<wpwrak>
also, considering that jlime doesn't seem to need anything like this, they're probably also quite unnecessary
<qi-bot>
[commit] Werner Almesberger: usrp/: a set of utilities for testing board performance with an USRP2 http://qi-hw.com/p/ben-wpan/e445fe1
<qwebirc14268>
guys
<qwebirc14268>
can't get the thing to even turn on
<qwebirc14268>
or go into usb mode
<qwebirc14268>
trying to short the pin but I must be doing it wrong
<qwebirc14268>
someone please help???
<qwebirc14268>
:(
<Textmode>
qwebirc14268: it can be a bit tricky to short the pins, what are you using?
<qwebirc14268>
honestly not sure what I am SUPPOSED to use
<qwebirc14268>
tried using a rubber thing on the end of my usb flash drive
<qwebirc14268>
metal
<qwebirc14268>
my hand
<qwebirc14268>
plastic
<Textmode>
my nanonote came with a spare rubber button that works perfectly. my attempts with paperclips and peices of foil were failures, but supposedly do work with enough attempts.
<qwebirc14268>
Textmode: mine I am afraid did not come with that
<Textmode>
also, you are making sure to completely powerdown the unit before trying, right? romoved battery, disconnected usb cable
<Textmode>
removed*
<qwebirc14268>
roger
<qwebirc14268>
even shorting the pin before I put in the usb
<Textmode>
and you've confirmed its not showing up on the host computer? (remember, in USB mode, the screen stays blank, and led goes dim)
<qwebirc14268>
yes I am using lsusb
<qwebirc14268>
Textmode: I had it working fine but now my unit wont come up period after I tryed to flash the latest testing build
<qwebirc14268>
Textmode: can't get usb mode nor normal bootup
<qwebirc14268>
whenever I plug in the usb with the battery out
<qwebirc14268>
the led flashes briefly but then goes dim
<qwebirc14268>
I check the PC with lsusb and the nano note is note showing
<Textmode>
*is* showing?
<qwebirc14268>
*not
<qwebirc14268>
*is not showing
<Textmode>
I'm guessing you have no broken devices you can canabilise for rubber buttons? (those are really the most reliable way)
<Textmode>
carbonised rubber buttons*
<Textmode>
strands of uncaoted copper wire?
<qwebirc14268>
wait. May have some copper wire
<Textmode>
a piece of sticky tape to hold it in place might be a good idea (reduces the need for a steady hand)
<qwebirc14268>
grabbing some speaker wire
<qwebirc14268>
nothing
<qwebirc14268>
pretty sure the speaker wire is copper
<Textmode>
I know from experiance those USB boot pins can be pretty stubburn if you don't have that little button...
<qwebirc14268>
wellll this is quite a predicament
<qwebirc14268>
shame mine didn't come with one :/
<qwebirc14268>
rage
<Textmode>
did you get yours early on? I think they didn't include it in the beginning...
<qwebirc14268>
i just got mine
<qwebirc14268>
where was it packaged at?
<qwebirc14268>
the button
<Textmode>
in a small ziploc, in the smaller box used to hold the cables and manual for the nanonote.
<Textmode>
qwebirc14268: oh, and while I did have the little rubber button...I was missing the battery :P (though they sent me *two* later on)
<qwebirc14268>
Textmode: found the little bastard and a polish cloth :D
<Textmode>
hehe
<Textmode>
I have to have a shower and leggit, so goodluck.
<qwebirc14268>
got it!!!'
<qwebirc14268>
thanks Textmode
<elricsfate>
anyone have advice on whats the best version to flash right now??
<elricsfate>
anyone?? This would be great info for me.
<Textmode>
I've only really tried jlime (decent, but I think it uses X, which uses far too much ram), and the offcial distro (bland, but reliable)
<Textmode>
I tried to install debian, but failed (though others seem to have more luck)
<elricsfate>
which one of those are you using? with the one that came stock I had problems with my LCD kind of flickering. I was warned it was a problem with the ben that was shipped to me when they sent me my order update in my email
<elricsfate>
??
