DR800 ANN: DR800+. Port of some DR1000 features to the DR800

[fekhner]

how do you want to do this, by using and controlling another GSM card than the one irex used in the 3G models or by using a wifi capable SD card as someone else mentioned in the forum ?

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by fekhner

how do you want to do this, by using and controlling another GSM card than the one irex used in the 3G models or by using a wifi capable SD card as someone else mentioned in the forum ?

I *want* it... not that I know how to achieve it...

[jonathan_s]

If you are familiar with linux and use it as your main desktop computer, go for this same option and don't use a VM.

I guess I would qualify, I'm a debian user myself. But my fastest box is still only 32 bits and VirtualBox is efficient enough that I don't think I lose much by using it. Yes it is painful to have to shuffle files through so many real and virtual machines but in the end that's a detail, I can write scripts to hide all that stuff. And being 100% certain that nothing I do is going to mess with my main computer probably makes up for that disadvantage.

The real question for me is how to get a working development environment. I'm a bit of a newbie in this department and would really like something that 'just works'. So far building kernels hasn't been a problem. But how to get a working emulator without the stuff in debian.o-hand.com? I guess I can just try and get back to this thread when I get stuck.

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by jonathan_s

I guess I would qualify, I'm a debian user myself. But my fastest box is still only 32 bits and VirtualBox is efficient enough that I don't think I lose much by using it. Yes it is painful to have to shuffle files through so many real and virtual machines but in the end that's a detail, I can write scripts to hide all that stuff. And being 100% certain that nothing I do is going to mess with my main computer probably makes up for that disadvantage.

Unless you want to use anjuta IDE or the oprofile UI, there is no need for an additional VM if you are using a linux machine already. Trust me, I was in the same mood.

All the DR devel packages goes in "/usr/local/poky" directory so you won't mess your desktop.

An additional problem when using a VM is the screen resolution. In the devel machine you will also run the DR emulator, and unless you have a graphic card and monitor with high resolutions, you'll need to switch to fullscreen often to see the complete DR screen.

Originally Posted by jonathan_s

The real question for me is how to get a working development environment. I'm a bit of a newbie in this department and would really like something that 'just works'. So far building kernels hasn't been a problem. But how to get a working emulator without the stuff in debian.o-hand.com? I guess I can just try and get back to this thread when I get stuck.

It's quite easy. The same instructions for both your own desktop or your VM:
1. check you have installed the packages stated on section 2.1 (common devel packages for a linux machine)
2. install sdk as section 2.2 says (i.e., uncompress and copy into /usr/local/poky), and don't forget the "environment-setup" shell script to enter into DR cross-compiling environment.

Iñigo

[jonathan_s]

Originally Posted by fekhner

for what it is worth: there seems to be no problem at all with standard pdf annotations using DR800+ on my device.

I would be please to know how you manage it. In frustration I have just reflashed my DR800S with the 2.0-rc3 firmware, reformatted the SD card, updated to DR800+ and copied a PDF to try annotating. And it still doesn't work. Same symptoms - initially appears to work, records added to annotation table in metadata.db file but annotations disappear as soon as screen is refreshed.

FWIW there seems to be a connection between annotating and the device not suspending properly. When I suspend it while viewing a page that I have annotated, it the LED continues flashing after the screen has gone blank. If I remove the annotations (by editing the metadata.db file) then it goes back to normal.

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by jonathan_s

I would be please to know how you manage it. In frustration I have just reflashed my DR800S with the 2.0-rc3 firmware, reformatted the SD card, updated to DR800+ and copied a PDF to try annotating. And it still doesn't work. Same symptoms - initially appears to work, records added to annotation table in metadata.db file but annotations disappear as soon as screen is refreshed.

FWIW there seems to be a connection between annotating and the device not suspending properly. When I suspend it while viewing a page that I have annotated, it the LED continues flashing after the screen has gone blank. If I remove the annotations (by editing the metadata.db file) then it goes back to normal.

Though I usually don't use them, annotations works in my DR800+ too.

Anyway, I agree, the suspend problem must be related to this.

So I can think on different possible causes:
- have you modified the kernel or the boot process?
- do you write annotations with previous old versions of IREX firmware (1.0 or 2.0.beta)?

[jonathan_s]

- have you modified the kernel or the boot process?

I have played with the kernel. But the problem started immediately I upgraded to DR800+ before I did anything like that. Also I would expect the reflash and reformat of the SD card to remove any traces.

