4th May 2026 - Pomera DM250 On Linux
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today is a bank holiday so why not go and try getting a toy onto 
linux? Well, it is not a toy but a Pomona DM250. These are useful 
tools for writing text and calenders without having distractions. The 
DM250 comes in both a Japanese and a US version. The US version is 
ridiculously priced and you can get a Japanese version for cheaper. 
Both would have keyboards which are troublesome for me and so I was 
not too fussed. There is a bit of a ramp to get through the 
punctionation changes but I have done worse. When I heard about the US 
release, I was interested in the fact it essentially runs on debian 
with a reduced character set. It enflamed my portable ssh platform 
desires and with some unexpected bonus money, I thought why not. The 
original software is pretty great and well thought out as a whole. 

Originally, I was reminded of my portable ssh dreams via Joshua 
Stein's installing OpenBSD to it [1]. This looks rather involved but 
helpfully, Joshua Stein linked to instructions which encouraged him, a 
guide for running debian from alt-core [2] who in turn based it all on 
the work of ekesete [4]. Ekesete has created a method of backing up 
the DM250, running an altered kernal and then a debian 11 build on 
top. It was going well with instructions easy enough to follow until 
the wifi had errors galore. This was baffling and just proves how I 
have enough linux/BSD knowledge to use it but not to fix my issues. 
Well a spot of searching lead me to a user going by lobster on 
zenn.dev[4]. Essentially the fix is to change line 5 of 
/etc/init.d/dm200_wireless to 

if [ -b /dev/mmcblk0p27 ]; then

A quick reboot after and I was able to ping sdf.org. 

This was written on my DM250 and it works pretty well. My only 
complaint is that I keep hitting the up key when trying to reach the 
right shift key. It encourages the use of the left but that is a hard 
thing to learn for me. 

Is this a great move? Well the change can be reversed easily and so it 
is not bad. I need to see about updating debian too. As a portable ssh 
device? It is wide to enable a reasonable keyboard and so not really 
pocketable as the dreams required. The Titan 2 phone is a better 
device even if only forced to Android pains. 

[1] https://jcs.org/2026/04/09/openbsd-dm250
[2] 
https://qiita.com/alt-core/items/0467dca2f4b50d3e3003#%E3%81%93%E3%81
%AE%E8%A8%98%E4%BA%8B%E3%81%AB%E3%81%A4%E3%81%84%E3%81%A6
[2 Alt] https://tx0.org/u/c
[3] https://www.ekesete.net/log/?p=9504
[4] https://zenn.dev/iseebi_cs/articles/9f600f526f7091?locale=en