handhelds.org/download/distributions/familiar/releases/v0.8.1/install...

Please read the release notes and installation instructions here completely before beginning as well!

It might be a good idea to take a few moments and learn how to run your terminal emulator [minicom, etc] before starting if you've never used one before, as the key commands can be tricky. Also make sure you have Ymodem installed, it's usually part of the "lrzsz" package (Debian, Gentoo, etc) and may not be installed by default with your terminal emulator package. You will get nothing but "upload failed" messages without this package!

• GETTING THE FIRST BOOT:

You may have to wait a long time for the first boot without knowing what's going on inside the IPAQ, so you might want to monitor progress with the following command in your terminal emulator after the "load root" command finishes installing the 0.8.1 image:

set linuxargs "mem=128M root=/dev/mtdblock1 init=/linuxrc noinitrd console=ttyS0"

Then type "boot" at the prompt. It may hang the first time on modprobing h5400_asic, but it should go through the next boot after that. Use the same command on the second boot as well to monitor progress.

• SETTING UP POWER MANGEMENT:

The first thing you will want to do after installing is set up the power management, otherwise the ipaq-sleep module will shut the IPAQ down every time you unplug from the charger! First do a "killall ipaq-sleep" as root, then disconnect from power and let the battery run itself out.

Then reboot with the power plugged in and don't unplug it until it's fully charged. This puts the IPAQ in Learning Mode, which will teach the power management how much time is in the battery. After this, you should be able to use the IPAQ normally.

The command "cat /proc/asic/battery" will give better battery info than the GUI if you need it. Battery "jackets", such as the Pitech MemPlug, appear to be plug-and-play, but make sure to leave them off when using Learning Mode. I use a USB Sych/Charge cable to recharge the IPAQ, as the cradle it came with doesn't seem to work at all for this purpose!

• AUDIO CONFIGURATION NOTES:

Out of the box with Familiar, the 5550 wants to play sound from the crappy built-in speaker, and record from the crappy built-in microphone.

The following binary executable switches to headphone-out and line-in:

http://hovland.org/familiar/hpswitch

Once it's downloaded, do a "chmod 755 hpswitch" as root and run it as "./hpswitch" to change the routing of the audio in and out. After this, all audio out will go the headphone jack and it will listen to the audio coming from line-in instead of the built-in mike. Other IPAQs may or may not have this speaker/jack routing problem, I think it's pretty specific to this model.

Sources of this app are available on the [h5400-port] list if anyone's interested:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.linux.h5400/16

To use the mike jack, you will need to build the following audio adaptor:

http://web.it.kth.se/~maguire/iPAQ-photos/iPAQ-audio-adapter.html

Output is stereo, but input is mono due to the hardware. You won't get stereo input without an external card such as Core-Sound's PDAudio unit, which accepts digital sound from an outboard AD converter and can handle up to 24 bit 96 KHz stereo audio:

http://www.core-sound.com/HighResRecorderNews.html

In case any IPAQ 5xxx-series owners are *really* curious, there's a spec-sheet for the soundchip here:

http://www.handhelds.org/platforms/hp/ipaq-h5xxx/AK4535-MS0135-E-01-03-2002....

Note that "hpswitch" is used with the OSS drivers in Familiar 0.8.x for the h5xxx series. ALSA users have the alsamixer app which should do the switching for them fine. ALSA is not on the map for Familiar 0.8.2 yet AFAIK, only for the 2.6 kernel currently under development, but you can compile it from the Familiar CVS if you really want to use it. (Familiar people feel free to correct me here if I'm mistaken!)

• REMOTE X11 OVER SSH:

Patching in PDa with the IPAQ stylus is a real pain in the wazoo. I've been using a remote X11 session over SSH for this purpose in the following way:

First, edit the /etc/ssh/ssh_config file on the Host computer [i.e. your lap/desktop, not the IPAQ] and add the following line:

ForwardX11Trusted yes

I believe everything else should be commented out.

Then open a new SSH session from the Host to the Remote computer [i.e. IPAQ, webserver, etc] with the following command:

ssh -2 -X -C user@IP.address.of.Remote

Once you have a prompt inside the Remote computer, you can start X11 applications by command line:

pandev@h3900:~$ pd

Et voilà! The application's GUI will appear in the display of your Host computer, but it will be physically running on the Remote computer. YMMV as to how responsive the GUI is, as this is a function of available bandwidth IIRC.

• BLUETOOTH GPS:

When I first started working on this platform last year, one of my first questions was how to get GPS data into PDa. Have a look at the following link if you have a Bluetooth GPS to see how it can be read as serial device by GPSd in the IPAQ:

http://gpsd.berlios.de/bt.html

I'll be making a webpage on www.umatic.nl for all this info later, as Pall Thayer gave me some interesting PERL tips for GPS, and we'll be developing some Python GPS stuff as well as some WIFI tools here in Holland in the next few months.

