Ubuntu 8.04 on Oqo O2

Hmm,

I was pretty sure I wrote something on Ubuntu 8.04 on the Oqo, but I can't find it right now.

Short story: Use the alternate cd to install - everything is smooth. Or you can of course upgrade from and older version of Ubuntu.

Sad things: Wireless network doesn't work (but bluetooth do). And the wacom pen-input is still a joke, with unbearable amount of vectoring. And I can't get sound to work either. And you will still need a special modeline for Xorg (the same as in older versions of Ubuntu, the modeline is available here on the blog somewhere).

Bottom-line - the Oqo O2 with Ubuntu 8.04 is just a brick. Sorry to say so, but look elsewhere for a great, small, linux device. Of course I should have been positive, raving about all the things that do work. But for me wifi is crucial on such a small device, and so is sound. And the pen is the main reason I bought it in the first place.

Take care!

Two weeks with Ubuntufied Oqo O2

I have now spent about 2 weeks with Oqo O2, and most of that time with Ubuntu installed, so I guess it is time for a status update. I'll focus on the Linux issues with the device as other people are raving about how great the Oqo is - like folks over on gottabemobile.com and other places. I agree with all the positive comments, and like to emphasize that it's truly a portable computer - I carry it with me to places I didn't brought my other computers in the past. Which was the main point of buying it.

As I wrote in the previous post on the topic, Ubuntu works on the Oqo O2, and it works great too. As I have mentioned in a previous post, it take some effort to get there, though, but it is worth it. There are also a few things that still does not work, which I will mention further down in the post. But let's start with the stuff that works.

• Wireless network. Oqo O2 have an Atheros chipset for Wifi of the abg-kind. Ubuntu detects and set this up out of the box, using the ath_pci kernel driver. Remark that the restricted-modules kernel add-on must be installed, as the closed source firmware for the radio is in that package. Usually, reception seems to be on the bad side when looking at the bar-chart in the panel that indicates signal strength. But in practice I don't have any problem with the network connection. My guess is that power is turned down a bit to save the battery. But that is just a guess, and I don't know if it is possible to crank up the power in some way. And as I said, it has not been a problem so far.
• Bluetooth works without any problem. It is some kind of chip set attached to the usb bus, it shows up in the output of lsusb -v. The bluetooth support on Linux is still not perfect, like when I wanted to attach the iGo stowaway keyboard, I needed to edit some config files (according to howtos found online) - there is room for improvement. Now, I like to edit those files so it is not a problem for me personally. But it is a problem when it comes to acceptance of Linux among Joe average user.
  
• Keyboard. The Oqo O2 have quite a lot of special keys, which you get by using the Fn function key in combination with other keys. This includes screen brightness and volume adjustments and back lit keyboard. Most of these keys do work Linux. Some keys that don't work are screen rotation and zoom in/out buttons. I don't care much about those things anyway, but being able to remap the keys to something else would have been nice. So far, I haven't figured that out.
  
