13. F.A.Q

13.1 Please see the FAQ on the main PsiLinux page (FAQ) for other possible FAQ.

13.2 Q: Which Psion 5MX model do I need (16, 24, or 32Mb)?

Any of these models will work fine, although there seem to be lingering problems with getting all of the memory recognized on the 24MB machine. It is best if you have the 32MB model, of course. A compactflash card is essential if you want a full system.

13.3 Q: How come after PsiLinux boots up the text is faded so as to be illegible?

This problem arises in the 4bpp mode of the framebuffer depth - some of the color mappings are not yet quite correct. For now change the color depth by fbset -a 2bpp, and perhaps modify your startup scripts to do this automatically. See the "Setting the Framebuffer Depth" subsection.

13.4 Q: My disk gives errors when my psion wakes up from sleep mode, or otherwise?

At present, the ETNA code (which governs compactflash) in psilinux is evolving. ETNA documentation has been lacking. Mainly, however, the various brands of compactflash cards behave differently in psilinux - some cards work very well, others work poorly or not at all. This may have to do with the type of controller the manufacturer put in the card (e.g., Hitatchi, Toshiba, or ??).

You can try backing up your system on a notebook computer, and then reformating the card, which has been known to be helpful.

You can also search for bad blocks on the disk. Some bad CF cards, have been "fixed" by running badblocks on it with destructive write test for each partition. Then use the *.badblocks file to mkfs. The command you might use is:
badblocks -o 96mb_sdb1_12mb.badblocks -w -p 2 /dev/sdb1
In one case, badblocks failed on a USB CF adapter, but then worked with a CF to PCMCIA adapter on a laptop.

13.5 Q: Can I have a dual boot system (EPOC and linux)?

Sure - format your compactflash card to have whatever space you need for EPOC and the remainder to be the ext2 filesystem. On the EPOC filesystem (fat16) install ARLO and the kernel, and whatever EPOC programs/files etc. you want to use (in EPOC I use the addressbook and the alarm clock mainly, as well as other things like Solun, a planetarium type thing). I have a 128MB compactflash disk with 32MB reserved for EPOC and 96MB for linux (of with about 40MB is the operating system.)

You will have to reset the clock everytime you boot between linux and EPOC, but a system is being developed that will do this automatically.

Note that you will be able to access the fat16 partition from linux, but not the ext2 partition from EPOC.

13.6 Q: How come when I turn my psion off for the night, it turns itself back on again?

There are two possible reasons for this. The first is that if you touch the 5MX's screen slightly it will turn on again - so you may be inadvertently touching the screen as you close the psion. The second reason is that you may have the infrared port running - did you kill the irattach process after you last used it? The IR is always searching for something to connect to, and a false hiccup will cause the psion to wake up again. You should turn off IR when you are not using it, because it uses considerable power.