C3200 Tweak #1: FAT32 to Ext3

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

I don’t need the ZaurusDrive feature of the newer Zaurii for the internal harddrive. So, having ext3 on this drive instead of the regular FAT32 opens up some possibilities (read: Debian install :) ).
So, here is how to turn the biggest partition of the internal harddrive on a C3200 from vfat into ext3fs:

Edit /sbin/hddmount and /root/etc/rc.d/rc.rofilesys and change all occurences of

mount -t vfat -o noatime,quiet,umask=000,iocharset=utf8 /dev/${IDE1}3 /hdd3

into

mount -t $LINUXFMT -o noatime /dev/${IDE1}3 /hdd3

These instructions refer to Cacko ROM 1.23. They might be different for the original Sharp ROM.

Now, before reformatting /dev/hda3 with

mkext2fs -j -b 2048 /dev/hda3

Make sure to backup all content on this partition before doing so.

New Zaurus

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

So, I finally made the jump to the new C3x00 series. Bought myself a SL-C3200 at Pulster. And now I’m sitting here setting up everything and enjoying the new freedom (6 + 2 GB, that is). What a mean little machine! :)
The additional storage capacity is excellent compared to my C750, where the limited support of SD-Cards up to 1 GB has become a big drawback for me.
In normal use the machine itself is not necessarily faster than the C750. However, at everything multimedia it flies. DivX movies at 640×300 were slideshows previously, now they play back in smooth realtime – thanks to mplayer/bvdd/iwmmx. Also, battery-time is very much improved. I’ve actually tested MP3 playback the other day with the display turnt off and only XMMS and my Buffalo Ethernet card (very low-power) running. After round about 10 hours it was me that had to go to sleep. ;) So, no idea how long it would have had lasted, probably 3 hours (battery was at 30 % when I turnt the device off.).
Anyway, I’ll be posting some Zaurus-related stuff later. So keep an eye on that. :)

Ogg Vorbis Encoding Script for iTunes

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

Update: This has been renamed to iTunes Alternative Encoders. Get the new version here.

Lately I’ve been looking for a good way to re-encode my iTunes music files for use in my Zaurus. Since I don’t need to have 256 kbit/s MP3s or Apple Lossless files with those el cheapo headphones, the best way to go is with Vorbis and its excellent properties at 96 kbit/s. Compared with other formats, the quality is pretty nice.
There are already several attempts at creating iTunes scripts to re-encode to Ogg Vorbis or Lame. One of them is Lincoln Ramsay’s “Encode with oggenc” iTunes script. It’s pretty neat already. However, it didn’t fully satisfy my special requirements. ;)

Continue reading “Ogg Vorbis Encoding Script for iTunes” →

duplicity 0.4.2 on Cygwin

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

Ben Escoto has released version 0.4.2 of duplicity. My previous patch for version 0.4.1 already included most of the changes in 0.4.2.
For the sake of completeness, here is my updated patch bundle which adds Cygwin / Windows support and fixes some problems in the FTP backend:

http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/duplicity/duplicity-0.4.2.tar.gz

To install it you’ll need the same prerequisites as for rdiff-backup, most notably librsync. Please refer to these instructions on how to install it.
Additionally you should install the Utils/gnupg package in order to get the encryption working.
Here is how to compile and install duplicity:

Continue reading “duplicity 0.4.2 on Cygwin” →

Workaround for broken Windows Sharing on Intel OS X

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

So, it seems Apple broke Windows Filesharing / Samba with the 10.4.5 update on Intel-based systems. Windows clients are unable to connect to OS X shares, because the server refuses the password.
There are several threads describing the issue in detail:
http://www.123macmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4555
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=401714&tstart=0

Here is a temporary workaround for the problem:
You’ll have to change the authentification settings on your XP/2k box and here is how to do that:

Start -> Run “secpol.msc”
In the tree open and click Security Settings -> Local Policy -> Security Options
Scroll the left pane down to ‘Network Security: LAN manager authentication level’
Change this to ‘Send NTLMv2 response only’

It works for me. Please let me know, if it works for you too…

Update: Apple has released OS X update 10.4.6 which resolves this problem.

