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 Post subject: Need some more work :-)

Joined: 04 Jun 2013, 16:00
Posts: 12
Hi again,

now I have the Navigatrix installed on my hard drive and I have also spread it to about 30 sailors.

However, there is some issues.

1) Airmail is not working as good as with windows ...
a) The grib area definition screen stops airmail and it hangs.
b) After a fax it takes a lot of time to save the fax before going on to the next one. You may hit the stop button and it starts to save the fax ok, but the time is maybe ten times the time with windows.
c) When having both gps and the radio hooked up the connection gets confused and often the gps stops working or the radio connection will not be recognized. Especially second time you try to open the terminal (Pactor) window.

2) Installation on the hard drive if not sharing the same partition as windows is not clear and need a better guidance.
Sharing the same partition is ok but you have to learn the hard way wich side is windows and wich goes to Linux.

3) If the power handling of the screen was as efficient as with windows I would never use windows again. Still I need the hours on my battery so I use windows in the night and Linux in the daytime. With windows I get 7 hours, with Linux I get 2.5 hours. (I set the screen brightness as low as possible, but when doing something on the computer it lightens up with Linux).

Regards
Rolf, SA7CCY


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 Post subject: Re: Need some more work :-)
Site Admin

Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 13:32
Posts: 116
Quote:
a) The grib area definition screen stops airmail and it hangs.


Have you already looked at "Airmail GRIB Problem" (http://navigatrix.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=480) further down in this forum? After doing the Wine update suggested in that thread, the time it took Airmail to render the GRIB request window dropped significantly for me.

Quote:
After a fax it takes a lot of time to save the fax before going on to the next one. You may hit the stop button and it starts to save the fax ok, but the time is maybe ten times the time with windows.

I can't compare to Windows, but the time to save a faxe didn't strike me as particularly long. Perhaps the Wine update had also helped with that and I never experienced the "slow version".

Can't comment on the other items in your list (I experience neither the gps / pactor issue nor the bright display problem). A search for 'redshift' on the discussion board might bring up a solution to the display brightness issue though.


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 Post subject: Re: Need some more work :-)

Joined: 04 Nov 2010, 20:51
Posts: 1062
Quote:
1) Airmail is not working as good as with windows ...

Airmail was created to run on Windows only. It was not designed to run in Linux.

It will run under Wine. Check the Wine Application Database. I think the tester Eric giving the 64 bit Fedora distribution a "gold" rating is generous, but if he's happy....it must be gold. As Markus pointed out Airmail had a Wine problem. This has been rectified.

The code for Airmail is also proprietary and the author will not release it so it can be ported over to Linux...he didn't even respond to emails of enquiry.

Currently there isn't a native application, like Airmail, that is as good. (Time, money, monkeys...it always take two.)

Regarding sharing partitions....

Windows doesn't 'share' anything. Well, not entirely true; there is an application that allow Windows to read ext filesystems. Probably a few of them around, but I've stopped looking. In Linux I think you could mount a piece of foil and use it as part of your filesystem. It doesn't care.

I've also heard it's possible for Windows/Linux to share firefox configuration, email data, etc., but that's a Duck Duck Go search beginning somewhere http://lifehacker.com/348858/use-a-single-data-store-when-dual-booting

(I'll write up something about the screen/display in the next few hours and ponder the gps/radio/pactor drop over the next few days...it's a mystery. More data would be nice, like 'when'; what is happening when it happens...signs, symptoms and activity)


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 Post subject: Re: Need some more work :-)

Joined: 04 Nov 2010, 20:51
Posts: 1062
First, use the Power Manager set your screen to go "off" after X (whatever trips your trigger) minutes of inactivity. Blanking makes it black, but I guess leaves the light on.

In Navigatrix here is what happens with your display:

A gps tells the system where it is.

When the sun goes down it gently shift the display RED and reduces the display backlighting.

The little light bulb icon in the lower right (on the toolbar) toggles a 3 way setting:

  • Do nothing; no redshift 100% backlighting
  • Full redshift; full reduction of backlighting
  • Partial redshift; partial reduction of backlighting.

