David Clack, Ocean Shores, WA Netbooks Plus Java

So it's not perfect, but I did get the Check1Two JavaFX Jukebox to run under JavaFX on the Always Innovating Touchbook.

Hi All,

 So I'm off trying some new Java SE 6 binaries on an ARM based netbook.

 The TouchBook comes from a company called Always Innovating, it's based on a really cool motherboard called BeagleBoard.

This is the beagleboard 3" x 3"

I have it hooked up to a 3 port USB adapter with ethernet, plus a Realtek USB b/g/n wifi adapter, I have it hooked with hdmi - dvd cable to a USB touchscreen, still working on the touchscreen driver.

I'm working with the AI linux distribution for ARM, create with bitbake from the wiki.openembedded.net  distro.

I did follow the instructions for actually creating the AI distro on a Core 2 Duo 1.83Ghz system loaded with Ubuntu 9.10, it's quite amazing, 8,800+ automatic steps, about 80Gb disk space.

Bitbake creates the ARM kernel, libraries, compilers, utils, Xfce, applications like Firefox, an amazing peice of work from AI.

So this arrived today the Touckbook.

It's actually in two pieces, you can un-dock the keyboard from the main display, both pieces have a battery. It has an 8.9" 1024x600 touchscreen.

Why am I doing this, well it's to test Java SE 6 and the firefox plugin.

I hope to be able to get JavaFX applications to run on the system also.

I'll probably be working on getting my favorite email/calendar software cross compiled and installed Evolution.

It's going to take awhile to get my head around Linux again, the setup to cross compile to ARM really complex.

I did test an ARM version of Android on the Beagleboard, worked pretty well.

Hi All,

 So I took the Acer Aspire One 10" and installed or company VPN software.

 Jumped into the network and followed the instructions.

NWAM Phase 1 Early Access looks really good, it's got more buttons and whistles than I expected.

 I'm really going to have to test it some more, but it looks really cool, I'll have to build some profiles, see how it really configures.

  Looks like you cannot use it with the panel Network Monitor, the "Track system active interface" switch does not want to work.

Hi All,

 So it's been interesting since I got back from vacation.

 I received a large military laptop to test with Solaris 10 X86, I've actually never seen a laptop with so much hardware capability or BIOS settings, Solaris 10 X86 was a stretch but I did get it working, video was never going to work up to it's full potential.

I did throw Nevada B125 at it, 1680 x 1050 and Compiz, Core 2 Duo processor, pretty cool piece of hardware.

I've been testing Fedora 11 on the Acer One 11.6", it's got the new Imagination Technologies PowerVR video chip, I'm trying to work out how to prove I use the H.264 HD decoder in the hardware not software.

I still have not found an open Xorg driver for this video, only Fedora, Ubuntu and Windows support as far as I can tell.

This video is also on the Intel CE4100 SOC, the Always Innovating TouchBook (I've ordered one) and the beagleboard (on the way).

I want to see if I can build a touchscreen system, that has a JavaFX desktop and will play HD content.

I've also just installed Intel Moblin on the Acer Aspire One 10", it truly is an amazing piece of work, did the install with no issues at all.

I must be getting old, I really don't like the interface at all, don't get me wrong the work is outstanding, it's just personal preference. The interface is really very pretty, I think if it was the first GUI I have used it would be very intuitive.

I'm upgrading all the netbooks to OpenSolaris 1002 B125, I just noticed it's actually Gnome 2.28.

I've been playing with changing the icon themes, creating ~/.icons, then downloading different icone themes from this web site.

www.gnome-look.org

If you download the tar.gz file into ~/.icons, then gtar xvfz the tar file, you can see the new icon theme in  desktop appearance.

I've been experimenting with creating my own theme, Daves-icon-mix, everything comes from the index.theme in the directory.

The Inherits line causes the system to look for an icon called for by the application in this order, if it cannot find it in the selected theme, works in real-time, if you change the order with your favorite editor and then save, you will see the icons change on the screen.

You can also download cursor themes from this web site and install in .icons.