Mac Mini

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

So, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I got my Mac Mini Core Duo. All I can say is, I don’t regret having replaced my beloved Cube with this mean little machine @ 30 Watt. It’s definitely faster than the Cube and for most stuff it’s almost faster than my Windows development workbeast Athlon MP 2600 which runs at roughly 300 Watt. Quite impressive. The faster FSB, bigger cache and faster memory definitely play a big role here.
And yes, I tried Windows on my Mini. It’s nice and all, but there is still a lot left to finish for the guys over at onmac.net. Suspending doesn’t really work and shutting down the machine crashes it hard. I can only assume this being due to the incomplete BIOS implementation.
Anyway, I couldn’t resist benchmarking the machine against my Athlon, so here are the results from SiSoftware Sandra 2005 SR2:

Machine		Dual Athlon MP 2600+ 	Mac Mini Core Duo
Clock			2.13 GHz		1.66 GHz

Arithmetics 		17248			15147
(higher is better)	 6657			 6085

Multimedia		39921			31699
(higher is better)	42412			35177

Memory Bandwidth MB/s	 1449			 3588
(higher is better)	 1481			 3559

Power consumption	 295-302 Watts		 28-30 Watts

If you keep in mind, that I’m comparing an upgraded year 2001 workstation with a new system running a mobile CPU, those results are still quite impressive.
However, what I’m missing on the Mini is dual monitor support and a decent graphics card. Also there is one major point keeping me from getting rid of that power-sucking box under my desk: hard drive performance. I don’t think we’ll be seeing 15k rpm U320 drives in a Mac mini compatible form factor any time soon. ;)

Docks…

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

I am lazy – very lazy. ;)
That’s also why I can’t stand the default Windows ways of starting applications, ie. Start -> Programs or Quicklaunch bar. Either too many clicks or extreme cluttering.

Having said that, I’ve been a long time user of Y’z Dock, an abandoned implementation of an OS X-like Dock for Windows. Of all the Windows Dock’s out there it came closest in terms of imitating the original behaviour. I guess that’s also the reason why Apple pulled it via DMCA/C’n’D. ;)
Anyway, since Y’z Dock is no longer maintained and there are still some bugs in that software, I was looking for alternatives. Here is what I found: MobyDock, ObjectDock, RK Launcher and RocketDock. There is also AquaDock, but that’s just a repack of Y’z Dock.

RK Launcher has some potential to it, but also way too many bugs. I wasn’t able to access the website, so perhaps the program is pulled, too.

I’ve tried both MobyDock and ObjectDock several times in the past and didn’t like them at that time. This hasn’t changed and I won’t go into detail as to why. It’s really way too subjetive and I don’t want to start a flame war. ;)

So, finally, I’ve settled with RocketDock. It’s faaast and provides instant access to my program shortcuts even under heavy load. That’s what I missed in Y’z Dock. When Y’z Dock was autohidden, it also reduced the process working set size via a nice trick. This is a good thing in low memory conditions since this tells the virtual memory manager it can swap out most parts of the app. However, it can also impose serious delays in feedback. And instant feedback is what I was looking for.
RocketDock offers this, but at the price of higher memory utilization – ~10 MB in my case. I think this is still acceptable for the performance and my Subjective Productivity Boost TM, therefore.
So, now what was left to do was to migrate the dock items from Y’z Dock to RocketDock. Sadly, there is no way to import the itemlist.ini into RocketDock – at least I didn’t see it. ;)

So, being lazy and not wanting to recreate each and every icon manually on several boxes (repitition is harmful TM), I had to come up with a better solution.

And here it is: YzDock2RocketDock (binary and Delphi sourcecode included)

Simply extract the binary to a new folder and copy your itemlist.ini file from your Y’z Dock program directory into that same folder. Make sure to quit RocketDock and backup the registry key \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RocketDock-v0.9.4 before.
Now, running the binary should import the contents of itemlist.ini into the registry. It will not overwrite any existing items. Instead it does append the imported ones to the existing items.
Finally, make sure to copy all icons over to your RocketDock program directory. Put them into the subdirectory “Icons”. That’s it. Enjoy! :)

Duplicity

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

Update 1: I’ve posted updated instructions for version 0.4.2 of duplicity here.

As a follow up to my previous article on rdiff-backup, I’ve patched duplicity to work correctly on Cygwin.
To install it you’ll need the same prerequisites as for rdiff-backup. Additionally you should install the Utils/gnupg package in order to get the encryption working.
Here is how to compile and install duplicity:

Continue reading “Duplicity” →

OTA Wizards

Posted on by Andre Beckedorf

While working on our new Graphics32 Testing framework I was looking for some simple framework that would simplify developing experts for the Delphi/BDS IDE.
Mattias told me about the OTAWizard framework over at CodeCentral:
http://codecentral.borland.com/Item.aspx?id=17106

There is also a nice article on that topic:
http://community.borland.com/article/0,1410,28050,00.html

Problem with the provided version is that it doesn’t work with BDS 2005 and 2006 due to multiple personalities in these IDEs.
So, here is my update:
http://www.katastrophos.net/downloads/OTAWizardsD2k5+.zip