• PDa NOTES:

A substantial bug report and comments list on the latest test version of PDa has already been submitted to Guenter Geiger and the PD-list earlier this evening, and can be viewed here: http://iem.at/mailinglists/pd-list/2005-03/026700.html I'll try running some of the objects I tested locally instead of over SSH later on and see if performance improves from what is noted already.

Perhaps this mail will be another chapter for the PDa FAQ?: http://gige.xdv.org/pda/faq.php

I'm very happy to be able to help Guenter develop PDa and to see it come further along so we all can use it. Big thanks go to STEIM for giving me the hardware, time and space to play around with! Thanks also to Jaap @ ASCII and Marc Boon for continuing programming support for the next phase of this project, and Koen Kooi and Rene Wagner on the Familiar list for expert help in a pinch.

• panDEV PROJECT PAGE:

This report was prepared as part of the development cycle of the panDEV project, a locative sound-gathering application for artists, cartographers and phonographers. More information on panDEV can be found here:

http://www.umatic.nl/projects_pandev.html

On Sat, 2005-03-19 at 01:25, Rene Wagner wrote:

Unfortunately there is no comprehensive documentation available for OpenEmbedded yet. There are however the bitbake manual and the OE wiki.

http://bitbake.berlios.de/manual/ http://openembedded.org/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/GettingStarted

...and of course the slides to Michael 'Mickey' Lauer's excellent FOSDEM talk:

http://www.vanille.de/tools/FOSDEM2005.pdf

Rene

On Sun, 2005-03-20 at 22:37, gÃŒnter geiger wrote:

...

ALSA support is being worked on, someone announced working on TCL/TK .bbs (.bb being the package description ("recipe") format used for OE) on the OE list, too.

Thats good to know, I am distributing my own tcl/tk ipk, but they are a bit lacking (especially the font support, which I had to hack in order to keep the X server alive). I would be happy if someone would come up with better packages and I can remove those.

Well, actually I don't know what the status of the tcl/tk stuff is. So far it's just a mailing list posting:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.handhelds.openembedded/2379

...

If anyone is interested in writing .bbs for PD, PDa or other audio/MIDI apps (so that they will be part of future familiar and OpenZaurus releases) I'll be happy to assist with that.

That would be great, I have the .bb files already. What does it need to contribute ?

Best send patches (or just the plain files for new packages) to the OE list (oe@handhelds.org). Usually someone (in this particular case probably me) will have a look at them, provide feedback as to what needs to be done before they can go in, and finally check them in.

After several sane patches/package submissions contributors are usually offered bk write access.

And we would have to wait for tcl/tk, right ?

As PDa depends on tcl/tk, probably yes.

Will this happen soon ?

I'm afraid I don't know.

You want my packages as a start ?

Sure. Whatever that other person comes up with can be merged later.

...

Unfortunately there is no comprehensive documentation available for OpenEmbedded yet. There are however the bitbake manual and the OE wiki.

I figured it out by looking at other packages, don't know if I did it the right way :)

Excellent! Usually people don't like the "there are about 2000 examples in the tree" argument ;)

Regards,

Rene

On Tue, 2005-03-22 at 17:31, derek holzer wrote:

...

However, they're not binary (ABI) compatible. OpenZaurus uses a softfloat enabled toolchain while familiar doesn't to stay compatible with Debian/ARM. You can't mix apps or libraries from familiar and OpenZaurus (well, you can try, but things will likely be unstable).

Can Debian/ARM Packages be combined with Familiar then? Or does that also break things?

No, that should be fine. The reason why familiar hasn't gone softfloat yet is compatibility with Debian/ARM.

The only inconvenience might be that not all package names/versions will match. So, you may need to resolve certain dependencies manually.

But the binaries/libraries as such should work.

Rene

� wrote:

Have you tried to install the patched ALSA drivers ? Most probably you are already using ALSA drivers, because familiar doesn't come with OSS drivers.

I am afraid you have it backwards: Familiar 0.8.1 uses OSS. ALSA is not supported there at all, I was told to wait for or backport from Familiar 0.8.2

Thankfully there is the headphone switching app I posted to do the job. External mike input is still not there yet, however, and if I want to use the CF audio card I got from Core-Sound I'm going to have to play around with very unstable versions of stuff from Handhelds.org

derek

� wrote:

This is a multichannel card right ? If so, this would be really a reason to use ALSA.

It's this one, which is basically just an input device for an outboard AD converter: http://www.core-sound.com/HighResRecorderNews.html

So perhaps the bandwidth would handle multichannel, but I only have a stereo 2496 unit. No OSS for it at all I think, so it comes later in the operation!

derek