Customizing the Zaurus C860 for pdaXrom 1.1.0 RC9

Marcus Kracht

Contents:

General advice can be gathered from the previous page ... I am not repeating myself.

My Experience

1.1.0 is a much better system. You can now install software using the Make-utilities, which gives you greater flexibility. My first experience however was quite disappointing. The Xserver is a primadonna, so to spare you the same experience, read on. First, when you resize the boot partition, the recommended 50 MB is not big enough. Xwindows will always because the partition is 98 percent full already! (Alternative: get rid of software ...) Second, if you install another user, you will get surprises. adduser -D does not what it says it will, namely when you do want a password for the uses. Once you have added a user, root gets only a shabby TVWM session, so this is no good. I have finally decided to go for 121 MB root partition and add no extra users. I am root and user in one person. If you have similar experiences like me using openbox, copy the file /etc/xinitrc to $HOME/.xinitrc. This file uses twm. That seems to work, even though you shall miss much of the functionality as first.

Where To Get pdaXrom and Software

The current feed is on RC8. Additional information is at pdaXrom. Download their flash ROM and do as they say. Basically, you need to do the following: install the three files on a Flash Card (or whatever), put off the computer, plug the AC cord, take out the battery for 5 seconds, put in the battery, the flash card, and press OK, and hold the OK key while turning the machine on. You will get a boot menu. Follow the instructions on the site. Then you will have installed the system. Software is found either under RC8 or if you go to the unstable feed. This way I have installed the following programs.

  1. the complete vim (vim, vim-doc, vim-syntax)
  2. Xpdf (pdf-viewer)

LaTeX Installation Instructions

Basically, Zazz has made available latex for the 1.0.5. Dowload Ztex together with the instructions. That gives you a basic system to work with. Jandr has provided a collection of old libraries that you need to also include. When you intend to use a binary, you need to rename it (or move it elsewhere) and write a wrapper as follows. I do it this way: let the old file be called dvipdfm. The new filename is now dvipdfm-uw and then I edit a file dvipdfm with the following content:

#!/bin/sh
export LD_PRELOAD=/lib/glibcc_s.so
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/oldlibs
exec /usr/bin/latex/dvipdfm-uw "$@"

The last line uses the full path. It does not have to, but my it is better this way. I have put all latex into a directory /usr/bin/latex. When you do this, be sure to add the path in /etc/profile. Ah, and do not forget to type chmod a+xr to make the new file executable. The wrapper is not always needed. dvips works as is and refuses to function when wrapped in this way.

xdvi

Jandr has also provided a newly compiled Xdvi. Basically, you need to do the same to xdvi, except that because it is already a wrapper, you can edit the file xdvi directly. Now, as it happens I use a lot of extra fonts. No problem, just add them from your main machine. However, you ned to edit xdvi.cfg. The way I did it is to comment out the line dvipsmap psfonts.map ..., copy the file ps2pk.map to this directory and uncomment the line %dvipsmap ps2pk.map. Finally, do a texhash. It will regenerate the file list so the programm will actually find the files you have added. After that, the fonts come out beautifully. Thanks Zazz and Jandr!

dvipdfm and ghostview

I am still struggling with ghostview and dvipdfm. The latter works on simple files, but has trouble with extra fonts. The first crashes. Again, some font issue, I presume.

Xpdf

The new xpdf (version 3.0) is not quite compatible. Here is what to do: copy the file libfreetypoe.so.6.3.4 into /usr/lib. Move libfreetype.so and libfreetype.so.6 in that directory somewhere else (that is, save them (you never know!) but remove them from that directory) and now type

ln libfreetype.so.6.3.4 libfreetype.so -sf
ln libfreetype.so.6.3.4 libfreetype.so.6 -sf

Now, you will get messages about segmentation fault, but xpdf seems to work now. As before, the special fonts and dingbats do not come out on the xpdf. The solution is as follows. Look for /etc/X11. In the file xpdfrc and look up the line

#displayFontT1 ZapfDingbats /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts/d050000l.pfb

It tells you the name of the font. When you invoke xpdf it looks in the named places for files ending in .pfb. The places are stored in xpdfrc. The simplest way is to look up that font on your main machine (on mine I found it in /usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/). Copy the file d050000l.pfb from your laptop (or wherever you found it) into a suitable place on your zaurus and edit the path of that line. Uncomment the line (erase `#' at the beginning). You are set.

ATerm Settings

XTerm has been superseded by ATerm. Much better but the font scheme is ugly.

Vim

Edit .gvimrc to change the appearance of gvim. You can get plenty of help if you download vim-doc. My settings are currently:

:set guifont=Lucida\ Console\ 14
:set softtabstops=3
:syntax enable
:colors koehler

When you use gvim, it will now display everything in a larger font, and do syntax highlighting. The vim manual tells you everything about fonts, needless to say that you can put in other ones according to taste. (I found the one above the most pleasant.)

Infrared Keyboard

Install Targus Infrared Keyboard. I have a Targus Infrared Keoyboard. Install the package as usual. When you want to use the keyboard, enter xirkd start on the Zaurus, and you can now use the Targus keyboard in addition to the Zaurus keyboard. When you want to stop, enter xirkd stop.

OCaML

I got the feed from Jandr, who kindly compiled version 3.07 for me. You can also download from my own site: OCaML.

ATerm and Settings

I need to find out where to change the aterm settings. I dislike the colour scheme. Other than that, it works fine.

Modem and Dialup

I got my modem to work, using basically the same script as before. You can manually install a script as follows. If it is not already there, create a directory /etc/ppp/peers and add there as many files as you like. My own script is:

/dev/ttyS3
connect '/usr/sbin/chat -s -v ABORT "NO CARRIER" ABORT "NO DIALTONE" 11520
(no linebreak) ABORT "BUSY" "" "AT&F" OK "ATDTthe number to dial" CONNECT "" "Username:" my username "Password:" my password "ine>" ppp ""'
noipdefault
lock
crtscts
modem
noaccomp
asyncmap 0
usepeerdns
receive-all
defaultroute
connect-delay 1000

When you use the PPP dialer (now it is spelled correctly!), your own files show up there as well.

Networking and Wireless

My wireless card is a SanDisk, and it works perfectly.

Repartitioning SD Cards

(Probably the same as with 1.0.5, but don't rely on it.)

Evaluation

The new verison is much nicer. You can now crosscompile (though I did not have to so far). It comes together with dillo and sylpheed in a much more usefriendly outlook (especially it does not have the miniature fonts it used to). And I have all the functionality I need.

Downloads

(To be done.)