Community Updates/2011-02-01

Debian is a universal operating system used on many embedded devices, servers and home computers. Using Debian on the FreeRunner gives access to the huge army of software packaged in the Debian repositories, already compiled for the Neo's ARM(v4) processor. Moreover, one can build one's own source files for programs without having to learn the OpenEmbedded way. For an existing Debian/Ubuntu user, choosing Debian for Neo FreeRunner makes phone a very familiar, trustworthy and flexible place to hack in.

General news:

• Third Openmoko specific Linux 2.6.34 kernel is available. Highlights:
  • Merge from qtmoko-v31 (2.6.34.7 stable patches, GPS suspend patch, resume reason patch)
  • Disable sysrq, unneededEXT4 support, UbiFS support
  • Configuration wishlist items: NFSv4, XATTR for EXT*, CONFIG_TASK_DELAY_ACCT, CONFIG_TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING, CONFIG_OPENMOKO_RESUME_REASON
  • Caveats: 1) No updated fso-config-gta02 yet in Debian, get your state files from eg. http://iki.fi/tjyrinki/moko/2.6.34/ 2) X.Org eats all the CPU unless you disable AutoAddDevices or remove extra /dev/input files, 3) Sys paths have changed, so you most probably want to add "om gsm power 1" to /etc/rc.local (and install newest omhacks from pkg-fso if you already haven't)
• Debian 6.0 is nearing completion! Planned release date is the weekend of FOSDEM, ie. 5/6th of February, 2011. For Neo FreeRunner, the Debian 6.0 status is the following:
  • No Openmoko support in the Debian kernel yet, you need to install one from pkg-fso repository: http://pkg-fso.nomeata.de/sid/allpackages
  • Otherwise you could survive with official, released Debian packages, but you are probably interested...
    • Newer versions of fso-config-gta02, fso-frameworkd and omhacks in pkg-fso
    • E17 wasn't released on time for Debian 6.0, so you need to get it from unstable (sid) repositories, or after the Debian 6.0 release from testing (wheezy in case of 7.0) to get for example Zhone software working
• Omhacks has seen updates to work on 2.6.37 kernel
• Mokomaze sources were cleaned of non-free files

Codename: 'sid'
Homepage: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianOnFreeRunner
Image: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Debian

Qtmoko is a Debian + qtopia based distribution for FreeRunner. v30 is a minor update, the changelog is very short:

• fixed headset jack detection
• Danish translations (Ole Carlsen)
• GPRS fix (Timo Juhani Lindfors)
• battery_platform for dumb batteries as module
• force GPS power up on resume (Gennady Kupava)

• First stable release using the 2.6.34 kernel
• fixed invisible call button in finximod theme (Joif)
• translated to French (Gregoire Juge)
• updated Danish translation (Ole Carlsen)
• better layout in docked keyboard
• commented completion strip in docked keyboard
• VT not switch to graphics which fixes X hang in VT_WAITACTIVE (Gennady+Me)
• fix QX crash after pause/resume
• using openssh-server instead of dropbear again

Codename: 'v30'
Homepage: http://www.qtmoko.org
Image: images

The image is based on the 2010.12 release of OpenEmbedded and has latest versions of E, SHR and FSO apps. Since last testing a lot has changed:

• Switch to illume2 as illume(1) isn't maintained anymore
• Switch from ogsmd to much faster fsogsmd
• Switch to 2.6.34 kernel (without KMS because this causes some problems with SD-cards for some SHR-u users)
• Everything faster ;)
• And much more i don't remember

• Default feed is now the correct one.
• Fixed a bug in the GSM Gadget which caused a segfault of E

• There is a problem with the autostart of applications in E, because of that the shr_elm_softkey is not always started.
• The wizard is only working if you wait until FSO is fully started (When FSO is started the display started dimming). If you don't want to wait that long you can exit the wizard with the "Exit" button and do the configurations in shr-settings afterwards.

• All feed packages not in the full image.
• All day usage (so GPRS/GPS after several suspends)

Codename: 'RC1'
Homepage: http://wiki.shr-project.org
Image: download