Getting Started with your Neo FreeRunner
From Openmoko
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Thank you for purchasing this Developer release of Neo FreeRunner. The Neo FreeRunner phone is the second hardware platform to take advantage of Openmoko. This guide will help you get to know your Neo FreeRunner and how to start using your Neo FreeRunner. |
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Contents |
Package Contents
- Neo FreeRunner
- Stylus
- Battery
- Charger
- USB Cable (A -> Mini-B 5-pole)
- microSD Card 512MB & SD adapter
Setting up the hardware, getting to know the Neo FreeRunner physically
Installing the Micro-SD card, the SIM card, and the Battery
- Remove the rear cover of the Neo FreeRunner by first holding the Neo FreeRunner on the side and then use your fingernail to prise off the rear cover at the slot on top of the device.
- Now you should be able to locate the combined SIM and Micro-SD card holder at the bottom of the battery compartment.
- Unlock the SIM card holder by sliding the metal clip down, towards the USB socket, with your fingernail. Use caution, as these parts are delicate and could be damaged by forcing them in the wrong direction.
- Lift up on the SIM card holder.
- The Micro-SD card holder is held in place by a latch on either side. It is easiest to open the Micro-SD card holder by releasing these latches one at a time rather than by lifting from the middle, as lifting from the middle tends to increase the latching pressure. A small screwdriver or knife can be used for this.
- Insert the Micro-SD card into the Micro-SD card holder. Note that on the inside of metal part of the holder there are little holding tabs for the card. Slide the card in these holders (on the metal part) before closing the card holder. Note that the electrical contacts should face down and towards the edge of the Neo Freerunner.
- Close the Micro-SD card holder, making sure that both latches of the holder are securely fastened.
- Insert the SIM card into the SIM card holder, taking care to slide inside the two metal tabs in the cover. Note that the electrical contacts should face down and that the cut corner should be closest to the external GPS Antenna Socket.
- Close the SIM card holder and lock it by sliding the metal clip towards the external GPS Antenna Socket on the FreeRunner.
- Insert the battery into the battery compartment, aligning the electrical contacts on the battery with the electrical contacts in the battery compartment. Insert the side with the electrical contacts first.
- Replace the rear cover on the FreeRunner.
[A short video] is also available. It was shot using the previous version of the Neo, but the installation procedures remains the same.
Charging the Neo FreeRunner
When using the Neo FreeRunner for the first time, you should charge the battery completely. The battery can be charged using the provided charger (at 1000mA) or from a powered USB port capable of providing 500mA worth of current. Most computers will be able to charge the FreeRunner without any problems.
Charging an empty battery at 100mA takes 12~15 hours, at 500mA takes 2,5~3,5 hours, and at 1000mA takes 1.5~2.5 hours. (90%~100%) [to be confirmed]
Make sure that the battery never discharges completely. This is an issue because the internal charging circuitry can not be turned on until the FreeRunner has booted, and booting through USB power alone does not work. Should the battery become completely discharged, your options are: - Use external stand-alone charger (compatible with the Nokia BL-5C battery) - Boot the FreeRunner with an alternative battery, or with a spare GTA01 or GTA02 battery, plug USB power, then switch to the empty battery. - Boot the FreeRunner with a 4.5VDC external power source (steady hand and great care involved), plug USB power, then insert the empty battery.
Buttons and connectors
Power
Tapping the power button exits the current application. Holding the power button brings up a menu allowing you to:
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Aux
Holding the Aux button brings up a menu allowing you to:
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Unlocking the screen
When the screen is locked, you should see a Matrix-style green graphic with the Openmoko symbol in the middle of the bottom of the screen along with lock and unlock symbols. If you drag the Openmoko symbol to the unlock symbol at the top then the screen will become unlocked.
Note: this section describes the interface used by the "2007.2" image, which is the current default image for Openmoko.
Today Page
Openmoko starts by displaying the "Today" page, which is your home page. Icons in the top row indicate the status of the phone. The bottom row consists of three tabs. The tab with a home on the left lead to the "Today" page you're viewing now. The central tab lead to the "Launch Task" page, which is the main menu used to start applications. The tab with gears on the right lead to the "Running Tasks" page, which is used to deal with currently open windows and applications.
See Today/2007.2 for more information about the Today page and customization.
Launch Task Page
Stub: This is a stub. You can help OpenMokoWiki by expanding it. |
Current categories are PIM Suite, Applications, Games, Utilities, and All.
Running Tasks Page
Stub: This is a stub. You can help OpenMokoWiki by expanding it. |
Exiting an Application
Any time an application is running, you can simply click the device's power button and the application will exit, returning you to the Today page.
Alternatively, you can switch tasks at any time by clicking the menu of tasks at the far upper-left of the screen, which will display a list of running tasks, allowing you to select one.
(Note: If the task menu is not shown, use the Aux button to bring up the Aux menu, and select "Toggle Fullscreen".)
Using the terminal
To start a console from "Today" page, click the middle tab at the bottom of the screen to display the "Launch applications" page, then select Terminal in the "Applications" submenu. The multitaps keyboard slides up (and down) from the bottom of the screen automatically when you touch the screen.