- do you write annotations with previous old versions of IREX firmware (1.0 or 2.0.beta)?

I was using annotations from the first update where they became available until I upgraded to DR800+. I never had any trouble with them before.

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by jonathan_s

I have played with the kernel. But the problem started immediately I upgraded to DR800+ before I did anything like that. Also I would expect the reflash and reformat of the SD card to remove any traces.

Yes, the reflash should do it.

Originally Posted by jonathan_s

I was using annotations from the first update where they became available until I upgraded to DR800+. I never had any trouble with them before.

As I mentioned in another message, there were format changes between v1 and v2 of IREX firmware, event between 2.0RCx and 2.0RCy so if you have files with annotations from those times, perhaps the migration was wrong.

Do you have the same issues with new pdf files added recently to the DR? If so, my above hypothesis would be wrong.

[catharsis]

With the introduction of the taskbar, there are 3 icons per row in home screen. Can you remind me how to change icon size so I should have 4 icons per row?

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by catharsis

With the introduction of the taskbar, there are 3 icons per row in home screen. Can you remind me how to change icon size so I should have 4 icons per row?

I think that DR800 always had 3 items per row.
Anyway, take a look at file /usr/share/ctb/ctb.rc lines 57-58.
These values control the size of the cursor rectangle in CTB.

    erGtkIconView::item-width       = 187
    erGtkIconView::item-height      = 187

187 in DR800+ or 195 in IREX original firmware.

Do you know that in DR800+ v3 or higher you can toggle taskbar visibility? Set a default for you in SD_card/System/dr.ini and click on menu option when you want to change temporary.
Nowdays I usually have it hidden to get more width for the books I'm reading.

Iñigo

[jonathan_s]

I had to actually use my DR800 for my real work the last few days so been running old firmware.

Originally Posted by Iñigo

Do you have the same issues with new pdf files added recently to the DR? If so, my above hypothesis would be wrong.

New PDF files, old PDF files, reformat the SD, nothing I try works. That's why I'm amazed that other users aren't having the same problem.

Is it possibly connected with the version of the version of the file that had to be extracted from the DR1000 firmware? I found that the version mention in the README file (0629) didn't exist and I used the version I could find (beta2) instead.

[fekhner]

if you have not/cannot use the rc3 version from here
http://updates.irexnet.com/beta/dr1000s/
pm me ...

[jonathan_s]

Originally Posted by fekhner

if you have not/cannot use the rc3 version from here
http://updates.irexnet.com/beta/dr1000s/
pm me ...

OK yes thank you that was the problem. Annotations are working once again. Very happy! My mistake I guess, not knowing which version of the DR1000 firmware to use.

The only other strangeness I found, the clock not refreshing on page turn, is still there.

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by jonathan_s

OK yes thank you that was the problem. Annotations are working once again. Very happy! My mistake I guess, not knowing which version of the DR1000 firmware to use.

I'll update documentation to be more precise.

Originally Posted by jonathan_s

The only other strangeness I found, the clock not refreshing on page turn, is still there.

Can't remember exactly last changes, but maybe we changed the refresh to avoid leaking much battery.

[jonathan_s]

I've been trying to build different kernels in the hope of getting USB OTG or hostmode to work. I did manage to build and install a slightly modified version of the stock irex kernel by replacing the kernel.bin with the new zImage and rootfs.bin with a new jffs2 file in System/updates. The DR800 then went through its firmware upgrade process as normal, and booted up with the new kernel. Strangely though it didn't install the new root filesystem. Maybe I built it with the wrong arguments (?)

Anyway so far so good. Then I made some more ambitious changes to the kernel, went through the same procedure and found that it wouldn't boot. I even tried building a bleeding edge 3.0.0 kernel, with the same result. It would be good to get a bootlog from doing this to see if I can work out where in the boot process it is crashing. Modifying /etc/syslog.conf allows a syslog to be created. But logging to a file on the SD card is no good because the DR800 crashes before mounting the SD card. And logging to the internal flash memory is no good because it gets erased when I reflash. (OK slight contradiction, if I could reliably replicate the scenario where the kernel gets reflashed but the root filesystem doesn't it might just work, but I've not been able to make this happen).

So having got this far I thought I'd put the question out there whether anyone else has experimented along these lines or has any other information about the boot loader.