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This section is about setting up your Freerunner GTA02 for running the Aphasia distro. If your phone is a neo1973 GTA01 you can not use OpenWrt, install Debian and start from there.
Aphasia sits on the OpenWrt platform. A very configurable Linux distribution, and light on system resources. There's a great forum at [1]
Go to OpenWrt, section Build custom image and follow the instructions. When you are at the point Configure target and packages you have to do some choises. Here is the minimum installation for Aphasia:
make menuconf OpenWrt Kamikaze (r16871) Configuration Target System (Samsung S3C24xx [2.6]) ---> Samsung S3C24xx [2.6] Target Profile (Openmoko GTA-02 (minimal)) ---> Openmoko GTA-02 (minimal) [*] Image configuration ---> (192.168.0.202) LAN IP Address Xorg ---> app ---> <*> xauth Xorg ---> driver ---> <*> xf86-input-tslib Xorg ---> driver ---> <*> xf86-video-glamo Xorg ---> font ---> <*> dejavu-fonts-ttf Network ---> <*> gpsd Network ---> <*> ser2net Phone ---> <*> freerunner-alsa-scenarios Utilities ---> <*> alsa-utils Utilities ---> <*> bash Extra packages ---> <*> zoneinfo-europe Sound ---> <*> lame Sound ---> <*> madplay Languages ---> <*> erlang
To autostart ser2net and gpsd insert a line in /etc/init.d/httpd, last line in desktop section:
desktop() { config_foreach system_config system hostname="${hostname:-OpenWrt}" unset args config_load httpd [ "$?" != "0" ] && { uci_set_default httpd <<EOF config 'httpd' option 'port' '80' option 'home' '/www' EOF config_load httpd } config_foreach httpd_config httpd /usr/sbin/ser2net ; /usr/sbin/gpsd /dev/ttySAC1 }
Open /etc/ser2net.conf and replace all port examples at the very end with this single line:
2001:raw:0:/dev/ttySAC0:115200 NONE 1STOPBIT 8DATABITS -XONXOFF -LOCAL RTSCTS
Take a look at this example of what you can do with ex11 [2] Take the file at http://projects.openmoko.org/frs/download.php/753/ex11_lib.tgz and unzip it in your source directory.
mkdir /root/trunk cd /root/trunk tar -xvf ex11_lib.tgz
In file /root/.profile
export DISPLAY=:0
In file /etc/hosts remove . (dot) at the end of line localhost.
127.0.0.1 localhost
In file /root/.erlang
io:format("Running Erlang from root~n"). code:add_patha("/root/trunk").
Copy Xauthority from host
scp .Xauthority phone:/root
Add localhost to it with xauth
xauth add OpenWrt/unix:0 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 cfcc5ef98f9718f90154f355c0ae9f62 exit cp .Xauthority /
Include erlang VM in the boot process, simply add a line to /etc/init.d/x11 right after Xorg:
start() { export DISPLAY=":0" config_load x11 Xorg $ARGS & erl -setcookie SFEWRG34AFDSGAFG35235 -name neo@192.168.0.202 -noshell -pa /root/trunk -s main start > debug.txt }
This section is about setting up and do some work on your development system. It can be a PC with Linux or Windows, or it can be a Mac.
Before you start configuring SciTE, make sure ssh, scp and rsh works from a terminal window. Read USB_Networking to get it working. I have to run this script whenever I connect the neo to the host
#!/bin/bash ifconfig usb0 192.168.0.200 netmask 255.255.255.0 /sbin/route add -host 192.168.0.202/32 dev usb0 echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward iptables -A POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE -s 192.168.0.0/24 iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
Download from here http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html and install. If you have apt-get it can be as easy as
sudo apt-get install scite
Start SciTE and select menu Options|Open Global Options and uncomment
#Erlang|erl||\
and at other lines where erlang is a comment. You may have to start SciTE as root to do this. (To uncomment you just delete the hash at the beginning of the line).
Create a file named SciTE.properties in your erlang source directory.