• Power management. CPU frequency scaling works great in Linux, and so does the speed scaling for the fan. These mean that most of the time I can run on 25% CPU speed and have the fan running on a low speed causing very little noise. And when I need more juice, the system responds quite fast.
• As far as I can tell, the Oqo O2 don't have a speaker. If it is there, I can't turn it on at least. But headphones can be plugged in to hear sound. I installed the audio driver for linux from www.viaarena.com (but not sure it is needed, as it took me a while to realize that I had to plug in headphones). I have not tested stereo bluetooth sound yet, as I don't own such headset yet. But I plan to aquire one such that I can test this - I think this will be a great plus in combination with thje Oqo.
• For graphics, I have tested a few different drivers. I have tested the drivers from viaarena, the OpenChrome driver from openchrome.org, as well as the via-driver in both Ubuntu feisty and Ubuntu gutsy (still in alfa stage). I have so far ended up with the generic vesa driver. There is a description on the ubuntu site on how to install the experimental OpenChrome driver from source. Bottom line is that there are issues with all of them unfortunately. I have to go deeper into this in order to do a proper review - hopefully I can do a separate post on this topic in the near future. What I can say so far is that the vesa driver does not have any dual-head capabilities, the driver from viaarena has (the package even include an application that can be used to enable/disable different outputs like vga, hdmi/tv-out, and enable or disable Xinerama - this works ok). But the computer occasionally went into deep freeze when using the viaarena driver, and it was hard getting back from suspend. The OpenChrome things I tested up to now seems to be the worst of both worlds.
• When it come to suspend/resume, I said in my first post that it works. I have to moderate that statement, unfortunately. Using the regular suspend on the log-off menu in Ubuntu, I can suspend and resume once. If I try to do it twice, the keyboard turn unresponsive, the fan goes to full speed, and the display stays on. Only solution is to press the power button for a while (10 seconds) in order to trigger a hard shutoff. From time to time, I also have to unload and reload the kernel modules for the wireless card to enable wifi after resume. A couple of times the computer also have went into freeze shortly after the first resume. So suspend/resume is really unusable in real life. Which is very very bad as this is very important for my intended use of the Oqo O2. I have had limited success with the s2disk from the uswsusp package (software suspend), which is a kind of hibernation. This only seems to be usable one time. The s2ram application for suspend to ram from the same package does not work on this computer. The hibernation option from the regular log-off menu in Ubuntu does not work either. So, there are a lot of room for improvement here.
• Wacom digitizer does not work. I can not find the device for it and doesn't know whether it is usb based or serial. I have posted a question to support at oqo to see if I can get more information on this. On the other hand, I can live without the pen although I use it a lot on my Fujitsu P1520 (which have the plain touch screen). I get back to this if I make it work or get some information.
  

If we ignore the bad things for a while, the Oqo in Linux is usable as a small, carry around computer. I even booted it and did some work on a turbogears/mysql application in the waiting room at my doctor the other day, using 3G from my Nokia e61i over bluetooth as network connection. But the vesa driver for graphics mean that graphics probably take more power than it should (more work done in the main CPU), and refresh is sluggish when switching between virtual desktops which really is a must on such a small screen. And the suspend/resume issue is more or less a show stopper. Since it takes more than a minute to boot the thing, the opportunity to quickly catch up on email may have passed before I get online. So I have to solve this somehow.

Hope you got some answers to your questions. If not, please use the comments, and I will try to answer (and test if necessary). If you have suggestions for some of the issues, please feel free to post those to - I'm happy to test things out!

Take care!

Oqo-folks, I am impressed!

I have been using portable computers on a daily basis for about 10 years now. Yet, I have never before had a notebook that I was able to use comfortably outdoor in sunshine. I knew already that the screen on the Oqo O2 is bright, but doesn't realize before now how good it is outdoor!

Right now I am sitting on my veranda, and pulled out the oqo to see if I was able to connect my Canon 350D and get some photos off it. For a change, it is also nice summer-weather today, with bright sunlight. And I can use the Oqo O2 just fine. I can even keep the screen brightness on about 50%. This was totally unexpected. I expected it to be possible with some effort, turning with the sun and try to fine some shading, and so on. But I can just use it . Great!

Just had to tell you! Take care!

Ubuntu linux on Oqo O2

In short terms: it works! It even works well.

But if you want to test the same thing your self, you should know that there are a little more to the story. There were some issues during installation, and there are some during use. The main things during installation was:

1. Small screen makes installation harder
2. Necessary modifications to boot the machine right
3. Modifications for X.

While some of these points are rather important, I think it is a quite short list, shorter than I expected when I started on this task. Let's describe each issue in some more detail.

1. Small screen makes installation a bit harder. The reason is that the standard Ubuntu installer (at least for Feisty fawn, or 7.04 if you like) is optimized for larger screens. I'm not sure it is possible to use that installer on the small Oqo screen at all, and if it is it is at least not easy. Tick the checkbox for 'alternate cd' when you download the Ubuntu iso-image from www.ubuntu.com, as that gives you a text-based install instead. And don't be afraid, it is rather slick to be a text-based installer!