If you want them system wide put them in /usr/share/icons

When you create a directory called default in ~/.icons and an index.theme, see example you can set the default cursor to use on login.

Have fun

Dave

 ~/.icons/default

[Icon Theme]
Inherits=ComixCursors-Orange-Small

~/.icons/Dave_icon_mix

[Icon Theme]
Name=Daves_icon_mix
Comment=
Inherits=Mashup,GNANT,hydroxygen,AquiGNOME,Ultimate Gnome, hicolor,JiniBlueSky,gartoon,blendedcrystal,Kamel,Tango,gnome,nuoveXT.2.2,Vista-Inspirate_1.0,OSX,ClearlooksOSX
Example=x-directory-normal

Directories=16x16/emblems,128x128/actions,128x128/apps,128x128/categories,128x128/devices,128x128/devices,128x128/emblems,128x128/mimetypes,128x128/places,128x128/status

[16x16/emblems]
Size=16
Context=Emblems
Type=Fixed

[128x128/actions]
Size=128
Context=Actions
Type=Scalable

[128x128/apps]
Size=128
Context=Applications
Type=Scalable

[128x128/categories]
Size=128
Context=Categories
Type=Scalable

[128x128/devices]
Size=128
Context=Devices
Type=Scalable

[128x128/emblems]
Size=128
Context=Emblems
Type=Scalable

[128x128/places]
Size=128
Context=Places
Type=Scalable

[128x128/mimetypes]
Size=128
Context=MimeTypes
Type=Scalable

[128x128/status]
Size=128
Context=Status
Type=Scalable

[192x192/actions]
Size=192
Context=Actions
Type=Scalable

[192x192/apps]
Size=192
Context=Applications
Type=Scalable

[192x192/categories]
Size=192
Context=Categories
Type=Scalable

[192x192/devices]
Size=192
Context=Devices
Type=Scalable

[192x192/emblems]
Size=192
Context=Emblems
Type=Scalable

[192x192/places]
Size=192
Context=Places
Type=Scalable

[192x192/mimetypes]
Size=192
Context=MimeTypes
Type=Scalable

[192x192/status]
Size=192
Context=Status
Type=Scalable

Hi All,

  Back from vacation in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, we visited my stepson and his wife, plus the two grand daughters.

Both of them a veterinarians, my stepson is a Professor at Guelph University, he is a specialist in dermatology for horses.

We took a ride to MarineLand in Niagara Falls, one of the walrus has a eye infection.

They took us through the back of the park, we got to meet the dolphins and the walrus, for a baby, he is pretty large, looks just like Jaba the Hut from Star Wars.

This is the whole family with one of the dolphins, I've never got this close before.

They actually kept beaching themselves on the ledge to the pool, so the trainers could push them off, it was a really funny to watch an animal that can leap 25 feet out of the water, have fun falling an inch, maybe they just liked getting a human to do a trick for a change.

Hi All,

 Well I finally upgraded the Asus C90S to Nevada B124 from B116.

The speed improvement in incredible, Compiz 3D cube is coming up without any pause.

Playing a movie in Mplayer, then spinning the cube just shows the movie playing without issues.

It's got the Gnome 2.27 desktop, pretty cool, 2.28 should be in B125.

I've found a funny with rhythmbox and removable media, if I have any plugged in it crashes, have not had time to really look at the code yet.

Maybe it's the same issue with Songbird that will not come up.

This is my last Nevada laptop, everything else is on OpenSolaris 1002 B123.

Up to Canada next week for vacation with Grandkids, my big problem is I cannot work out which netbook to take, bad problem.

Hi All,

 So I've taken my knowledge of Solaris X86 and OpenSolaris just about as far as I can at this time.

Today I start learning Java.

I'll blog about it and you can correct me.

This should be fun, I've been putting it off for awhile.

Hi All,

 So I wanted to test the Intel Poulsbo chipset with OpenSolaris to see if it was a solution to a fan less embedded product.

I could not find a cheap motherboard with the chipset, on my weekend trip to CostCo, they had the Acer Aspire One 11.6" netbook for $278, what a deal.

