krisse | # 11 | 2008-05-10, 11:02 | Report

It's nice but it's still too complicated for the average user.

Is it theoretically possible that a developer could add printer support to a maemo app? It would be nice for example to have Xournal with printing support.

Benson | # 12 | 2008-05-11, 17:17 | Report

Yes, it's possible to add app support (even easy, if, as for Xournal, upstream already has it.); you still need a print spooler running, though.

krisse | # 13 | 2008-05-11, 20:56 | Report

Well, I just looked up Print Spooler on the web and it seems to be a separate programme used by other apps to send stuff to the printer. So someone would need to write one of those as well as write printing support into the actual apps?

Benson | # 14 | 2008-05-11, 21:13 | Report

Like CUPS (the print spooler packaged with KDE), for example; but it would have to be packaged separately if you don't want to recommend KDE.

krisse | # 15 | 2008-05-11, 22:17 | Report

Well, see, that's the problem, I don't want to make it complicated. One of the things about the tablets is you can do practically anything with them if you're willing to put the work into it, but most people don't want to.

It would be nice if there was some way to print from the normal tablet environment, so it would be exactly like it is now but there would be a "print" option in the menus of certain applications.

Scarflash | # 16 | 2008-05-11, 23:05 | Report

Krisse, I luv ur website. Its so usefull even to a semi-experienced linux user like me. How many hits do u get every day?

jldiaz | # 17 | 2008-05-11, 23:10 | Report

Be careful, though, with the power consumption. The usb port can deliver some power to the peripheral, but in the case of the tablet, this is limited to 100mA max. This should be enough for a keyboard, but it can be insufficient for a flash drive (mine requires 200mA max).

In order to know the power requirements of the peripherals befor plugging them to your tablet, you can connect them to a linux machine and issue the command "lsusb -v". This dumps a lot of information for each connected usb device. Most of this information is arcane for me, but you can easily spot the line about MaxPower.

Of course, you don't have to worry about power consumption if the peripheral is self-powered (such as a printer), or you are connecting it to the tablet through a self-powered hub.

What I'm still not sure about is: what could happen to your tablet if you exceed the allowed power consumption? I think that the usb device simply won't work, but... Can someone confirm that there is no damage for the tablet?

Benson | # 18 | 2008-05-11, 23:21 | Report

Correct. The tablet will nicely reject devices that ask nicely for more power than possible, but if a device (like a USB fan/light/flowerpot/whatever) draws more power without asking, the N800 detects the overcurrent and shuts the port down. No damage.

krisse | # 19 | 2008-05-12, 11:42 | Report

Yes of course, and I make the point about power consumption in the tutorial if you scroll right to the bottom, in the section about connecting other USB peripherals.

The reason I made the tutorial just about the keyboard is precisely because I didn't want people to think this would work with all USB peripherals.

However, it does actually work with a Flash drive, at least mine worked fine every time I tried it, and that's my next tutorial.

This method should also work with USB HDDs if they have an external power supply.


I think 95% of people would not know how to do that. A much easier method is just to try it and see if it works?


If there's too little power, I can't see how there could be damage to anything. Electrical devices draw whatever power they need, and if there's too little they either don't work or they work intermittently.

I don't think there can be any damage to the device supplying the power.


Erm... well, it varies a lot but it's in four figures. The YouTube videos have been watched over 120,000 times so far.