David Clack, Ocean Shores, WA Netbooks Plus

Hi All,

So it's been a couple of weeks, I've been working on trying to get a promotion, let me tell you without a lot of help from some great Sun colleges my documents would not be as good as they are.  I found it difficult to write about me, a lot easier to do product presentations.

I've been playing with the Nvidia driver settings on the Acer C90S, with the separate X server on the LCD and external monitor, with Compiz and 4 desktops each, I'm getting about 5000 frames per second running /usr/X11/demo/glxgears.

Rotating the cube is really smooth.

The external 500Gb 2.5" USB hard drive is working out great, it's has a ZFS pool which comes up all the time after I have to kill the laptop.

I'm having a problem with the 2.27.3 evolution, if I click on a large attachment it's locking up the system, still have not worked out whats going on yet.

I did do a B117 install on the Toshiba Portege R200 just for fun, the 2.26 nautilus sometimes does not come up all the way and you need to kill it a couple of times, looks like a timing issue, Compiz is not working at all on the Intel video, I'll have to look at this later, suspend / resume works ok, though the back light does not come up on the LCD.

I'm taking a couple of grandkids down to Oregon for a summer vacation tomorrow, back in two weeks.

Happy July 4th

Dave

Hi All,

So I'm not sure how many of you watched the last day keynote by James Gosling, I've already talked about the JavaFX Jukebox on stage, I actually did get to go down the San Francisco and was in the hall during the keynote.

I got to meet and shake hands with both James Goslings and Paul Perrone finally.

Paul and I got to work on the Solaris X86 and JRTS, UAV helicopter that flew at Java ONE a couple of years ago, a very small full featured motherboard from IGoLogic and Axiomtek.

The second to last presentation was by Sun and VW about working with Stanford University to build an Audi car that could navigate a rally course at high speed, without a driver.

 It will be using Java Real Time to do the processing on top of Solaris X86.

 Well I shipped the first test unit of the dual core Celeron running Solaris 10 X86, to VW on the Monday after Java ONE.

In the end there will be four separate systems in the car running Solaris X86, we received the Canbus controllers from our other partner in Germany Hilscher just the week before Java One, we have one of the first multiprotocol PCI104 cards in the USA, Canbus, DeviceNet and ProfiBus, we just need to change drivers and connectors on the front of the system.

The system is just like the other motherboards from IGoLogic and Axiomtek, no issues at all with the install, GUI installer works all the time, even through the DVI / VGA converter.

Once Solaris is up and running, the system is very quite, no error messages in the logs at all.

I installed Solaris X86 onto a Transcend 8Gb SDD, same 2.5" form factor as we use in the BlueWonder, this time though with a SATA connector, the speed looks just like you would see if it was a real SATA HDD.

Dave

Hi,

  So someone asked for gnome hearts, the python install is missing a file, download from here, put in /usr/lib/python2.4/config/, this is easier than rebuilding Python 2.4.5, though the system does look like it gates faster if you do.

Download gnome-hearts-0.3 from here

gtar xvfj  gnome-hearts-0.3-os.tar.bz2

cd gnome-hearts-03

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-static

gmake

gmake install

You should be able to see and play hearts in the games menu

Enjoy

Dave

Ps don't forget you need /usr/sfw/bin in your PATH

Hi All,

This fix is only for Nvidia graphics system with separate  X screens configured.

Anyone who is running separate X screens on Nvidia and likes to run quick lounge in the gnome panel,  Paolo Bacchilega in Italy just sent me a fixed source version and it now works correctly.

If you start up a program from screen 2 quick lounge it comes up on screen 2.

Thanks Paolo :-)

You can get the 2.14.1 source from git clone git://git.gnome.org/quick-lounge-applet

Do a mkdir m4 in the quick-lounge-applet directory

then ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --disable-static --localstatedir=/var/lib

gmake

gmake install

pkill quick-lounge

pkill gnome-panel

Dave

Hi All,

 So it looks like luupgrade is not working very well at all, ended up with B112, B115 and B116 on my AA1 10 inch, could not boot anything at all.

Good news is a clean install of B116 fixed the problem :-)

Everything works off the DVD but the Attansic ethernet controller, I downloaded the latest atge driver from http://homepage2.nifty.com/mrym3/taiyodo/eng/, looks like they solve the problem of the netbook hanging up if you did a big file transfer.

Compiz is working fine, the Atheros wifi is fine, sound buttons are working without having to adjust in gnome-keyboard-shortcuts anymore.

Suspend / resume is working fine after setting up the /etc/power.conf, I've posted this is an earlier blog entry.

