wolfman wrote:I also think this piece of hardware would be really cool for conrtolling xLobby.
I actually don't own the device, so I'm unable to test the following.
As i understand, prerequist to run the thin client is a .Net Runtime Environment??
Would it be possible to run it on this device by using the the Open-Source Environment Mono (
http://www.mono-project.com/Maemo)
Using the web-browser isn't as practicable because of the refresh, and i have to set set the resolution everytime i use it.
I picked up a 770 - rude not to at the price they are going out at. My initial impressions are that they are really neat devices and in many respects just the thing for xLobby use if we can get it running successfully on a Linux device.
On the unit itself, the only drawback is that this doesn't charge directly from sitting in a cradle - you have to plug in a cord. Not as good as the Dell Axim's that I use presently with the client ppc interface. (I also have a mounted touchscreen connected directly to the PC videocard for normal server screen access). The 800x480 screen is excellent - big improvement over a ppc.
So to getting xL to run. Well I tried the web i/f for the first time. My standard server screens are set to the touchscreen size of 1280X768 - rendering from the xL webserver to the (I think) 600X480 was awful - just didn't work, all the fields get distorted and text truncates. (Not really complaining here - I would have been surprised if the different size and screen ratios had worked!) Plus I got the same issue as reported by others of having to refresh the screen at each touch. Not really an option I think.
I then tried the VNC client on the 770 (I already run the VNC server on my xL machine). I'm quite impressed. The image looks really good on the 770 and worked nicely. It's a little sluggish - not quite as good as the ppc speed on the axims. The only issue is that with my screen setups, you cant get the whole screen displayed on the 770 at once - you have to scroll around. It's a shame vnc cant render to fit the client screen as the 770 has a 1.667 ratio - same as the server, so it might be a good fit. (Unfortunately, I've never managed to get my pc to drive the screen image at 800x480 - it doesn't have the driver to do it!).
Apparently you can also use rdesktop on the 770. I havent tried this yet. I'm guessing it may have the same prob with screen scrolling but you could set up a separate account to use the ppc screens and go that route.
Finally to MONO - I liked the look of this. I've installed the runtime on the 770 from the website. Unfortunately I simply cant figure out how to run a binary .net app (i.e. the client xlobby2sd.exe) under this despite spending several hours on the mono site. If anyone has any clues on doing this I'd be most interested.
by danjb on Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:08 am 