I refer to them as Off; Full: and Civilised.

Personally I never use "Off". I use "Full" when running at night. I use "Civilised" when there are other none-red lights on in the cabin and generally just leave it there.

This is because when the sun comes up, and the ambient light increase the process of redshifting and dimming is gently reversed. It's 'set it and forget it.'

If the system never has had a gps plugged into it, it will not know where it is and the calculations for the sun's relative position will be off.

Likewise, if the system has been moved without an updated location, the calculations will be off.

If you manually adjust 'brightness' (or gamma) it will revert back to the automated settings when the system verifies that everything is still functioning as it should.

There is one problem with this. Old age.

I could say the problem is "What if I don't want those settings?", but they are optimal. If you have daylight, very rarely would you dim the screen. You might as well turn it off, in my opinion.

The other option is the desire to make the display brighter in the night. If you are young there is no problem, the settings are the best and most energy efficient around. The programming was done by a young fella. Nearly all the time, those under 40 years old do not have a problem. But if you're older, like me; and you are no longer reading comic books by candlelight; you know we need more light for visual acuity sometimes, and it would be nice to change this.

I wrote this little script that will do just that. I call it 'brimmer' for The Brighter-Dimmer.
Code:
#!/bin/bash
# Brighter-Dimmer
# This script can be used in the Navigatrix system
# in conjunction with redshift/nightshift display
# modifications to set 0-100% of LCD Backlight Range
# of the 10 step backlight scale (0-9) provided
# by most current LCD displays 

brimmer=$(zenity --title "Brimmer - the brighter dimmer" --scale --text "Set the Brightness, or dimness, on a scale of 0-100" --min-value=0 --max-value=100 --value=30 --step 10)

#
# Navigatrix sets the colour temp to create the best of all possible worlds
# OFF, no change; Civilised, easy on the eyes night use; and FULL, for the
# rhodopsin sparing red as you can get with what you've got setting.

# The config file is...
shiftsettings=/usr/local/bin/nightshift

# read it
cat $shiftsettings >$shiftsettings.new

# Locate and substitute the new input values and re-write the file.
# To change the backlight from ONLY the 'Civilised' setting to both 'light' and 'dark'
# change 'lightx=' to 'x='.  Change it to 'darkx=' for ONLY the 'Night Vision Red' 
# Change it to anything else to have it not work at all.
sed "s/lightx=\"\?[[:digit:]]\{1,3\}\"/lightx=\"$brimmer\"/g" <$shiftsettings.new >$shiftsettings

# Do it even if it's wrong.
nightshift restore
#             ^ the syntax: nightshift [dark|light|toggle|restore|off]

# ...but cleanup when you're done.
rm $shiftsettings.new
There are 6 lines of code padded out with chatty commentary.

It's simple, it's basic, but it does the job...

Open a terminal (<ctrl><alt><t>) and at the prompt enter:
Code:
sudo medit /usr/local/bin/brimmer /usr/share/applications/brimmer.desktop

Cut and paste the entire script above into the first tab of the text editor that pops up.

Into the second tab, cut and paste:
Code:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Brighter Dimmer
Comment=Brighter Dimmer to re/set LCD backlight for Navigatix Redshift/Nightshift 
Exec=gksu --description /usr/share/applications/brimmer.desktop /usr/local/bin/brimmer
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Settings;
This later file is a Menu entry created in "Preferences". It will be near the top.

Save them both and close the text editor and in the terminal enter:
Code:
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/brimmer
This makes the script executable.

Try it...at night, after the system has been informed of its location.


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 Post subject: Re: Need some more work :-)

Joined: 04 Nov 2010, 20:51
Posts: 1062
Additionally, if you'll notice, the script, as it is currently written, only adjusts the 'Civilised' setting.

The FULL nightshift mode is as low as the backlighting will go. It is either a hardware issue or the people who wrote the code for backlighting have never been running in the dead of a moonless night.

The times I have needed more backlighting while in FULL mode I flick the display's brightness settings and allow it to revert when it does its verification.


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