The suspend works fine from the right click on gnome-power-manager in the gnome panel, closing the lid does get it into suspend mode, but it takes about two minutes before the system actually reacts.

I just downloaded and tested the Intel Moblin v2 and tested on the AA1 8 inch, it looks really good, I'll load up a spare hard drive into the AA11 10 inch this afternoon and do a full install, I also have it installed in VB 2.2.4 and it works fine also.

Dave

Hi All,

So my wife decides to get me away from the lab and cell phone today, we drove 120 miles North of our home to La Push, WA.

This is the home of the Quileute Tribe.

We passed through the town of Forks, Wa.

80 miles north of our house we start to pass through the northern most Sub Tropical Forest in the world.

Trees that have been growing for 600 - 800 years or more, everything turns green.

These are a few of the pictures I took today.

Who knows why you would go to La Push, WA ?

Hi All,

 Here is a photo of the JavaFX Jukebox on stage with the inventory Manuel  Tijerino and Jamaes Gosling.

Manuel built the case from 1/4 steel himself, there could be a fight in a bar, it ways 300 Lbs.

Manuel and a friend drove it from New Orleans to San Francisco in 35 hours.

You can see more pictures at http://www.check1two.com/javaone.jsp

Hi All,

So I've been playing with VB and Ubuntu, I upgraded the Ubuntu to 8.10.

Here is a screen shot of Ubuntu running, it actually has Compiz turned on inside Ubuntu as well as the Nevada that has Compiz.

Hi All,

 So this issue with the programs not appearing  on the correct screen if your running nvidia with separate X screens configured has already been solved in the Ubuntu forums.

It's a bug in glib, I applied the patch and rebuilt glib, the problem has gone away for the gnome panel launch, but quick lounge (launcher list applet) is still having the problem, I'll have to check the source code.

This is the patch for glib 2.20.1

 diff -ur clean/glib2.0-2.20.1/gio/gdesktopappinfo.c postclean/glib2.0-2.20.1/gio/gdesktopappinfo.c
--- clean/glib2.0-2.20.1/gio/gdesktopappinfo.c    2009-03-31 18:04:20.000000000 -0500
+++ postclean/glib2.0-2.20.1/gio/gdesktopappinfo.c    2009-05-29 13:52:50.000000000 -0500
@@ -831,16 +831,16 @@
 {
   while (*a == *b)
   {
-    if (*a == 0 || *b == 0)
+    if (*a == 0 || *b == 0 || *b == '=') /* cover naughty equals usage. */
       return FALSE;
-    
-    if (*a == '=')
-      return TRUE;

     a++;
     b++;
   }

+  if (*a == '=' && *b == 0)
+    return TRUE;
+
   return FALSE;
 }

Hi All,

I keep promising myself that once I have my primary laptop working fine I will not touch it, why do I keep breaking this promise, I killed B112 in a way that I could not recover it again :-)

I did an luupgrade to B115, I have never seen so many svc errors during boot in my life.

So luck would have it, that I just moved all my user data and source store to an external 500GB USB HD with a zfs pool.

I had to do a clean install of B115, I've been reinstalling my software for about a week now.

B115 has the Gnome 2.26 desktop, so there are still a few issues, I'll have to check bugtraq and add some bugs.

I did upgrade the evolution from the 2.26 version to 2.27.2, it's a pretty nice release.

I did find some issues with the 2.27 gtkhtml module that is used by eveolution for creating, replying and forwarding mail.

If I use 2.27.2, then the drag and drop of attachments work, but check spelling causes the evolution to hang up.

If i use 2.27.1 check spelling works, but drag and drop causes the evolution to hang up.

Using truss on anything causes the desktop to stop resonding though the cursor is still moving.

I run dual screen with compiz on an nvidia card, 8 separate desktops.

The strange old bug is back, if I start a program from the gnome panel on monitor 2 it shows up on monitor 1.

If I start the program from a terminal on monitor 2 then it appears on monitor 2.

I want to think I remeber this is a PATH issue, but I'm still investigating.

Does not matter if I'm root or a standard user, compiz or not compiz.

Cursor staill shows up on monitor 1 if I go to monitor 2 fast enough, never noticed this before on B112.

I did do the upgrade to Xorg 1.6 as well, it looks stable.

So I will have to continue working on the program start up issue and why any use of truss looks up the system.

More later

Dave

Hi All,

 So about 18 months ago I went looking for a PanelPC I could run Solaris 10 X86 on.

I found two companies in Taiwan, Kontron and Penmount (Salt).

Kontron took an industrial 15" and 17" touchscreen PanelPC and changed the ethernet controllers so Solaris 10 X86 installed without issues from the standard DVD.

