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Nokia N810 and 770 Internet Tablets
Initial Setup

James F. Carter <jimc@math.ucla.edu>, 2006-03-24, updated 2008-03-15

Out of the box, the kernel has Nokia branded splash screens enabled. It takes about 30 seconds to boot (at least the first time). On first booting it asks you to set the date and time, to pick a name for the machine, and to identify your cell phone, over its Bluetooth link, for internet access via phone. Hit cancel if you don't have such a phone.

The date setting dialog during initial setup does not, however, include timezone, which cues on your home city (London, it said, i.e UTC). Find the Control Panel, the Date and Time sub-page, for setting this. Your language preference (en_UK initially on mine) is set on the Text Input sub-page. The clock counts UTC like a proper Linux box. In the control panel page there's a check box for daylight saving time. These notes are written in non-daylight time, and checking the box had no effect on the provided clock [correct], leading me to suspect that it's interpreted as do DST when indicated by the timezone file, or if unchecked, don't ever do DST if you're in Arizona. However, the panel (systray) clock interprets it as we're doing DST today, leading to an unwanted time offset of one hour. I'd say this is a bug in panelclock, and there should be a separate timezone file for Arizona -- and there is: /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Phoenix.

The name chosen in initial setup does not become the hostname of the device, which may be found in /proc/sys/kernel/hostname. Mine ended up as Nokia770-51. Put your desired hostname in /etc/hostname and edit /etc/hosts accordingly.

If you don't use it for a short time the lamp will first be set to the lowest brightness, then turned off. It's my impression that the power drain is very low in the latter state, analogous to suspend to RAM on Intel processors. In Control Panel - Display you can set the timeouts for these behaviors. The best way to light up a 770 is to press the power button briefly. The button down time must be under one second or you'll power it off completely.

On the N810 I found it most convenient to set the Brightness Period and Switch Off Display to the same length of time, and to mark Lock Screen and Keys. To get out of lock mode and to light up the display, slide the lock button (top right key) to the left. Moving the lock button when the ITB is active will lock it and immediately shut off the lamp, at least with these settings.

I found that the factory default for the touch screen was not perfect, and web browsing was easier if I did the screen calibration procedure, which you access from the Control Panel or the page menu of the desktop.

See here for a list of setup actions beyond the initial sequence.


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