kudos to Penguinbait!

i am a middle-aged, barely technical computer user. i was miserable with DOS......taught myself to be proficient with diff versions of windows over the years and most comfortable using GUIs.

never interested in apple and always wanted to get away from windows but linux seemed daunting and i figured that n800 was the place to get my feet wet. i have played around with my n800 for a coupla weeks runnin maemo apps etc. and used up the native 256MB memory pretty quick.....decided to dive in.

i am now running OS08 43.7 clone on partitioned 8GB internal card. 3.5GB for the clone and using 500MB for the swap partition.......remaining partitioned 4GB for holding data? i also have a 16GB card in the external slot to hold backups as well as media and game files.

how did i do it? i followed the directions from the first page and other penguinbait postings.

i backed up my original install and settings. did a fresh flash of OS08. i downloaded ROXTURN...i kept reading about using XTURN to "check" things or probs....couldnt find xturn so got roxturn.

downloaded "console tools" and installed it. used roxturn to run "pb" first and then "pbeasy"......for ME...i found parts of both worked better to do all the steps to get me partitioned and cloned and bootmenued

being VERY used to windows GUIs and progress bars...it took me awhile to get used to blindly waiting. maybe i was hung up or just impatient but i went through the install process and rebooting a coupla times. each time i got more used to the PB and PBEASY interface i got it all partitioned and formated in 2 tries and my 3rd reboot got me a "boot menu with a choice of, internal flash ....internal mmc card p2 ext3......and power off (when not on charger)

i go to choice two...and presto....i go to my clone on my internal card where i then did a restore backup. now i have all the functions i had last week but with a ton more memory and am hoping that this will all make my n800 experience richer.

i HIGHLY recommend this UPGRADE to any other newbie who has a little interest and a good sized SDHC card (8GB-$19 at STAPLES)

i only have two wishes.

(1.) now that i have done this and have an x terminal emulator....is there someplace i can go to LEARN about how to do more things...like a Linux for Dummies? and i would REALLY like to fig out how to make what is now zoom level 120% my default level because of my older eyes? i would prefer to zoom out if things got too crowded in an app instead of having to zoom in on all of them.

(2.) i saw a link to make a donation to penguinbait on one of these many pages but my tired eyes wont let me find it again. if someone could please point me in the right direction please?


thanks - chrisvnh

ps - since i reflashed and cloned...everytime i boot up....i get a weird audio bite of a guy speaking with an accent(i think).....i think he says something like "Hello...........(and i think maybe something about Phoenix?)" only like 8 words long. can anyone tell me what this is? and where i can find it? and how the heck do i disable it?

just so you know, I do enjoy your program. As far as i am concern, my device runs good cloned. The swap issue is not a big deal really. Lots of appreciation here.

LOL, funny. That's Linus Torval saying how he pronounce linux. Sorry if my spelling is bad.

Yes running on n800

able to get menu under ssh now but with the same integer error under ssh.

Thanks for your help.

FRZ - you wrote " LOL, funny. That's Linus Torval saying how he pronounce linux. Sorry if my spelling is bad. "

wow! thanks for that...really...i went and googled him to learn more about him.

i said "wow"....because i am always amazed at where and when i can learn something new.

based on learning more about Mr. Linus Torvalds, i believe that i WILL keep his message playing at boot as an homage to this creator.

however.....can someone tell me if this is (a.) something native to the n800? (b.)something that is built into the software that let me clone my OS to MMC? (c.) something that must have come aboard from another program?

even though i plan on keeping THIS message,can someone please tell me how to find other, future .wav or midi. files?

i went looking for it by using "file manager" and couldnt find ANY of the sounds attached to any program and would like to know it i have options for disabling sounds i dont like.

TIA - chrisvnh

The Linus Torvalds message is to let you know that fsck is done running. Also, this should only be running IF you boot to the flash partition. If you are booted to SD it should not be there as you cannot fsck filesystems that are mounted.

If this is running from SD and playing this something is not right. If it is on FLASH then you can disable it by running
pb > bootmenu > FSCK-OFF

Note this is only needed for ext2 partitions, if you are running ext3 you do not need this. If you are running ext2 then you should boot to flash after ANY crash and when Linus speaks, you know you are good to reboot back to SD partitions. Additionally you can see the output of the fsck by running "cat /tmp/fsck.txt"

Its not setup, run pb

pb > Swap > Select the partition you want to enable swap for > It should then ask you to choose a swap partition from available swap partitions. > It will then show the contents of /etc/fstab, click OK and it should say swap assignment successful.

Then if you reboot you should have swap mounted on boot.

You can verify this by running "free" from xterm

You should see some numbers where in the line that says Swap:

Linus Torvalds clip should only be on flash boot?

after reading what you wrote......i re-booted to flash....did not hear clip for FSCK

booted clone from mmc ext3 on my 8GB internal card and heard the clip to signal end of FSCK

rebooted to flash....ran PB...it did the scan....i went to boot menu....and enabled FSCK

rebooted to flash....heard the clip to know fsck is running on flash boot.

re-booted to clone noticed i did NOT hear the FSCK clip but a few weird things happened....like stylus not making everything work....blank menu screens etc.


opened roxterm....ran PB......it did the scan "oddly" finally got the menu.....and when i selected boot menu so i could DISABLE fsck there..............i got an error that it couldnt access it.

then all menus and functions acted weird.

shut down...booted to flash....then went back into PB....turned off FSCK

everything in flash OS seemed to operate normally....so i shut down...booted to clone and verything seems to be back running "NORMALLY" including hearing Linus pronounce Linux.

should i leave well enough alone? please advise.

- chrisvnh

Here's the link for making a donation to penguinbait:
http://tablethacker.com/wp/?page_id=70&lang=en-us

chrisvnh, you may like Linus's autobiography/history-of-Linux. It's called Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. It's definitely written for the layperson, and it's an easy, fun read.