<elricsfate>
nprog 2048 openwrt-xburst-qi_lb60-root.ubi 0 0 -n that command never wants to work unless I spam it about 30 times
<rafa>
wpwrak: ah.. okey.. so if it works from time to time maybe the current environment has something to do with usbboot?
<elricsfate>
Anyone have any luck running nethack on the nano note? I get an error "cannot open alock.0
<elricsfate>
anyone? Help would be greatly appreciated.
<elricsfate>
wolfspraul & Textmode: Have you had any luck getting nethack to run on the nano note?
<tuxbrain2>
you can run rouge a nethack clone with graphical GUI
<wolfspraul>
elricsfate: no, never tried
<elricsfate>
wolfspraul: Roger :(. Have you ever seen the error "Cannot open alock.0" or know what might cause it?
<wolfspraul>
no, also not...
<elricsfate>
roger. I actually emailed the maintainer of the binary to see if he knew what the problem might be. Right now the basic system is setup and running well. Mounts the data partition and all that on its on. Going to automate net sharing soon.
<wpwrak>
elricsfate: the usbboot problem may be about to get fixed. i had the same thing happen. you're using the pre-compiled .deb file, right ?
<wpwrak>
elricsfate: a quick work-around would be to rename the file to something else, e.g., foo. then flash that.
<elricsfate>
wpwrak: i managed to get it booted and working
<elricsfate>
wpwrak: my only problmem now is I can't seem to get nethack working
<elricsfate>
wpwrak: have you tried getting nethack to work?
<wpwrak>
nope
<elricsfate>
wpwrak: alright. Man am I the only guy on nano note who likes nethack? haha. It seems like the perfect portable nethack player to me
<wpwrak>
the whole rogue family of games certainly benefits from having a decent keyboard :)
<elricsfate>
wpwrak: agreed. The nano note keyboard i pretty good I think
<wpwrak>
it's better than many, it has a few misfeatures. e.g.,  you don't really need the red arrow and the blue fn. also space and enter could be bigger.
<rafa>
elricsfate: nethack is on the extra jlime repositories.. you can try that if you wnt.. if you have debian it will be on its repos as well surely
<derRichard>
wpwrak: do you remember our discussion about password databases? how would you manage lots of passwords? i'm to stupid to remember 50+ different passwords and usernames.
<derRichard>
it's not that easy. when you decrypt the file you cannot store the plaintext on disk, you have to protect your programm againt ptrace(), etc...
<derRichard>
my idea was to use ben as password database. but wpwrak pointed out that this is maybe a bad idea because somebody could install on ben a keylogger and read your master password...
<rafa>
use voice
<rafa>
to tell nn the master password.. of course, nobody should hear you
<derRichard>
voice as authentication is a mess
<derRichard>
forget voice
<rafa>
derRichard: i guess that it depends how far you want to go with a password database
<rafa>
nothing is secure
<rafa>
currenty, ekopary is happening in argentina i guess.. you could try to ask them as well ;)
<rafa>
ekoparty*
<derRichard>
what should i ask him?
<rafa>
what to use
<rafa>
if they do not know afer checking your requirements (how far to go) then nobody will know I guess
<rafa>
;)
<derRichard>
on ben i have not much options. keyboard or voive. both are vulnerable to keylogger/voiceloggers
<rafa>
derRichard: well, that is why I would advise to ask them
<rafa>
:)
<rafa>
so you can know if there are some way that you can not see right now
<wpwrak>
derRichard: (many passwords) i would have a set of master passwords for groups of account/password/description entries. one could of course just have one master password, if that fits the needs.
<wpwrak>
rafa: (keylogger) signed binaries would be a solution. simply don't run anything (or at least warn) you haven't verified. one difficulty is in getting into the boot process sufficiently early.