# SciTE.properties is the per directory local options file and can be used to # override settings made in SciTEGlobal.properties, SciTEUser.properties and # SciTEDirectory.properties. command.compile.*.erl=erlc $(FileName).erl command.go.subsystem.*.erl=0 command.go.*.erl=erl -noshell -s $(FileName) start command.subsystem.1.*.erl=0 command.name.1.*.erl=svn update command.1.*.erl= svn update $(FileNameExt) command.name.2.*.erl= svn ci command.2.*.erl= svn ci -m '$(4)' $(FileNameExt) command.name.3.*.erl=svn co command.3.*.erl=*svn co $(1) command.name.4.*.erl=svn status command.4.*.erl= svn status command.name.5.*.erl=hot code loading command.5.*.erl=erl -noshell -setcookie SFEWRG34AFDSGAFG35235 -name moko2@192.168.0.200 -eval "net_adm:ping('neo@192.168.0.202'), c:nl($(FileName))." -s init stop command.subsystem.6.*.erl=0 command.name.6.*.erl=copy to Freerunner command.6.*.erl= scp $(FileName).beam phone:/root/trunk/ command.subsystem.7.*.erl=0 command.name.7.*.erl=add to subversion command.7.*.erl= svn add $(FileNameExt) abbreviations.*.erl=$(SciteUserHome)/erl_abbrev.properties line.margin.visible=1 line.margin.width=2+ style.*.33
Finally its starting to be interesting, how is the Aphasia system built? It's not very common to build systems in Erlang, and definitely rare to build GUI code in it.
I'm using vector graphics to produce new widgets. Vector graphics is lightweight and programmable, easy to scale and rotate, and the bytesize is small. Use any vector-capable drawing application. I happen to use AutoCAD LT on Wine, but please suggest an open source alternative and I will be happy to create another small conversion program to translate the new drawing file to erlang source. If you have access to AutoCAD, take dxf2erl.erl from here
Screencast here
Screencast here
Aphasia is built for people with different communicative disabilities. Menus where ruled out from the Aphasia GUI from the very beginning due to the fact that you don't even have to have a disability to get lost in a miniature menu system.
Instead I'm using a positioning system where services (I'll talk about those later) are laid out on a large surface (surface of the earth actually) and you can reach a service by swiping the screen in different directions. Another much cooler way to reach a service is when you physically go to a certain place in "real life" (like Jane did in this [[Aphasia] narrative]). How we accomplish this is covered in the GPS section.
A service is often described as a contract between a consumer and a producer. When you go to the barber you know you will get a shave (if you are a man). The service is the implicit contract between you and the barber that he will shave not rub. There are many barber shops down the street offering essentially the same service, so there can be many service producers for one service.
And in the Aphasia system, each service producer is a separate Erlang process. All services are running in parallell, just like in real life. The Erlang VM is quite different from other platforms in that respect, thousands or tens of thousands of processes running at the same time is not uncommon in a well designed Erlang system.
Where should we start if not with the GSM service producer (I will use the name GSM process from now on). What kind of service can we expect from the GSM process, can we expect it to offer a bearer between our phone and some other. What kind of signals we are sending on that bearer is not included in the service contract.
The GSM process is always on, it's also invisible. Most processes can display themselves on the screen but the GSM process does never show up, it's running in the background listening and reacting to the different signals coming from the Calypso GSM chip. It is also checking it's own mailbox for messages. Every Erlang process have a private mailbox. It can also send messages to other processes. If the Calypso GSM chip gets an incomming call, the GSM process sends a message to the Userland process to start the Dialer process. The Userland process is the mother of all other processes, and can, if something nasty should happen in the Dialer process, kill it off and start a new Dialer process. That's how Erlang can have 5 nines.
The mother of all Aphasia processes. This process can display itself on the screen. It's an empty fullscreen window. And that is the first thing it does, displays itself. Then it creates two backend processes, the GSM process that you already know about, and the GPS process I only mentioned before.
Then it goes into it's main loop. All Erlang processes have a main loop where they receive messages and send messages (if they are built to stay alive). [TBD]