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After installing your favorite Linux distribution on the SIMpad, it is time to customize it to serve your needs.
Depending on the distribution (the following focuses on Angstrom) and the release (e.g. x11, minimalist, ..) you chose, there are a number of applications already installed.
However, storage space is _very_ limited on the SIMpad. After installing the x11 image, for example, around 60% of the memory that may be used for programs is occupied. Based on what you intend to do, the remaining 40% will be used up in no time.
Note that all configuration can be done using the serial connection and a terminal software using the connection settings described here. Just connect to the serial port with your terminal software and you will see a login prompt.
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The Angstrom Distribution simpad ttySA0
Angstrom 2007.12-r18 simpad ttySA0
simpad login:
If you installed an OPIE image: Simply put in "root" to login. There is no password set by default.
If you installed an GPE image: Use "root" and the password you set up for the root user during the first login to your SIMpad.
The following sections assume that you use this method!
Also note that the ikpg package-manager does not remove dependencies for a package. During installation it will obtain and install all required dependencies needed for the package. If you want to remove the package, the package and packages depending thereon are not removed automatically. The dependencies fetched and installed for the package stay on the system and occupy space. You might therefore want to keep track of what is installed.ipkg list_installedhelps to keep an overview. You can find a list of packages installed by default can be found here for the stable r18 release of the Angstrom-x11-image-glibc release.
In the stable 2007.12 release of Angstrom provides four image flavors:
| Name | Size |
|---|---|
| Angstrom-console-image-glibc-ipk-2007.12-r18-simpad.rootfs.jffs2 | 8.1M |
| Angstrom-minimalist-gpe-image-glibc-ipk-2007.12-r18-simpad.rootfs.jffs2 | 13M |
| Angstrom-x11-image-glibc-ipk-2007.12-r18-simpad.rootfs.jffs2 | 18M |
| Angstrom-opie-image-glibc-ipk-2007.12-r18-simpad.rootfs.jffs2 | 19M |
The console image is very basic and provides no graphical user interface (GUI). If you know what you are doing, you can use this image to built up the installation you desire.
The minimalist-gpe image provides a GUI, the GPE Palmtop Environment, but has no utilities to set everything up nicely from the GUI. Of course, a terminal is available to do things manually. It saves some space and servers as a good basis for an installation. Note that it is not possible to use WPA in without installing wpa-supplicant, hostap and related packages (which you can not install using the wifi-interface if you depend on a connection using WPA).
The x11 image has much of the things you need and maybe a bit more. It is a good place to start for first-time users and you can remove packages you don't need to slim the installation.
Last, there is an OPIE image available. It makes a good impression and has some nice PIM tools, however, there is no browser or PDF reader available at the moment (X11 applications do not run on OPIE).
Angstrom uses ipkg to manage software packages. If you are used to Debian apt/aptitude/dpkg you'll feel at home (almost). More Information can be found here.
To free some space on your simpad you can remove/de-install some packages.
For example, you may remove the bluetooth related packages (unless you need them, of course):ipkg remove -recursive `ipkg list_installed | grep blue | cut -d " " -f 1`
ipkg list_installed | grep browserto get a list. Three of the browsers are discussed here:
The status and usability of these browsers varies greatly.
On Angstrom r18 the GPE-browser, although it has a very small footprint, is almost unusable since it crashes at every other website.
Midori is still in alpha state but this page says it is under "heavy development". If you should be able to get Midori to work - while the browser might be lightweight, the libraries needed by it eat up a lot of memory - there is manual work necessary to set it up completely.
That leaves us with Minimo. While being relatively stable and providing the best performance, it also needs a lot of space (up to 20% of the memory).
root@simpad:~$ df Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mtdblock1 32256 19120 13136 59% / [...] root@simpad:~$ ipkg install minimo Installing minimo (1:0.02+cvs20070626-r0) to root... Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2007/ipk/glibc/arm-oabi/base/minimo_0.02+cvs20070626-r0_arm-oabi.ipk Installing libxt6 (1:1.0.5-r1) to root... Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2007/ipk/glibc/arm-oabi/base/libxt6_1.0.5-r1_arm-oabi.ipk Installing libstdc++6 (4.1.2-r13) to root... Downloading http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2007/ipk/glibc/arm-oabi/base/libstdc++6_4.1.2-r13_arm-oabi.ipk Configuring libstdc++6 Configuring libxt6 Configuring minimo root@simpad:~$ df Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mtdblock1 32256 25828 6428 80% / [...]
Moreover, at the moment, the "homebase" page remains empty (it should display your bookmarks to provide fast access to your favorite locations). However, from the above three possibilities, Minimo may be the safest bet.
Note that if you installed an Opie image, after a simpleipkg install minimoyou will not be able to start the browser (for a lack of an X-server ?).
There might be a new browser available with the next Angstrom release called Fennec for GPE.
Since OPIE is now officially supported by Angstrom, there will be an embedded Konqueror available for OPIE soon. In not yet released packages KonquerorEmbedded or Konqu/E leaves a very stable impression and is the most complete browser of all the above cited ones.
The touchscreen calibration that is performed just after the installation and before the installation does not work in some cases. That means that there is a certain offset between the point you point your stylus to on the screen and the point that is recognized by the device.
This can be very annoying since if the offset is large enough, it is impossible to access certain regions of the touchscreen.
In OPIE, there an application available, that allows to re-calibrate the touchscreen. From experience, the calibration of OPIE is pretty good, so you should be able to navigate through the tabs presented at the top edge of the screen and to select icons. You can access it by choosing the settings-tab and then select the "Recalibrate" icon.
In case you can not use/access the "Recalibrate" application do this:
In the console window typerm /etc/pointercaland reset your SIMpad using the reset button. The SIMpad present the calibration screen after the boot.
The following holds for the GPE/X11 builds of Angstrom:
If the offset is small and you are able to access the "Other" folder and to use the keyboard: Go to the "Other" and open the "Terminal" application. Entersudo xtscalto start the calibration program (you might need to enter the root password first). If, however, the offset is so big, that you cannot do anything useful, use the serial cable to connect to the SIMpad using the terminal software you used during the installation process. Login as "root" using the password you set. Then use
export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0 xhost +localhost xtscal
to bring up the xtscal application.
You can use the software running on another Linux/Unix based remote computer using x11 forward.
For convenience you might use an automatic login at the remote computer using the ssh public-key infrastructure (a related howto can be found here.
(To be continued.)