Community Updates/2008-10-19

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* In addition to minimo, openmoko-browser2, and midori, we had a bunch of light and fast web browsers announced on the mailing list: [[http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv4t/base/ Fennec]]), [[http://www.dillo.org/ Dillo]] ([[http://misc.andi.de1.cc/dillo/dillo_2.0-r0_armv4t.ipk ipk]]), [http://www.netsurf-browser.org/ NetSurf] and links2. That makes about seven, working more or less well. Choice, choice, choice...
 
* In addition to minimo, openmoko-browser2, and midori, we had a bunch of light and fast web browsers announced on the mailing list: [[http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/2008/ipk/glibc/armv4t/base/ Fennec]]), [[http://www.dillo.org/ Dillo]] ([[http://misc.andi.de1.cc/dillo/dillo_2.0-r0_armv4t.ipk ipk]]), [http://www.netsurf-browser.org/ NetSurf] and links2. That makes about seven, working more or less well. Choice, choice, choice...
  
−
= Hot bugs and most discussed issues =
+
= Good fixes and discussed issues =
−
* Wifi
+
 
−
* Digital Audio Playing
+
Many good news:
−
* Kernels currently has the APM power management interface is still compiled. This has been deprecated for years and must go away, preferably sooner than later. Hopefully ''apm -s'' should still work for suspend, or do we need something else ?
+
* There is a fix for ticket [https://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/2038 2038] about Qtopia USSD requests, so that dialing "*123" or "#4" should work soon.
−
* Powersaving patches landed in stable-2.6.26 on October 8th. Note to application developpers: the best way to [http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/openmoko-kernel/2008-October/005542.html blank the screen] to conserve power is the fbdev-ioctl method. I think that ''xset s 5'' should do it. Thanks to the HaralDd and the Swisscom research project !
+
* There is a fix for ticket [http://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/1024 1024] GSM keeps reregistering bug, a.k.a. [http://moko.mwester.net/brc.html bouncing Calypso issue]. The workaround is to prevent the model from entering deep sleep, and it has been commited to the QTopia images already.
−
* There is a workaround to the [http://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/1024 GSM keeps reregistering bug], a.k.a. [http://moko.mwester.net/brc.html bouncing Calypso issue]: prevent the model from entering deep sleep.
+
* Powersaving patches landed in stable-2.6.26 on October 8th. Note to application developpers: the best way to [http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/openmoko-kernel/2008-October/005542.html blank the screen] to conserve power is the fbdev-ioctl method. I think that ''xset s 5'' should do it. Thanks to the Harald and the Swisscom research project !
−
* Unstable development of OM is moving back to OE.
+
−
* [http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/devel/2008-October/002688.html Test reports]
+
−
* Fix [https://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/2038 Qtopia USSD] requests, so one can dial "*123" or "#4".
+
 
* OM announced two hires: Ray Chao, to work full-time in Taipei on the infrastructure, and Christopher Hall, a very experienced software engineer.
 
* OM announced two hires: Ray Chao, to work full-time in Taipei on the infrastructure, and Christopher Hall, a very experienced software engineer.
 +
* Infrastructure-wise, unstable development of OM is moving back to OE.
 +
 +
And many bugs still remaining, see [http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/devel/2008-October/002688.html Test reports] for example. Most of the grief heard these days was about Digital Audio Playing and Wifi. I would like to make an unrequested announcement for the sake of the good vertical communication: Kernels currently has the APM power management interface is still compiled in. This has been deprecated for years and is doomed to go away. Hopefully ''apm -s'' will still work for suspend, but userspace applications that still use the deprecated apm interface SHOULD take action, preferably sooner than later.
  
 
= Community =
 
= Community =

Revision as of 18:51, 19 October 2008

Hello all, welcome to Openmoko Community October 19th newsletter. The big news this time are opkg.org and the new Openmoko engineering team focusing back to the basics on Improving user experience.

Contents

Images

Things were rather quiet on the distribution front. Rasterman's October 11th images (source) were put online. This is not really a distribution, but rather a demonstration that illume runs well and is so beautiful, for others distros to grab. We also saw daily SHR image builds online, no release yet but available for testing. And Qi, the next bootloader, recently got resume support.Testing shows that it is much faster than uboot indeed, but no release yet.

Applications

Everybody applauded when Tobias announced http://opkg.org , an online directory of applications (think Freshmeat, Tucows...). The database is community-driven, everybody can register and index applications. In the flow of community developped utilities, I noticed:

  • the initial release of OpenMooCow, a nice, funny and useless bovine noise simulator.
  • Optimizations on Rotate. This is an interesting example of competition and cooperation, because there are several versions being developed in parallel, with ideas jumping across all the time.
  • The Gestures GSoC project developper managed to convince his academic instructors to let him code on the FreeRunner for his degree. Future developments coming at http://AccelSense.org
  • Auxlaunch is a very simple, finger-friendly application launcher and window switcher for the Freerunner. It appears when the "AUX" button is pressed.

With respect to porting other applications to our favorite platform, I read that powertop actually runs on the FreeRunner. For your information, this is an utility that allows to measure and therefore optimize power usage. Also:

  • FBReader an e-book reader programme now available for Debian and 2008.8
  • Sander ported Pingus the free lemmings clone, for OE based distributions (it was already available on Debian).
  • In addition to minimo, openmoko-browser2, and midori, we had a bunch of light and fast web browsers announced on the mailing list: [Fennec]), [Dillo] ([ipk]), NetSurf and links2. That makes about seven, working more or less well. Choice, choice, choice...