Frys has the 2Gb 250Gb HD model for $379

Walmart is $348 for the same as I have.

I just wanted to test the chipset :-)

Anyway it has the Intel Poulsbo chipset that looks like it has a video controller from

http://www.imgtec.com/

This is a good writeup on the Intel Poulsbo chipset

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3276&p=16

Anyway, no 2D or 3D video driver for Xorg, the usb is really weird, keeps pushing the cursor into the top left corner.

RealTek Ethernet and Atheros wifi work.

I'd decided to change out the mini pci-e wifi for an 802.11n one, boy did I get a shock when I opened the hatch in the bootom on the wifi card looks like half a postage stamp.

Found a 802.11n same size on Ebay.

I did my standard install with Windows 7, just took 1/3 of disk for C drive, then created an 80 Gb what I thought was FAT32 partition, it came up as exFAT, OpenSolaris cannot month this.

Changed it back to FAT32 with Paragon Partition Manager 10.0 Personal Edition.

It said it did a format in place, there went my iTunes folder, Pictures and Videos.

Thank goodness I have the Maxtor OneTouch Mini 4 backup USB hard drive :-)

So I have the Acer One, looks like Panasonic has a ToughBook with Poulsbo.

How many other netbook type devices exist with the Poulsbo chipset ?

Is it even worth pushing engineering to get an Xorg driver for this video ?

Hi All,

 So I've been looking into this some more.

 The issue is with the windows folder "My Documents", having a space in the directory name.

The terminal command chmod is not handling it the same as nautilus.

If I create a directory with Windows 7 "My_Documents" then it does come up with read / write permissions correctly at mount time.

So now I have to put the "_" character in all my Windows directories, change all the Windows programs to find "My_Documents" and My Pictures, and My Music and My Videos.

Dave

SUNWatge package for B122+ here

atge driver if you have switch issue problems here this needs to go into /kernel/drv as atge

Hi All,

 I've been working on the B122 OpenSolaris Acer One 10", I have Windows 7 Ultimate installed on the first partition, FAT32 in the middle and ZFS at the end.

I mount the FAT32 partition via /etc/vfstab during boot.

My Documents is coming up in read only mode.

If I try to do a chmod -R 777 /shared_fat32/Daves/My\ Documents nothing happens.

If I bring up nautilus and change the properties to read / write and apply to all sub folders, it actually does it.

I can now create files in My Music, My Pictures, etc.

Wish I could work out why ?

Dave

Hi All,

 So I have gotten the Windows 7 boot loader to work.

 With Windows 7 running I went into control panel, system, create and format hard disk partitions.

I set the Windows 7 partition as active.

On the reboot only Windows 7 comes up.

I downloaded and installed Easy BCD.

The second tab in Easy BCD allows you to create a Linux grub boot entry in the Windows 7 boot menu.

When I restart I have the Windows 7 boot menu with two entries, Windows 7 and OpenSolaris.

Selecting OpenSolaris then gives you the standard OpenSolaris grub boot menu.

Dave

Hi All,

 For anyone who has built Evolution 2.27.90+ , you may have found that the signatures don't stick to email account through restarts.

They have just posted a patch in bugzilla

Bug 593872 - Evolution forgets which signatures are assigned to which accounts

 I've patched my system and it works.

diff --git a/e-util/e-signature.c b/e-util/e-signature.c
index 1b22dba..2d8da48 100644
--- a/e-util/e-signature.c
+++ b/e-util/e-signature.c
@@ -445,8 +445,13 @@ e_signature_set_from_xml (ESignature *signature, const gchar *xml)
 		return FALSE;
 	}
 
-	if (!signature->priv->uid)
-		xml_set_prop (node, "uid", &signature->priv->uid);
+	buf = NULL;
+	xml_set_prop (node, "uid", &buf);
+
+	if (buf && *buf) {
+		g_free (signature->priv->uid);
+		signature->priv->uid = buf;
+	}
 
 	changed |= xml_set_prop (node, "name", &signature->priv->name);
 	changed |= xml_set_bool (node, "auto", &signature->priv->autogenerated);