The XO Computer for Navigation

[phiggins]

No problem. What else have I got to do this long winter. It was worth at a try.

[phiggins]

A few things I've discovered lately:

1. Capn Voyager:
I just discovered that another navigation program, Capn Voyager, installs under Wine (running Linux Ubuntu) on the XO without any problems. I haven't tried connecting a GPS yet but as far as loading and viewing charts it works fine. The version I have is 6.1.0 and it doesn't have AIS support. All I did was put the Setup.Exe, Copy_SoftChart.exe and CAPN.ICO on a USB stick and issued:
wine /media/disk/Download/Setup.Exe
You can then copy your charts into: ~/.wine/drive_c/Maps


2. Making a backup copy of your SD card that has Ubuntu on it:
I found that all 8GB SD cards are NOT the same size and in order to copy from your existing SD to a backup one, the backup has to be the same size or larger. That may seem obvious but since my SD card was only half full I thought it might be able to copy to a smaller one. So if you may want to order two SD cards of the same kind/size if you are just installing Ubuntu. The command is:
dd if=/dev/xxxxxx of=/dev/yyyyy conv=NOERROR,NOTRUNC
The xxxxx is the original you are copying from and the yyyyy is the one you are copying to. A df command will show you what they should be probably something like mmcblk0p1 and sda1.
You can do this under Sugar and make sure you put the lock on the xxxxx SD card so you don't accidently reverse them and destroy the original.

[phiggins]

I upgraded both my XOs to the new Build 767 then I upgraded Ubuntu from the Gutsy 7.10 version to Intrepid 8.10 see:

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) for XO - OLPC News Forum

This above install is especially for the XO. It now has much simpler interface.

While reinstalling all my applications (Wine, SeaClear, etc) I discovered that Capn Voyager no longer worked. Found it was missing a couple of DLLs that I guess I had installed in Wine on the old Gutsy version. You need to copy over from your PCs Windows/system32: msvbvm60.dll and ddeml.dll to the ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32

I got one of those new 1 Terabyte external hard drives and found it didn't work on either version of Ubuntu until installed the ntfs-3g interface:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

[larrys]

I use my XO (updated to 8.2.0) on my 26 ft. sailboat and came across this excellent thread, so I thought I'd give XO navigation a shot. Early on, there were very helpful instructions for installing Wine and SeaClear, using Sugar, but with the admonition not to do so as a super user. But when I began with: yum install wine , I got the message: "you need to be root to perform this command". I continued the process, but as root (su -) where necessary. Thanks to Phiggins et al, I now have SeaClear operating well with charts, gps and sounds. However, I must start Seaclear as root. (Note, I can start Seaclear under my uid, olpc, but sounds don't work and the cursor freezes.) Can someone tell me why running as root is a problem? Also, how can I uninstall and repeat the installation process under my uid, olpc?

Thanks, LarryS

[phiggins]

Larrys,

You have to do the yum command under su but you should not run wine under su. After installing you probably were still in su when you issued the first wine command (or winegfg) this created the .wine directory under the root directory. You should have issued an exit command to run under your userid (olpc) before you issued the first wine command.


To get out of this you will have to remove the .wine directory under the root directory by issuing:

su
rm -rvf ~/.wine
Go back to your normal userid:
exit

Unfortunately you will have to setup everything again:
winecfg (set operating system to XP

Then reinsatll SeaClear again under your normal userid olpc NOT su

Paul

[phiggins]

Just figured out thanks to a posting on the OlpcNews how to run the XO (running Ubuntu) in tablet mode without a keyboard or mouse.

Instead you use the arrow keys on the left side of the screen and the game keys on the left for clicking and use an on-screen keyboard.

If anyone is interested I'll post how to do it.

===================================
Also, about the Capn Voyager I have been unable to get a GPS working with it. The error I'm getting is well documented on the Wine Forums but unable to find a fix. It would have been nice to have it work because there are a lot of Maptech charts out there for areas that don't have BSB charts.

[Maren]

Originally Posted by phiggins

If anyone is interested I'll post how to do it.

Yes, please do.

[phiggins]

What a surprise! Someone is still reading this thread.

OK here are the instructions:
1. Download the attached files and copy them to USB stick or SD card.
Note: the Mousekeys.pdf is just a .txt file but it execceded the size
for txt file attachmnents so I renamed it.
In the following text I will refer to this stick as "usbname",
substitute the name of your USB stick or SD card.
Move your USB card to the XO and mount it.
Open a terminal session.

2. Install the virtual on-screen keyboard:
sudo apt-get install xvkbd
If necessary see documentation at : 1x:xvkbd - Linux Man PagesManual Documentation for Linux / Solaris / UNIX / BSD

3. To control the mousekeys functionality install the xkbset utility:
sudo apt-get install xkbset

4. Backup and replace the mousekeys file with the new one:
cd /usr/share/X11/xkb/compat
sudo cp mousekeys mousekeys.backup
sudo cp /media/usbname/mousekeys.pdf mousekeys

When the mouse keys are enabled (tablet-mode) this change makes the square button
on the right of the screen the left mouse button,
the check button the right mouse button,
and the circle the 3rd mouse button.
Also it makes "X" button the equivalent of pressing Control + Alt.