Good fixes and discussed issues

Many good news:

  • There is a fix for ticket 2038 about Qtopia USSD requests, so that dialing "*123" or "#4" should work soon.
  • There is a fix for ticket 1024 GSM keeps reregistering bug, a.k.a. bouncing Calypso issue. The workaround is to prevent the model from entering deep sleep, and it has been commited to the QTopia images already.
  • Powersaving patches landed in stable-2.6.26 on October 8th. Note to application developpers: the best way to blank the screen to conserve power is the fbdev-ioctl method. I think that xset s 5 should do it. Thanks to the Harald and the Swisscom research project !
  • OM announced two hires: Ray Chao, to work full-time in Taipei on the infrastructure, and Christopher Hall, a very experienced software engineer.
  • Infrastructure-wise, unstable development of OM is moving back to OE.

And many bugs still remaining, see Test reports for example. Most of the grief heard these days was about Digital Audio Playing and Wifi. I would like to make an unrequested announcement for the sake of the good vertical communication: Kernels currently has the APM power management interface is still compiled in. This has been deprecated for years and is doomed to go away. Hopefully apm -s will still work for suspend, but userspace applications that still use the deprecated apm interface SHOULD take action, preferably sooner than later.

Community

  • Openmoko's engineering team met for a 3 weeks workshop in Taipei, they decided to focus back on the basics, that is to leave the Installer, Locations, Diversity and Settings applications alone for a while. Then there was a long
  • The planet got long, detailed informative posts, such as the wrap-up of the "Lost community" thread. When someone makes a request on the mailing list, it is a mark of good netizenship to summarize the answers on one's blog like this (or on the wiki).
  • There were discussions on what would be the job description of a community manager and decisions on lowering barriers to participation (i.e. access to write priviledges in code repositories) happened.
  • An interesting stylus alternative was documented using Pouch a guitar pick attached to the pouch lanyard.

Outside Openmoko

  • Linux 2.6.27 released.
  • Pulseaudio released version 0.9.13 with experimental support for Bluetooth devices.
Retrieved from "http://openmoko.org/index.php?title=Community_Updates/2008-10-19&oldid=57519"
Personal tools

Hello all, welcome to Openmoko Community October 19th newsletter. The big news this time are opkg.org and the new Openmoko engineering team focusing back to the basics on Improving user experience.

Images

Things were rather quiet on the distribution front. Rasterman's October 11th images (source) were put online. This is not really a distribution, but rather a demonstration that illume runs well and is so beautiful, for others distros to grab. We also saw daily SHR image builds online, no release yet but available for testing. And Qi, the next bootloader, recently got resume support.Testing shows that it is much faster than uboot indeed, but no release yet.

Applications

Everybody applauded when Tobias announced http://opkg.org , an online directory of applications (think Freshmeat, Tucows...). The database is community-driven, everybody can register and index applications. In the flow of community developped utilities, I noticed:

  • the initial release of OpenMooCow, a nice, funny and useless bovine noise simulator.
  • Optimizations on Rotate. This is an interesting example of competition and cooperation, because there are several versions being developed in parallel, with ideas jumping across all the time.
  • The Gestures GSoC project developper managed to convince his academic instructors to let him code on the FreeRunner for his degree. Future developments coming at http://AccelSense.org
  • Auxlaunch is a very simple, finger-friendly application launcher and window switcher for the Freerunner. It appears when the "AUX" button is pressed.

With respect to porting other applications to our favorite platform, I read that powertop actually runs on the FreeRunner. For your information, this is an utility that allows to measure and therefore optimize power usage. Also:

  • FBReader an e-book reader programme now available for Debian and 2008.8
  • Sander ported Pingus the free lemmings clone, for OE based distributions (it was already available on Debian).
  • In addition to minimo, openmoko-browser2, and midori, we had a bunch of light and fast web browsers announced on the mailing list: [Fennec]), [Dillo] ([ipk]), NetSurf and links2. That makes about seven, working more or less well. Choice, choice, choice...

Good fixes and discussed issues

Many good news:

  • There is a fix for ticket 2038 about Qtopia USSD requests, so that dialing "*123" or "#4" should work soon.
  • There is a fix for ticket 1024 GSM keeps reregistering bug, a.k.a. bouncing Calypso issue. The workaround is to prevent the model from entering deep sleep, and it has been commited to the QTopia images already.
  • Powersaving patches landed in stable-2.6.26 on October 8th. Note to application developpers: the best way to blank the screen to conserve power is the fbdev-ioctl method. I think that xset s 5 should do it. Thanks to the Harald and the Swisscom research project !
  • OM announced two hires: Ray Chao, to work full-time in Taipei on the infrastructure, and Christopher Hall, a very experienced software engineer.
  • Infrastructure-wise, unstable development of OM is moving back to OE.

And many bugs still remaining, see Test reports for example. Most of the grief heard these days was about Digital Audio Playing and Wifi. I would like to make an unrequested announcement for the sake of the good vertical communication: Kernels currently has the APM power management interface is still compiled in. This has been deprecated for years and is doomed to go away. Hopefully apm -s will still work for suspend, but userspace applications that still use the deprecated apm interface SHOULD take action, preferably sooner than later.

Community

  • Openmoko's engineering team met for a 3 weeks workshop in Taipei, they decided to focus back on the basics, that is to leave the Installer, Locations, Diversity and Settings applications alone for a while. Then there was a long
  • The planet got long, detailed informative posts, such as the wrap-up of the "Lost community" thread. When someone makes a request on the mailing list, it is a mark of good netizenship to summarize the answers on one's blog like this (or on the wiki).
  • There were discussions on what would be the job description of a community manager and decisions on lowering barriers to participation (i.e. access to write priviledges in code repositories) happened.
  • An interesting stylus alternative was documented using Pouch a guitar pick attached to the pouch lanyard.

Outside Openmoko

  • Linux 2.6.27 released.
  • Pulseaudio released version 0.9.13 with experimental support for Bluetooth devices.