The APC(s) have finally arrived, after payment of ransom and ‘fees’ to the appropriate revenue authorities, and shipping organisations.. As expected, this is a typical Android 2.3 system, with a Linux heart, but many proprietary drivers and scripts, and reduced Linux command functionality.. I connected a USB/UART serial converter, and – so far – have a root … Continue reading →
In preparation for the (final!) arrival of the APC, I have been setting up a suitable serial console connection, via USB to a UART, and have tested it on the Raspberry Pi.. After remembering (from years ago..) that you have to connect TX to RX – and vice-versa – the serial console worked without a problem, but … Continue reading →
Harking back to the good old HP9000 workstation, and HP-UX, during my time at HP.. The ‘Common Desktop Environment’ (CDE) has now been open sourced, with (apparently) good old Motif to follow soon.. It may have been ugly by modern standards, but still better looking by far than Windows 3.0… Some of this became part of the … Continue reading →
As the APCs are still ‘awaiting customs clearance’, I decided to try to cross-compile the kernel source available at github: https://github.com/apc-io/apc-8750 Unfortunately, many of the APC-specific drivers (‘wmt’) are currently missing.. The system is an Android 2.3 one, and the kernel is based – as you would expect – on Linux kernel version 2.6.32. (In this case … Continue reading →
I had a (rare) problem with power to my computers recently. The battery in my UPS had died (causing really annoying beeping warnings..) and the power also went out briefly, causing all systems to suffer a genuine power fail condition. The Linux systems all came back (after some extra – brief – systemd-fsck operations) in – literally … Continue reading →
So – after (literally) years, there is a new 4.0 version of Skype for Linux available (the download button still says 2.2, but the 4.0 version is downloaded) Still no 64-bit version, sadly.. The cynic in me would wonder if this sudden change of heart might have something to do with support for the new ‘inline targeted … Continue reading →
So, the problem can be summarised as follows: Login using ‘graphical boot’ (runlevel 5) and KDM – everything works correctly. Login using ‘multi-user boot’ (runlevel 3) and then use # startx to run KDE – USB disk mounts fail with “… Not Authorized” I use a non-graphical login (runlevel 3) and then run # startx, as this … Continue reading →
After all the Pi excitement, back to (relative) normality.. I upgraded my main (x86_64) systems to Fedora 17, using YUM, as usual.. I have found that using the DVD is messy, and sometimes leaves the system in a ‘hybrid’ state, and then the DVD versions of many packages need to be updated, in any case! Compared to … Continue reading →
After many fruitless attempts to cobble together a working USB hub setup for the Raspberry Pi, I came to the conclusion – after trying all the USB/mains power adapters I had (from various phones and other accessories), that the power supply made a significant difference to the behaviour of the Pi.. With some adapters, I had to … Continue reading →
Thought I would try a couple more options, just in case.. First, I confirmed that the USB sound card works connected directly to one of the Pi USB ports (using a USB extension cable): usb 1-1.2: new full speed USB device number 13 using dwc_otg usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0d8c, idProduct=000c usb 1-1.2: New USB … Continue reading →