<wpwrak>
rafa: another difficulty is how to make this work with the concept of the ben as a general-purpose machine. i.e., if someone chooses to run "insecure" binaries, the mechanism that checks the signed things shouldn't be too intrusive.
<wpwrak>
tuxbrain2: cool pictures :)
<wpwrak>
tuxbrain2: now someone would have to make heise.de include it in their newsticker :)
<methril_work>
tuxbrain2, rafa: congrats
<wpwrak>
DocScrutinizer: antenna tuning is tricky business. do you think a distance of 50 cm between sender and receiver is sufficient ? (i want them to be relatively close to be well above any background noise)
<wpwrak>
this will get tricky. i guess i'll have to set up my little rf lab in the guest room. there i least have 3 m of free space.
<wpwrak>
well, 12.5-2.5 m actually. a bit less :)
<DocScrutinizer>
also keep in mind with tuning you also change directional properties. While they aren't that relevant for everyday usage, you should do several probes with changed orientation for each tuning step, not to trip over a local minimum or maximum
<DocScrutinizer>
but in the end the whole tuning stuff isn't an exact science, and a +-20% are usually just good enough (actually very good)
<wpwrak>
ah, thanks. hmm, i need to make that stuff faster. right now, it takes about 12 minutes to walk all channels and do a test transmission on each.
<DocScrutinizer>
omg, all chan?
<DocScrutinizer>
just tune center freq!
<wpwrak>
yes, taht's what i mean. set the center frequency to each channel.
<wpwrak>
the test setup is with the ben sending and the usrp receiving.
<wpwrak>
(20%) i currently see differences in the range of up to 8 dB. still a way to go :)
<DocScrutinizer>
I meant if you got chan1..12 then use only chan6 for all tuning, except very last quality control to rule out unusual dips or other unexpected effects
<DocScrutinizer>
if you want to go fancy, then probe chan1, 6, 12 and make sure they don't differ too much
<DocScrutinizer>
though with massively detuned antenna you might see max on chan6 and min on chan8
<wpwrak>
what i'm trying to do is to find the peak. i think what the tuning really does is move the "valley" of the standing wave, no ?
<wpwrak>
yes, that's a bit what happens now
<DocScrutinizer>
a good and tuned antenna design is immune to such small freq varuations
<wpwrak>
-21 dB at ch 1, -29 dB on ch 14
<wpwrak>
the "good tuned" is where i still have to get :)
<DocScrutinizer>
yep, it moves the freq of best performance, of an ideally rather smooth hillshaped curve
<wpwrak>
the ones with the little tail you suggested perform better, by the way. still some odditied, though.
<DocScrutinizer>
hmm
<wpwrak>
and the boards per se act strangely, with power stability problems. may have been a soldering issue, though. (those damn manual vias)
<DocScrutinizer>
eek
<DocScrutinizer>
-21:1, -29:14 sounds like your sweet spot is somewhere next to chan -25
<DocScrutinizer>
you got a spectrum analyzer? :-D
<DocScrutinizer>
do you know how we tuned small antennae in the ole' days?
<wpwrak>
i have an usrp2
<DocScrutinizer>
short foot point with nominal impedance shunt, use dipmeter to find resonance freq, tune antenna a bit, find new 'dip' with dipmeter
<wpwrak>
what's a dipmeter ?
<DocScrutinizer>
an open oscillator, tunable
<DocScrutinizer>
with a meter showing how much energy is drawn from the open L-C
<DocScrutinizer>
of course nowadays those are built from 2 or 3 transistors, not valves :-P
<wpwrak>
oh, nice. the tunable oscillator i have. but the usrp doesn't tell me how much energy it outputs.
