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Medion Akoya (MSI Wind) netbook and eComStation

Started by Shai, 2008.07.03, 11:46:10

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achain

For the onboard LAN:
The RTL8169 driver version 1.13 that supports RTL8102E has been formally released.
(Although the driver loading message still says that it is v.1.12.)

http://os2warp.be/index2.php?name=gomindis#4

warpcafe

Hi guys,

sorry, but... I'm wondering what is the final(?) status here... I'm missing something like an official "Hooray, success!!" posting . :) So - is it correct to assume that eCS "runs" on the Akoya? More or less full-fledged? Or is there something that still needs to be investigated?
And if all OK: What is the correct approach for installing?
Someone volunteering to do an how-to? ;)

Cheers
-and thanks to everyone of you for the good job-
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Shai

Hi,

I thought that removing the "Designed for Windows XP" sticker already was a kind of "Hooray, success!!". Btw. I reattached it to my old dot matrix printer.
Yes, most of the stuff works - it's already very useful.

We've got:

eCS Installation - tricky but should work reliably if you know how to do it.
USB & Hyperthreading - SMP kernel, ACPI in APIC mode + /CD switch; seems that some things only work with the new recompiled USB stack - which introduces new problems (system frequently freezes for a short time!?) though. Also, battery widgets work fine.
Automatic speed throttling - thanks to Sungsoo Khim
Sound - thanks to Uniaud, worked out of the box!
Video - Panorama VESA and latest Widescreen Activator (thanks to ecomstation.ru and Robert Lalla)
LAN - now supported "officially" by the RTL8169 driver (thanks to Yanagihara Nobuyuki and achain)
WLAN - works partly with patched Genmac driver (thanks to Willibald Meyer and me for the patch). You cannot search for hotspots and I've got disconnection problems in some networks (I have to investigate that...), works flawless in other networks however!

What we haven't got / what's not so nice:

Suspending/Resuming - provokes crash in Uniaud; without Uniaud, resuming doesn't work.
Webcam - not supported by WarpVision(?). I can live without it :)
WinOS/2 & VDMs - side effect of ACPI in APIC mode. Don't know if there's any workaround. Haven't tried using a FreeDOS kernel or something yet. I read that this issue is resolved in newer ACPI releases (I've got 3.05, 3.09 is the latest).
SDL - all SDL (official package and Panorama SDL12.DLL) programs have a messed colour palette. Not so bad that most programs are unusable / games unplayable but still very annoying. Maybe I should write to the SDL and Panorama people. I haven't got the latest Panorama driver, so I'd like to hear what Sigurd says first.
Firefox - Browsing is damned slow. I know that Freetype slows it down but I've got a similar setup on my desktop machine with SeaMonkey and it's not that bad. The CPU is roughly the same speed and I've got the same problems when my Medion Akoya is connected via LAN (so it's probably no Wifi problem). I thought the new Gecko engine in Firefox 3 is faster? Also it simply crashes very often. Watching Youtube via "unofficial" Flash 7 is very slow, too. Haven't tried SeaMonkey yet.
Scrolling - mouse driver (AMouse) doesn't allow sliding on the right side of the trackpad to scroll - this is a very useful feature supported e.g. by most Linux distributions. I'm using an older tool called Hot Scroll to achieve a similar effect on OS/2. I configured it to scroll in a similar manner when I hold down the "Windows" key. Works nice with the WPS and some programs but has no effect on others (e.g. Firefox). Is there an alternative? The Nice WPS enhancer hasn't got the feature I need and the AMouse MB3-drag feature doesn't even work when I've got a 3-button mouse attached(?).

btw. Video performance is better than I thought. I guessed it's impossible to play a Divx video fullscreen because such things are very processor-intensive with the VESA driver but some days ago I tried to watch a movie on a Samba resource (server is my eCS desktop :) ) using WarpVision and it worked surprisingly good. Fullscreen and fluently - without any special options. The CPU load was only about 20% so I could even activate some filters.

Yes, I could write a Howto. But I'm not very reliable and it might take some years. So, let's wait for Sigurd - he's written such Howtos for the Asus EEE PC in the past and maybe he'd actually *like* to do it.
I think it would be good if this would be in some kind of OS/2-eComStation wiki or a MSI Wind wik besides uploading it to Hobbes, so other people can contribute easily. That would also allow Sigurd and me to write it together (assuming he want's to do it). Anyone got such a wiki we could use?

cheers,
Robin

Sigurd

Hi,

just back - 3 weeks holiday in Denmark -  :D

I will test all the new enhancements in the evening.

Best wishes and many thanks,

Sigurd

Shai

some updates:
There's a workaround for the SDL issue: The colours are correct if you somehow get your program to run in 1024x600 (ie. your current desktop resolution?). There's a DOSBox option for that purpose (fullscreenresolution) and you can configure the resolution in OpenTTD, too.
I also tried to attach a monitor which works fine if you know how to do it. You have to boot with the monitor attached and you can only activate the monitor (using the apropriate Fn-key) before PM starts up, otherwise it'll do nothing. So you have to switch to a desktop resolution supported by your monitor (and the netbook's display, otherwise you can't choose it) before rebooting and activate the monitor shortly thereafter. Once the WPS is ready you should be able to choose much higher resolutions which are supported by both the graphics chip and the monitor. Don't forget to switch back to a mode supported by the netbook's display before booting without the monitor. Sounds complicated but it's probably not much easier if you could active the monitor while PM's running as the monitor will only work with the correct resolution and you have to reboot for each change :(. Nevertheless that means you can use it for reports/presentations.