5. Copy in togglemousekeys script:
cd /usr/bin
sudo cp /media/usbname/togglemousekeys.txt togglemousekeys.sh
That script checks whether mousekeys are enabled or not, and switches to the other state.
It also toggles repeat keys since you need to disable them for mousekeys to work properly ,
but reenable them for keyboard things like holding down the down arrow to scroll through a file.

6. Copy in togglevkbd script:
cd /usr/bin (you should still be there)
sudo cp /media/usbname/togglevkbd.txt togglevkbd.sh

This script checks whether the on-screen keyboard is running.
If so, it kills it. If not, it runs it as a small keyboard in the bottom right corner.

7. Make sure sure the new scripts are executable:
sudo chmod 755 toggle*

8. Backup and copy in new key bindings file:
cd ~
cp .xbindkeysrc .xbindkeysrc.backup
cp /media/usbname/.xbindkeysrc.txt .xbindkeysrc

The new file binds the rotate screen button (its on the bottom left of the screen)
to toggle the mousekeys on and off,
and it toggles the "X" + Square key (Control+Alt+Mouse1) to toggle the on screen keyboard.
To rotate the screen now in non-tablet mode, you must press Ctrl + Alt + rotate key.
To rotate the screen in tablet mode, press the "X" + the rotate key.

9. Restart

After restarting to get into tablet mode press the rotate screen button (on left bottom of screen).

Once in tablet mode:
- The arrow keys on the left of the screen control the movement of the mouse cursor.
- The square key on the right of the screen acts like the left mouse button to click things.
- The Check button is the right click button.
- The "O" button is the 3rd mouse button.
- The 'X" button acts the same as pressing Ctrl + Alt. Pressing it and the square button toggles
the on-screen keyboard off and on.
To get out of tablet mode press the rotate button.

Note: for some reason if you don't use the screen keys for a few minutes, it will drop out of tablet mode.

To get back into tablet mode again, just press the rotate button.

To rotate the screen you know must now press Ctrl + Alt + the rotate button. In tablet mode press the "X" key
plus the rotate button.

================================================== ======
Enjoy. Let me know if there are any problems

[phiggins]

Evidently you have to be on Ubuntu Intrepid for thay procedure in my previous post to work. I tried it on Gutsy and it doesn't work. Not sure about Hardy.

[andrejsv]

I thought that the XO computer either came with an option to run windows, or that the XO-2 (newer model) would come out with a Windows XP version by default. I also read that they were abandoning the AMD chip for an ARM chip in order to have more computer power to run windows...

[larrys]

Paul,
Thanks for the response. I removed wine in su and reinstalled seaclear in userid olpc. However, seaclear now freezes when finding a position on a new chart. Didn't have this problem when running seaclear in su.
I thought the problem might be related to xo memory, ~190 mb remaining, so I did a clean install to build767 and loaded only necessary activities. Now there's ~750 mb remaining, less whatever I'll need to reinstall skype and seaclear.
Problem is I seem to have lost YUM: urlopen error timed out, etc.
Is there a way recover YUM or install wine and slocate into sugar, without using YUM?

Thanks, LarryS

suppose the hokey pokey is what it's all about

[phiggins]

Re: your original problem, this freezing problem rings a bell now. I think someone else had the problem. I looked back through all this thread and couldn't find it. It may have been in the SeaClear thread. What I recall he had this problem because he had deleted some of the charts of North America and the World. Once you get it going again you may want to be sure you have those charts if it freezes.

Regarding the Yum problem. I am also at build 767 and just tried to install wine and got the same error. Its possible the olpc server is down right now.

[phiggins]

larrys,

It might be already installed. Mine was and I don't remember installing it. Try entering winecfg to see if its there. Maybe it came with this build. If not ....

I pretty sure the olpc server is down but if you can't wait you can rename its repro and try getting it from Fedora by doing this:

cd /etc/yum.repos.d

sudo mv olpc-devleopment.repo olpc-development.repo.old

sudo yum upgrade (ignore the errors)

sudo yum install wine

then rename the olpc repo back:

sudo mv olpc-devleopment.repo.old olpc-development.repo

sudo yum upgrade

--------------
PS I uninstalled wine and reinstalled by doing the above.

[larrys]

Paul,
Thanks again, your instructions allowed me to install wine. Seaclear is now running pretty well in my userid, olpc. On some charts, mainly small scale, the cursor sometimes freezes. Could this have to do with the error message at seaclear start?
fixme:comm:set queue size insize 4096 outsize 8192 unimplemented stub
If so, is there a way I can fix it?

[Maren]

Originally Posted by phiggins

What a surprise! Someone is still reading this thread.

Oh yes. And still referring others to the idea. Trying to get MicroShip converted to the idea. The Jedi mind trick doesn't seem to be working though.

Thanks for the directions.