Tips for making an Agenda more usable

• Turn off syslogd
  Probably the single most important thing you can do to make your Agenda more responsive is to turn off syslogd, which writes log messages to a temp file. To do this, you need to disable the boot-time scripts that start it. Telnet to the Agenda (or do this in a Terminal) and issue the following commands
  • su
    (to become root; the default Agenda root password is agenda)
  • cd /etc/rc.d/rc3.d
  • mv S30syslog OFF.S30syslog
    (or just delete it)
  • cd /etc/rc5.d
  • mv S30syslog OFF.S30syslog
    (or just delete it)
  • exit
    (to go back to being the default user)
    
  The above directions are right for Agenda Linux 1.0.1 (as shipped on the initial consumer units); you might want to poke around under /etc/rc.d if you don't find the scripts in the places listed above. You don't need to delete or rename anything under /etc/init.d.
• Turn off the launchpad
  If (like me) you use the silkscreen-Agenda-logo menu rather than the LaunchPad, you can save RAM and speed things up by not starting /usr/bin/launchpad. Do this by commenting it out (preceding it with a `#') in the file .wmx/.startup (in /home/default). You'll either need an editor on the Agenda, or to copy the file to the PC and then back.
• Turn off quicksync.
  I use rsync to back up my Agenda data, and i386 builds of the Agenda apps to access it, and have not bothered trying very hard to get QuickSync to work. If, like me, you don't have a use for QuickSync, you can likewise comment out `/usr/bin/quicksync --hide' in .wmx/.startup.
• Turn off irobexd
  I haven't tried this, since I do want to be able to receive beamed data, but if you don't, you can turn that off too. You could always create a menu entry to start it by hand if needed (although then you'd need to remember to kill it from the Terminal or reset your Agenda to turn it back off).
• Creating menu entries
  While I'm on the topic, to create a menu entry that starts an application, create a symlink to that application from .wmx (or one of its subdirectories) with the name you want it to have in the menu. For instance, if you've installed FMan as /usr/local/bin/fman and you want to invoke it by tapping the silkscreen menu button, then System, then "File Manager", cd to .wmx/System and type `ln -s /usr/local/bin/fman "File Manager"' (on the Agenda, of course - either in a telnet session or in the Terminal).

  The symlinks and directories in .wmx are used by the Launchpad as well as the silkscreen Agenda menu. If you use the Launchpad and care about the icons displayed for the apps, you can set them by editing .wmx/.icons.

• Agenda ship an xset binary, but if you run it you get an error about a missing library (libXmuu). Devin Carraway posted the following solution on the agenda-user list:
  As a quick workaround, make a symlink from /usr/X11R6/lib/libXmu.so.6 to /usr/local/lib/libXmuu.so.6, add /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf and run /sbin/ldconfig. WFM. There is, naturally enough, a more correct way.
  Theoretically, this ought to let you run `xset -b' to turn off the bell, but the FLTK apps that use it turn it back on explicitly. :-( Also, it ought to let you add directories to the font path so you can add your own X fonts without rebuilding the root romdisk, but there appear to be problems with that as well. But it doesn't complain about missing libraries any more. :-)

Still to come

• turn off digitizer calibration at boot
• set contrast at boot
• invert screen (for use with backlight)