Regarding the Howto: I just noticed that OS/2 World has a wiki. Why not do it there? Maybe I should simply create a new page. Where should I create the link: "Hardware" or "How To"?

cheers,
Robin

Shai

ok here it is: http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Medion_Akoya_Mini_%28HowTo%29
(the outlline of the article at least)
I created redirections for "Medion Akoya Mini E1210" and "MSI Wind U100" and added links to the Hardware and How-To sections.

Sigurd

Hi,

thanks to Shai I finally after lots of attempts made progress!

Things I had to do:

Downgrade the ACPI of RC5 from 3.09 to 3.05, otherwise the boot process freeze with the /APIC switch

Made a complete new Installation without legacy support (DOS-Win) will be substituted by DOSBOX

WLAN is working, stable, can not scan for hotspots either

(actually I am now using ecs RC 5, the medion akoya and WLAN to write this  ;D ;D)

LAN - the driver loads but says: IRQ detection fault - hm..... can not verify if it works even though

Picture can be seen here:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/54-76127-Akoyawwlan.JPG

As one can see a lot of USB stuff is loaded, but havent tried to activate EHCI support yet - the trap008 frightens me ::)

So, its funny to surf the net with eCS while listening to music....

Cheers and greetings to all




Sigurd

I just tried to activate the USB EHCI driver as well yesterday - and - it worked!!!

For some reason I do not have trap 0008 any more, I can not verify why. Even connecting:

- 4 GB USB Stick
- USB DVD Burner
- Terratec T2 USB TV

at the same time - everything works, even after about 15 reboots and booting via bootmanager XP and vise versa....

So it seems to be quite usefull  :-)

Thansk to Shai and the great job he has done!

Picture can be seen here:

http://www.commtalk.org/FileRepository/ForumAttachments/54-76128-Akoyawwlan2.JPG

Cheers


warpcafe

Sigurd,

the screenshot looks awesome. Coooool!! Way to go!
Thanks to you guys for working this out.

I'm looking forward to see that machine at the Duesseldorf WSE :)

BTW... that Terratec thingy... is that a DVB-T or...? Is that supported by Rudi's Emperoar?
(Sorry, am too lazy to seek for the information... ;) )

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Sigurd

Hi Thomas (you lazy guy  ::) )

yep - Cinergy t2 USB DVB, ( look here: http://www.ciao.de/TerraTec_Cinergy_T2__1930321 ) supported by emperor TV.

Sigurd


rudi


Currently this is the only supported USB DVB-T device. I'm investigating
the T328 (http://www.geniatech.com/pa/t682.htm) and/or the Nova-T stick
(http://www.hauppauge.de/de/site/products/data_novatstick.html) but cannot
tell if or when I will be able to make these work...


Sigurd

Hi,

don't know how to bring this to the news section, so I post it here:

made a new video about eComstation 2.0 yesterday. Because of my
limited Hardware for this the Quality still low, but should be OK to
give a short impression about the system.

I tried to include some "coll" features like watching DVB television
or listening to Internetradio.

I guess the Qualtity of the original video might be better, there fore
I uploaded it to hobbes for free access.

Hope you enjoy, have fun

Links:

Youtube:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ8QFZ_cYAk

hobbes for download (ca. 60 MB)

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-browse?dir=/pub/incoming&sort=date

The hobbes link will be changed once the file will be moved from
"incoming" to another section.

Cheers

Sigurd

Sigurd

Hi,

just tested ACPI Version 3.11 from software subscription. No problems occurred until now. So there seems to be no need to downgrade to ACPI 3.05 since eCS RC 6 or GA will be availiable.

This Netbook works that well, I am really satisfied with it.  :D ;) :D ;D

Sigurd

Shai

Wifi is still what annoys me most. WPA2 encrypted connections are very unstable - but I need more tests. Recently I discovered that GENMAC provokes a trap (Black Screen Of Death) when I attempt to connect to one of my university's hotspots - it's unencrypted and I don't have problems with unencrypted connections otherwise. You connect to a hotspot (and are part of a public unsecure network which is not directly connected to the internet) and then establish an IPSec tunnel to a special gateway which makes you part of the real network (Cisco VPN, should be supported by Injoy Firewall and partly by the eCS internal firewall). As I said it already crashes when I attempt to connect to the hotspot. Seems that I need some very boring lectures to try different versions of the Windows driver and different Genmac options...

Shai

Quote from: Sigurd on 2008.10.12, 14:31:24
Hi,

just tested ACPI Version 3.11 from software subscription. No problems occurred until now. So there seems to be no need to downgrade to ACPI 3.05 since eCS RC 6 or GA will be availiable.

This Netbook works that well, I am really satisfied with it.  :D ;) :D ;D

Sigurd
that's cool. You're running in APIC mode I suppose? Do Win-OS/2 and VDMs work now?