<wpwrak>
but then, the energy could go anywhere, no ? e.g., into the air or burnt due to reflections
<DocScrutinizer>
nope, usually the energy is absorbed by the coupled DUT. That's btw also the reason to keep a sufficient distance between DUT and receiver if you do _not_ want coupling effects
<DocScrutinizer>
of course on plain air operation mode (without DUT) such a dipmeter should be relatively linear. If it has own resonances, you can't really use it properly for probing other resonances
<wpwrak>
DocScrutinizer: nice :) now the same but 10 times faster :)
<DocScrutinizer>
uhm, yea it probably was up to 180MHz or sth
<DocScrutinizer>
wpwrak: if you have a really decent storage scope or a spectrum analyzer, you can connect either to shunt on footpoint (or feedpoint?) of antenna, and then energize the antenna with a pulse - possibly created by a spark next to it. You should be able to tell ant f0 from either of those instruments
<wpwrak>
all i have in terms of spectrum analyzer is the usrp2. 12 bit ADC, 2.4-2.5 GHz (plus some more in the 5.8 GHz band). my scope is the good old rigol. 100 MHz, 400 MSa/s, deep memory.
<DocScrutinizer>
err, nice... but I think the usrp ADC should be better choice :-)
<DocScrutinizer>
than rigol
<wpwrak>
yeah, i hope so :)
<DocScrutinizer>
if only I had taken the opportunity to get a decent scope when Wolfgang freed some budget for EE
<wpwrak>
one problem with the usrp2 is that it lets me pick only about 25 MHz of the spectrum at a time (decimation limit)
<wpwrak>
so i can't see the whole 2.4-2.5 GHz band at once.
<wpwrak>
that's why i step through the channels
<DocScrutinizer>
is this technology you are using a spread spectrum modulation?
<DocScrutinizer>
so now I see why you step thru the channels :-)
<DocScrutinizer>
don't do that, just optimize for center frequency of your signal
<wpwrak>
(wlan uses it, too. well, god old 802.11b)
<wpwrak>
oh, that's what i do. but i step my signal through all the channels. that way, i can see (or at least hope to), in which direction the peak lies.
<wpwrak>
if you look at the plots, they have a clear tendency. i just wish they were a little more consistent. step-A is the original antenna. step-I and step-II should be the same. they have the antenna with the 1.5 mm tail.
<wpwrak>
it *seems* that step-II is like step-A but shifted by something like 60 MHz to the right
<wpwrak>
or maybe it's shifted to the left, with not so deep a drop. but then, what we shuld see is a maximum, not a minimum
<wpwrak>
i'll run another set of tests. need to remove that big water bag of myself, though. if ti sit on the pc, things get incredibly weird.
<elricsfate>
Hi guys
<elricsfate>
anyone have any advice on getting nethack working on the default openwrt firmware?
<elricsfate>
I am receiving a strange error. Help would be appreciated
<CongoZombie>
I'm trying to set up openwrt on the dingoo a320 and I can't get usb ethernet to work
<CongoZombie>
just wondered if you guys knew if there was anything I might be missing getting it to work with openwrt
<CongoZombie>
I'm using the qi-hardware fork of openwrt-xburst
<kristianpaul>
hmm
<kristianpaul>
CongoZombie: i know zear have a dingo
<kristianpaul>
bus is not here right now
<CongoZombie>
yeah
<CongoZombie>
I'll ask him
<kristianpaul>
:)
<CongoZombie>
though to be honest, not sure he'll be much help
<CongoZombie>
since we're using the new kernel (2.6.35)
<kristianpaul>
who knows..
<kristianpaul>
or write to the mailing list :) !
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: writing to the list is generally a good idea if you can't catch someone who can help immediately :)
<kristianpaul>
wpwrak: i wonder how quickly can be the list compared with irc response time... some times..
<osokuro>
Hi all
<kristianpaul>
hey osokuro
<osokuro>
How're we doing tonight?
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: i think its less response time than wasting other people's time. not everyone on the list may be interested in any tiny problem that's quickly solved anyway. but of course, if it's something bigger, that's a good reason to escalate.
<kristianpaul>
who knows.. smaller problems end on big threads some times :)