Release SuperZaxxon Final released!


Might we see an update of xfce at some point? 4.10 has been out for some time now. SuperZaxxon seems to take quite a long time to boot compared to the last hotfix. Does the codec pack work with SuperZaxxon btw?
 
I just set the CPU to 125MHz and it started to happen, so it's the case. It also happens for the configbutton, but not for anything else on the taskbar.
Why would you set it to 125MHz? It does not save any power.

To simulate the test case (of a CPU-intensive app slowing down operations) :)
 
I still can't get any applications to launch using the hotkey functionality in XFCE. In the last available beta, this worked.


I saved my /home and after the flash to the release I symlinked it back from my card.. so I know the settings are unchanged between the beta and the release.


Everything else is working correctly (other applications, file permissions, etc).


Can I get a confirmation from another if this is an actual bug or just me / XFCE?

i did not symlink my home settings, i just untarred my home backup and all my shortchuts are working fine

That's really curious since things were working and after my doing things via symlink, but not after the update. Thanks for the tip, I'll investigate along those lines.

wifi connection is still flakey at times

I'm not sure, but I thought there was a weakness in the hardware which made wifi poor.
 
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I still can't get any applications to launch using the hotkey functionality in XFCE. In the last available beta, this worked.


I saved my /home and after the flash to the release I symlinked it back from my card.. so I know the settings are unchanged between the beta and the release.


Everything else is working correctly (other applications, file permissions, etc).


Can I get a confirmation from another if this is an actual bug or just me / XFCE?

i did not symlink my home settings, i just untarred my home backup and all my shortchuts are working fine

That's really curious since things were working and after my doing things via symlink, but not after the update. Thanks for the tip, I'll investigate along those lines.

wifi connection is still flakey at times

I'm not sure, but I thought there was a weakness in the hardware which made wifi poor.
i was referring to initial connection to an access point (when the login wifi message box reappears repeatedly), on hotfix 6 no such issues. i think the hardware wifi issues relate to connection speed and disconnections when downloading large files?
 
For OS in SD card users. I have taken the uImage-3 from nand in /boot folder and copied it to ROOT /boot (i have to create this folder). Then i made a symlink uImage in that same folder pointing to uImage-3. Finally this are the boot and autoboot files i use in BOOT.

Thank you,


the workaround works flawlessly.


Kernel 3.2 now booting from SD.


Is there a way to have a choice between both kernels ON SD?


Thanks!


Daniel
 
Okay, I'll do more testings with the battery charging with brand new units.


As the charging chip learns with usage, it might be that the old setup (which wasn't 100% correct) fed the chip with bad values.


Maybe that's why the reports for the percentage of the battery is not correct.


These should automatically fix themselves after a few charging cycles, but I'll check with new units where no bad values have been learned yet.
 
have you tried taking battery out for a few mins? this normally seems to reset the percentage charge meter properly. also worth having conky installed whereby you can monitor the voltage, so then you can see if percentage matches the voltage.

Thanks for this tip, I took the battery out for a few mintues not long after you posted, and when I put it back in the meter showed 94%.


Interesting. Maybe,as ED has noted, after a few charge cycles it might read correctly.


Also I have been meaning to install Conky for a while now. Definitely going to do that ASAP now.

Might we see an update of xfce at some point? 4.10 has been out for some time now. SuperZaxxon seems to take quite a long time to boot compared to the last hotfix. Does the codec pack work with SuperZaxxon btw?

The codec pack works under the SuperZaxxon, it was the first thing I tried.


And I have noticed that sometimes my Panda take a while to boot now too.
 
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udev slows down the boot process a lot.


It takes about 5 seconds before it continues to boot... same on my laptops.


I always wondered what udev is doing all the time...
 
udev slows down the boot process a lot.


It takes about 5 seconds before it continues to boot... same on my laptops.


I always wondered what udev is doing all the time...
It's scanning every possible kernel module, then tries to modprobe various things. 3.2 has way more drivers so this process takes several times longer than on 2.6.
 
Thanks, now I finally know what udev does :)


I guess that's the reason why a normal desktop system boots way faster if you compile your own kernel only selecting modules you really need on your system :)
 
Hi,


is there any reason, why you reconfigured uBoot to boot fro mthe root partition instead of booting from the boot partition of the SD card?


What about simply replacing the 2.6.x kernel image with the 3.2 kernel image on BOOT and keeping the default boot.txt and autoboot.txt as they were generated by the SD installer? Shouldn't this work, too?


If so, I think I would prefer that solution, due to the fact (which I learned just a few days ago), that if the root fs is flagged inconsistent and needs a check, the kernel on it cannot be booted, and the fs cannot be checked.


Thanks,


Daniel

For OS in SD card users. I have taken the uImage-3 from nand in /boot folder and copied it to ROOT /boot (i have to create this folder). Then i made a symlink uImage in that same folder pointing to uImage-3. Finally this are the boot and autoboot files i use in BOOT.

Thank you,


the workaround works flawlessly.


Kernel 3.2 now booting from SD.


Is there a way to have a choice between both kernels ON SD?


Thanks!


