I want an OpenMoko

Waaah... I want an OpenMoko phone. My ancient iPAQ H5550 is too limited-- it can't even send SMS messages.

MacBook or OpenMoko... MacBook or OpenMoko... Choices, choices. I can't buy both. =(

How can I enable WPA on an Atmel AT76C503 USB 802.11b device?

I have set up an OpenEmbedded build environment on my Linux box, and it is now steadily humming as it cross-compiles Angstrom. I am trying my luck on WPA by building the whole thing myself. I'm willing to use unstable sources if I have too.

The day I wiped out Windows Mobile was the day I said hello to freedom. It was also the day I said goodbye to things that work out of the box. Yet this is fun, and it forces me to learn new things that will come in handy in the future.

Anyway, if you know how to enable WPA on an Atmel AT76C503 USB 802.11b device, can you please leave a note? I'm using an iPAQ H5550. I suspect that I need to modify the driver myself, but I don't know how. Help. =)

GPE is beautiful

w00t! GPE Screenshots:

Hello GPE

GPE looks more refined than Opie. I'm still having trouble setting up WiFi with WPA-PSK though. I'll post screenshots later.

Opie Screenshots

Here are some Opie screenshots before I wipe it out from my iPAQ. I'll be replacing it later with GPE.



Wtf. I think my SD card is worm-infected (i.e., the recycled directory is not supposed to be there).

Hidden Costs in License

Blah. Opie uses Qt, so I think it has some hidden costs when developing commercial applications on it. Bad platform for learning my first embedded apps. I might get stuck on it later on. I'll try Opie for a week or so, and replace it with GPE later on.

New Environment

Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (Opie) generally works OK, although it still has some rough edges. Crappy handwriting recognition system, lack of simple GUI to configure the system (although I'm happy that it has a console), and other stuff. This will not yet attract the average user in its current state, but this may improve in a year or so. I hope this gets sponsored by a commercial entity, similar to Ubuntu being sponsored by Canonical.

My ancient iPAQ is not GSM and GPRS-capable. I hope I can save enough money to buy OpenMoko. Bounty projects on that platform, anyone? =)

iPAQ touchscreen out of whack

The touchscreen is out of whack. Waaaah... How can I recalibrate this thing?

Hello Familiar Linux!

w00t! It works!

root@h3900:/# uname -a
Linux h3900 2.4.19-rmk6-pxa1-hh41.1 #1 Tue Aug 15 05:10:33 CEST 2006 armv5tel unknown

Familiar Linux

I foresee that embedded programming would play a large part in my future. Web application development will no longer pay as much as it used too, because scripting is too easy. I was already coding in PHP while I was still in highschool, when that language was not yet in vogue. Now that it is being offered in some schools, I need to learn something else. I need to start early so that I will be ready when the time comes.

I'm now installing Familiar Linux on my iPAQ in preparation for my experiments. It's now being reflashed as I type this blog. I'm crossing my fingers. I hope my iPAQ won't end up as a very expensive paperweight. =)

Logging in to Unactivated Windows XP

I was looking for a way to log in to an unactivated Windows XP so that I could back up some files and load a few applications before I completely erase it from my partition.

I found this tip very helpful: http://tomorrowtimes.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-login-to-expired-windows.html.

It works.

Display IPv6 routes in Ubuntu

Unlike FreeBSD, Ubuntu doesn't show the IPv6 routes when netstat -rn is invoked. To display the routes, just do ip -6 route show dev <interface> or route -A inet6.

KDE in Ubuntu

I've just installed KDE on my Ubuntu box. It's been a long time since I've last used KDE. I want to try it to see how things have improved over the years.

Installation via Synaptic was very simple. KDE is now running on my left box, and the UI looks impressive at first glance. One problem though: the menu is a mess. The programs are packed into big sub-menus, and it's very annoying to sift through the labels just to find what I need. The problem is aggravated by the fact that Gnome apps are mixed with KDE apps in the menu. Where the bleep is the KDE Control Center? How the frack will I change the screen resolution without directly modifying xorg.conf? I don't need all of these programs in the menu. I just need to change the screen resolution and customize my box via Control Center. Aaaaaaaargh... KDE has become bloated.

pfSense HTTPS fixed

OK, I found the problem. The fix is very simple:

$SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:443" {
    ssl.engine = "enable"
    ssl.pemfile = "/var/etc/cert.pem"
}

I'll commit this change soon.

fixing pfSense' HTTPS support

lighttpd seems to have an issue when enabling both IPv4 and IPv6. With plain HTTP, enabling them both is a simple matter of adding the following lines:

server.use-ipv6            = "enable"
$SERVER["socket"]          == "0.0.0.0:80" { }

With HTTPS, however, $SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:443" doesn't seem to work. Although sockstat reports that lighttpd is indeed listening to port 443, https://<ip_address> doesn't work. http://<ip_address>:443 work, but this is just plain HTTP served on port 443. Weird. the following is sockstat's output:

root     lighttpd   53320 4  tcp6   *:443           *:*
root     lighttpd   53320 5  tcp4   *:443           *:*

Hello DragonFly!

        ,--,           |           ,--,
        |   `-,       ,^,       ,-'   |
         `,    `-,   (/ \)   ,-`    ,-'
           `-,    `-,/   \,-`    ,-`
              `------(   )------'
          ,----------(   )-----------,
         |        _,-(   )-,_        |
          `-,__,-`   \   /   `-,__,-'
                      | |
                      | |
                      | |
                      | |
                      | |
                      | |
                      `|'

simoncpu@dragonsentinel:~> uname -a
DragonFly dragonsentinel.experiments.simoncpu.com 1.10.1-RELEASE DragonFly 1.10.1-RELEASE #0: Mon Aug 20 17:42:05 PDT 2007 root@:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386

I've successfully installed DragonFly on Soekris net4801. Installation was very simple.

Configuring the box is not much different from FreeBSD. The only problem that I've encountered is that DragonFly stops and asks me where /boot/loader is, if I specify -Dh at /boot.config. Weird. The boot menu doesn't even show up in the serial console. Everything works fine if I just specify -h.

xmms-wma on Ubuntu

To play Windows Media Audio (WMA) files on XMMS, just do the following steps:

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Install xmms-dev.
3. Download xmms-wmma plugin from <http://mcmcc.bat.ru/xmms-wma/>.
4. Extract the package.
5. In the current directory of your extracted files, do make install.

Rock on!

buffer overflow

Aaaaargh! I'm getting too many interrupt-level buffer overflows with FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT. I can't connect to the network. Yeah, yeah. I know that using the bleeding-edge development branch is tantamount to suicide. But what the heck.

Should I experiment on using DragonFlyBSD?

My Soekris net4801 box, which acts as my Ethernet switch by bridging all of its ports, is experiencing intermittent slowdown, especially under heavy load. This has occurred after replacing its OS from FreeBSD 6.2 to FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT, March snapshot. I think it's because it had some critical bugs last March (I was too lazy to download a September snapshot) and because WITNESS, INVARIANTS, and other debugging options have been enabled in the kernel. Instead of rebuilding the kernel, I'm thinking of using DragonFlyBSD instead. I want to experiment. I'll do this on Saturday so as not to interfere with my work.