Boot from the alternate cd, choose to install the system. For partitioning, I just use the 'Entire disk' option as I like to wipe out the Windows, but you may have other preferences. The whole install takes about an hour and gives you most of what you need.

2. After installation is finished, you may not be able to boot into the new Ubuntu system. I couldn't at least. The reason is that the hardrive, or actually the ide controller, is not detected correctly by the kernel. What I recommend is to just leave the alternate install cd in the drive and reboot. Then you will choose the Rescue mode option, choose your root filesystem according to how you partitioned, and finally execute a shell in that root. Now you need to edit the file /etc/initramfs-tools/modules and add a line with 'ide-generic'. This will trigger that the module 'ide-generic' is loaded when grub boots the system, and your drive will be detected. After you close that file, you will need to run 'update-initramfs -u' to update the initrd file.

3. While you're in the shell in the root filesystem, you should also open the configuration file for the X server, /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and add some necessary information for the screen. The lines you need to have in the "Monitor" section are:

HorizSync 30-92
VertRefresh 50-85
Modeline "800x480" 40 800 864 928 1088 480 481 484 509 +HSync

Also, add the mode "800x480" in the Modes line for the "Display" settings inside the "Screen" section.

These are all the changes you need. Exit from the shell, and reboot - remember to remove the install cd from the drive. You should now boot into the Ubuntu system and are ready to go.

As mentioned by others who have tried similar things, the mouse pointer will behave funny in the beginning. Most people belive it has something to do with the data from the touch scrollers. After a short while the mouse pointer settles down and you can use the system. The other thing that does not work out of the box is the wacom pen - so far I have not figured out how to configure that (If someone knows I like to hear!).

Things that do work out of the box: Bluetooth (I am writing this on the ThinkOutside iGo Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard), wireless network (I am connected to the wireless network in my house right now!), wired network on the docking station. Also, suspend/resume works - which makes the mouse problem after boot less important as you really shouldn't need to boot that often. Hibernate does not work out of the box, though, so I still have some research to do there. Maybe I just need to prepare a device or something, I really haven't used hibernation much in the past but see that it may be important on the Oqo.

Now, I will use the device for a while and write up things about my experience with it later on. I guess interesting things will be how I move data on and off the device to have what I need when on the road, battery life, applications, and so on.

Take care!

Oqo, where are you...

As I am in Santa Clara, California now, I thought about picking up an Oqo O2 while I am here. Being in the technological center of the world, I supposed that should be possible. Also, since Oqo is San Francisco based, it should be even more possible.

According to the Oqo website, MicroCenter is a retailer for the Oqo, and there happen to be a shop just a couple of blocks away from the hotel I am staying in. So I went to the shop and asked for the Oqo. Unfortunately, they were out. Not even out as in no exemplar for sale, but they even didn't have one on display. The salesperson told me that the Oqo is so popular that they got a list of people waiting for one, and as soon as they get shipments, they call people on the list and the Oqos goes out of the door again. I saved some $2000, which is probably not a bad thing.

I can go buy one on the internet of course, but it is kind of scary buying something I even have not held in my hands. As I have mentioned before, I am happy to this day that I didn't got stuck with the Sony UX50 as it turned out to be horrible in my hands when I finally got to hold it. I think the Oqo O2 is very different, but I have to be sure.

I am visiting Chicago on my way home, maybe I can pick up one there...

Some of you might wonder what's up with the Usenix annual tech conference, as this is where I am right now. I think it is kind of average. Some good talks, some not so good. And nothing special to report like big braking news or anything like that. I got the chance to speak with Guido van Rossum though, which was of course kind of cool for someone like me using Python all the time - I enjoyed that. I have also made some new friends, both from Norway and from USA - which is always good and a main reason for going to conferences. So all in all, it was ok for me to be here. Tomorrow I take off and head east.

Take care!