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Zaurus Tips and Tricks
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Video Encoding

Video playback on the BSD Zaurus really isn't all that great; however, I found that if I encode the video with ffmpeg using the following settings the Zaurus can handle it quite well:

ffmpeg -i anyvideo.mpg -s 320x220 -r 18 -an -b 276 -f avi anyvideo.avi    

System Setup

I use the following /etc/sysctl.conf entries (some of them trade system security for speed):

ddb.panic=1
vm.swapencrypt.enable=0
kern.usercrypto=0
machdep.apmwarn=0
machdep.maxspeed=520
machdep.lidsuspend=1  <-- Currenlty results in the back light remaining off. See further down on how to turn it back on.  

Make sure the following exports are defined when building ports: (I add them to ~/.profile so they are always present)

CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -mcpu=xscale -mtune=xscale"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -mcpu=xscale -mtune=xscale"

Do this from the shell:

ln -s 'azjgpHR' /etc/malloc.conf

Finally make sure you add softdep, and noatime in etc/fstab to all mounted ffs file systems! (Do not add softdep to mount points that contain swap files) Here's an example:

/dev/wd0a / ffs rw,noatime,softdep 1 1  

Internal Hard Drive Cache

Most of the time wd0 is in a suspended state which means it's not spinning or utilizing that much battery power; however, you can improve your battery life by enabling wd0's cache ( 128 KB ) write capabilities which are disabled by default. This will prevent the drive from having to spin up each time you type something on the screen. (I think, correct me on this if I'm wrong) This can be enabled by adding the following line somewhere in rc.local:

echo 'setting up wd0'
atactl /dev/wd0 writecacheenable && echo 'writecacheenable'


From the atactl manual page:

writecacheenable
Enables the write cache on the specified device (if supported).
This may increase performance, however data still in the de-
vice's cache at power down may be lost. The wd(4) driver per-
forms a cache flush automatically before shutdown.


Back light Control

To turn off the LCD back light on your Zaurus issue the following command:

wsconsctl display.backlight=0

To turn the LCD back light back on issue the following command:

wsconsctl display.backlight=100

NOTE:  Pressing random keys or tapping the LCD screen with the stylus will not result in the LCD back light turning back on. To turn the back light back on you must issue the inverse command wsconsctl display.backlight=100.

Battery Status Polling Rate

In order to get better battery status reports add the following to rc.conf.local

apmd_flags="-t 300"

This changes the polling rate to once every 5 minutes instead of the default once every 10 minutes.

Console  Blanking (Non-XORG Screensaver)

 If you wish to blank your console after a period of inactivity without using X, add the following to /etc/wsconsctl.conf

display.vblank=on                     # enable vertical sync blank for screen burner
display.screen_off=600000      # set screen burner timeout to 60 seconds
display.msact=off                     # disable screen unburn w/ mouse
display.kbdact=on                    # Restore screen on keyboard input
display.outact=on                     # Restore screen on display output

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