Daniel
Is there a way to have a choice between both kernels ON SD?
Put both in /boot, and modify autoboot.txt to boot the kernel of the day.

hm, no way of letting uBoot offer the choice at boot time?
 
Kernel 3.2 was on the root-partition until the final release of SuperZaxxon.


The reason for that was that the boot-partition wasn't too big and we wanted to keep some space left there.


However, the reason for the NAND-Crashes were exactly what you mentioned above as well:


When the kernel was on an inconsistent file system, it couldn't boot anymore.


That's the reason that both Kernel 3.2 and Kernel 2.6 are now on the Boot-Partition of the NAND.


You can easily put the kernel onto your SD Card as well.


boot.txt and autoboot.txt are being read from the SD Card, so if you tell these files to boot the kernel from your card, then they will do that.


autoboot.txt is being autorun when the SD-Card is in whereas boot.txt is only being run if you select "Boot from SD:1" in the boot menu.


So you basically have the choice at boot-time and you can easily put your kernel on your SD-Card.
 
EDIT: Ninja'd by ED


For those still curious about 'fixing' an SD Installer created card, without having first installed Super Zaxxon firmware on Nand, is the uImage-3 kernel on http://openpandora.o...irmware/images/ ?


I resorted to extracting the rootfs.tar.bz2 image on PC so I could take it from there.
 
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Kernel 3.2 was on the root-partition until the final release of SuperZaxxon.


The reason for that was that the boot-partition wasn't too big and we wanted to keep some space left there.


However, the reason for the NAND-Crashes were exactly what you mentioned above as well:


When the kernel was on an inconsistent file system, it couldn't boot anymore.


That's the reason that both Kernel 3.2 and Kernel 2.6 are now on the Boot-Partition of the NAND.


You can easily put the kernel onto your SD Card as well.


boot.txt and autoboot.txt are being read from the SD Card, so if you tell these files to boot the kernel from your card, then they will do that.


autoboot.txt is being autorun when the SD-Card is in whereas boot.txt is only being run if you select "Boot from SD:1" in the boot menu.


So you basically have the choice at boot-time and you can easily put your kernel on your SD-Card.



The kernel was on SD card already, but it was in the root, not in the boot bartition, as per Gausen's workaround.


But I will now move it to the boot partiton again. It's better I guess ;-)


Oh, and the choice at boot time is "indirectly" possible then, by putting a reference to kernel 3.2 into autoboot.txt and a reference to the old kernel into boot.txt, so if I let it boot automatically, it boots 3.2 and if I boot from SD manually (R button), it boots 2.6. RIght? Well, not very elegant, but sounds doable.

EDIT: Ninja'd by ED

What does this mean? :) I wanted to reply to this one, too, now it's gone.


Daniel
 
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okay, found Asmo's post it in the browser cache ;-)

For those (like me) totally green on these matters, what should be added to the two .txt files read to allow switching kernels?


I don't have SuperZaxxon on Nand to refer to, when I fixed my SD installer created card I just took the two text files from Gausen's workaround, and changed 'uImage' to 'uImage-3'. Then I extracted the rootfs image on PC, and took the uImage-3 kernel from that, placing it in a newly created 'boot' folder in the ROOT partition of the card (some use of terminal, obv!). I'd like the dual option so I don't have to swap cards to see all my Mame stuff ;)



Some time ago I wrote about multiple partition boot setup from SD in the Pandora Wiki:


http://www.pandorawi...rds_for_booting


This explains some of the things in boot.txt and autoboot.txt.


HTH


Daniel
 
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Regarding the charging issue, I can report the following:


When my Pandora's battery meter was < 10% for the first time after SuperZaxxon final was installed, I connected the Pandora to mains power. Charging suddenly stopped at 24%. I unplugged the cable, but having read about the previous reports here, I assumed (yuck!) that this problem could be solved by re-plugging the power cable, and so I left the Pandora turned on for some time before shutting it down.


That was yesterday. Today I wanted to charge the Pandora, and so I plugged it in (without turning it on beforehand). It didn't power on when plugged into mains power (by the way, it's one of the Pandoras that don't work without a battery). After about 15 seconds I removed the power cable and booted the Pandora up. The battery meter showed 6% left, and after reconnecting the Pandora to power, it still didn't charge. Then I shut it down again.


Not knowing a lot about hardware, and in particular not about the low-level bootup-when-power-connected process of the Pandora (what parts are responsible for what there?), I figured it would be best to write here (feel free to move this post to a separate thread if you think that's better). What would be the best thing to do now? The Pandora can hand control over to code outside of the NAND when the Start button is held on bootup, but would loading Zaxxon (non-Super) from there help? Obviously, if only 6% of power are left in the battery and charging really doesn't work, then there's not much room for trial-and-error.


PS: I remember that at one time there used to be a shortage in the supply of chargers, and then for a limited time chargers from a different manufacturer were bundled with newly shipped Pandoras. I think I got one of those (my charger does *not* look like this charger, my Pandora was shipped to me on 2011-05-10 (date of shipment)). I don't own a PSP charger that I could try out.
 
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