Penmount (Salt) makes the touchscreen to serial controller, the Xorg driver is actually in the standard Xorg source repository, but cannot be configured.

What's missing is the GTK based calibration program, this creates a file in /etc, penmount.dat that tells the driver which way the touchscreen is mounted and where your finger is on the touchscreen.

Elinsys our BlueWonder customer in Turkey, who is building the Glass Cold End systems for a new glass factory in Russia, uses these PanelPC's for the MMI to the BW1000 systems running Java Real Time.

If your going to Java One, you may want to see another use for the PanelPC, a JavaFX Jukebox, what the heck is that you say ?

Well if your in a rural area of the USA, say Louisiana, you probably want to listen to your local band vs. the top ten.

Check1Two has build a server that allows local bands upload mp3 music files to a Sun server, once they are on the Sun server they will show up on the JavaFX JukeBox in the local bar.

They actually have a USA patent pending on this idea.

The band gets paid, the bar gets paid and Check1Two gets paid.

So this device is running standard Solaris 10 X86, with JavaSE and JavaFX.

The money acceptor is really connected to the PanelPC

Check it out at Java One.

Dave

Hi All,

 So you guys probably know about wireshark, it's a protocol analyzer now in B115.

It is so much better than snoop -d :-)

This is a screenshot of it running on my C90S

 BTW I just moved all my user data and source code store to a ZFS 500Gb external USB drive, now if I kill the laptop playing with it, I can just import the pool

Hi All,

 So it's been a busy couple of weeks. I sent the MSI netbook down to the engineers in Los Angeles, it was to difficult for them to try and debug the touchpad not working after resume long distance.

I received the 8Gb 2.5" SATA SSD from Transcend for the car dual core systems, Java One coming up next week has got everyone busy in CA, we will resume after the event.

  I did receive the PCI CanBus controller from Hilscher, the PCI104 version should arrive this week so we can look at designing the case for the components.

  VirtualBox 2.2.2 works really well on B112, it does however cause the dhcpagent to go crazy due to the vboxnet0 interface it creates. It's supposed to be fixed in B115. I just downloaded B115 installed and pulled out the dhcpagent. I'll test it for a couple of days, let you know what happens.

 The laptop (C90S) is so stable, I really don't want to upgrade.

 I did get to go up to Seattle and meet with some customers last week, it was fun to get out of the lab for a couple of days.

 I'd love to share with you all the really cool stuff I saw, but it was a secret project.

 One cool item is the JavaFX JukeBox may be at JavaOne next week.

 A start up company has build a really cool JukeBox based on Solaris 10 X86 and JavaFX.

Local bands can upload MP3's of there songs to a central server, once uploaded they appear on the JukeBox in a bar, people can pay to listen to the song or in the future download to a memory stick.

The customer is using the Kontron 17" PanelPC I had modified to get good chips that we had drivers for, the Penmount company also wrote special touchscreen  Xorg drivers and a calibration software for us.

They have just supplied us with OpenSolaris Xorg drivers and calibration software.

 Elinsys in Turkey is also using this for the MMI on the Glass Cold End factory line to control the BW1000 systems.

Hi,

So I've been getting the really annoying Mplayer not built with correct gcc error messages.

I bit the bullet this morning and used the SFEgcc.spec to built GCC 4.3.3

dclack@os-asus ~] /usr/gnu/bin/gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 4.3.3
Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Finally no more errors when playing in Mplayer.

I've found a way to convert DVD's to m4v format for my iTouch, I can now play them on B112 as well.

Dave

Hi All,

 So I purchased a very small  USB BlueTooth dongle of ebay for $2.99.

 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300308294907

 It came in a brown envelope from China, no instructions :-)

 I added it to the Windows XP Home side of the AA1 10 inch, I'm able to activesync my HTC 8900 Tilt.

Then I went back to OpenSolaris (Nevada) B112 and followed the instructions here:

http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/bluetooth/

When you wget the installer and try to run it on a B112 system is gives you an error that it cannot find http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/bluetooth/, what it's really looking for is a file bluetooth_mouse_(uname -v).tar.gz.

So I start playing with the script and get all the way to snv_111, it installs and asks you to reboot the system.

It updates /kernel/sockfs and /kernel/genunix, when the system restarts /kernel/fs/nfs gets unresolved dependencies, so you cannot NFS mount anything.

Anyway I followed the instructions for setting up the bluetooth mouse, and I actually got one to work.

So I went back into /kernel and copied back the backups of sockfs and genunix.

NFS is working again, BT is bust :-)

For $2.99 with free shipping it was an interesting way to add BlueTooth to a non BT netbook.

I'll keep trying to download a B112 version just for fun.

Dave