Setting date and time
As of this writing, I have not found a way to setup the date and time graphically. Open the terminal application and issue one of the following commands:
date -s MMDDhhmm date -s MMDDhhmmYYYY date -s MMDDhhmmYYYY.ss
where MM is the month, 01-12; DD is the day, 01-31; hhmm is the time, 0000-2359; YYYY is the optional year, and .ss is the optional seconds. See Setting_Date_and_Time for more discussion.
Adjusting the Volume
As of this writing, there is no way to adjust the volume from the screen.
For now, run the terminal application or log in via usb, and run the alsamixer application. The mixer is simpler than it looks. Just use the left and right arrow keys to select "headphone" or "PCM" and use the up and down arrow keys to adjust the volume. You can also adjust your microphone volume with the "mic2" adjustment. Press ESC when finished. Then exit the terminal application or log out of the USB login.
You may need to update configuration files in /usr/share/openmoko/scenarios/ to make the microphone setting permanent. Use
alsactl -f path-to-statefile store
to do this.
The default files are as follows (in /usr/share/openmoko/scenarios/):
- gsmhandset.state
- gsmheadset.state
- gsmspeakerout.state
- headset.state
- stereoout.state
These correspond to the various Sound Profiles accessible in the Debug Tool under Applications.
One way to increase the volume of the microphone is to do the following:
- ssh into your Freerunner
- vi /usr/share/openmoko/scenarios/gsmhandset.state
- search for "Mic2"
- change to "value 3"
Accessing the microSD card
Mounted at /media/card by default.
If you have multiple partitions on the card, the first (/dev/mmcblk0p1) will be mounted at /media/card, the second at /media/mmcblk0p2, the third at /media/mmcblk0p3 etc.
Set up USB-based networking and update
Connect with and log in the Neo FreeRunner
Connect the Neo FreeRunner to your Linux computer using the standard mini-USB to USB cable provided.
With the device connected,
modprobe usbnet
(if necessary) and configure usb0 interface (as root):
ifconfig usb0 192.168.0.200 netmask 255.255.255.0
If your eth0 interface is also in the same 'range' (e.g. 192.168.0.105) then you can do the following:
1. ping the Neo with
# ping -I usb0 192.168.0.202
2. add a route to your Neo (adjust your firewall if necessary):
# /sbin/route add -host 192.168.0.202/32 dev usb0
3 log in to the Neo with empty password
# ssh root@192.168.0.202
You will eventually want to setup your computer so that it automatically connects the Neo FreeRunner to the Internet when it is plugged in. This is discussed in the USB_Networking section, which you should see if the procedure above fails.
Setup DNS
In order to use the package manager, a DNS server should be defined. To achieve this, ssh into the Neo FreeRunner and create a file /etc/resolv.conf with at least one line reading:
nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
e.g. nameserver 192.168.1.1
If you are unsure as to which nameserver IP address to use, a valid IP is typically available in the /etc/resolv.conf file of your host system. You will eventually want to setup the Neo so that it automatically finds a DNS server. This is discussed in the USB_Networking section.
Use the package manager
There are three layers to the software on the FreeRunner:
- uBoot: Think of u-boot as a combination of the BIOS and Grub on a PC.
- Kernel: The Linux kernel
- Root Filesystem: The rest of the system
In order to keep the FreeRunner up-to-date with the latest features and bug-fixes, it is advisable update the software at regular intervals. There are two main methods of doing this: using the package manager opkg (discussed in this section) or flashing the device.
uboot, the kernel and the root filesystem can all be flashed to update them. For uboot, this is the only possibility. The advantage of flashing the kernel, rather than using opkg seems to be speed. The disadvantage of flashing the root file system is that it wipes out all local modifications, including /home. If /home is moved to the SD disk, this is no longer a problem.
Assuming that your FreeRunner can access the internet (see above), the kernel and other packages can be updated with
# opkg update # opkg upgrade
The first updates the repository information, telling opkg what packages are available. The second upgrades all packages for which a newer version is available. At the moment, some signature files are missing (404 errors), which opkg complains about, but this is cosmetic. The repositories will still update with the missing signature files.
Note that running opkg upgrade on a factory-fresh phone will upgrade dropbear (the ssh software) and various xserver packages, and neither upgrades elegantly while in use, so either upgrade dropbear from the FreeRunner's terminal and then upgrade the rest via ssh, or upgrade the xserver packages via ssh and then upgrade the rest from the FreeRunner's terminal. For example, go to the FreeRunner terminal and type:
# opkg install dropbear
which will upgrade it to the latest version. Then connect to the FreeRunner via ssh and type:
# opkg upgrade
If you do your first upgrade in two installments like this, it will go more smoothly.
It will be possible in the future to update uboot with opkg, but this has not yet been implemented
Installing multimedia, web browsing and other applications
There are many applications you can install - check out the Repositories for a list of packages.
The calendar can be installed with
opkg install openmoko-dates2
For a Media Player:
opkg install openmoko-mediaplayer2 wget http://abraxa.dyndns.org:81/random/openmoko-mediaplayer-theme.tar.bz2 tar xjf openmoko-mediaplayer-theme.tar.bz2 -C /usr/share/themes/Moko/gtk-2.0 rm openmoko-mediaplayer-theme.tar.bz2
If you want a basic image viewer, have a look at the one from the gpe suite:
opkg install gpe-icons opkg install gpe-gallery
To obtain the standard web browser, use:
opkg install openmoko-browser2
An alternative browser, minimo, offers many more features. First download and unpack it on your GNU/Linux host:
wget http://www.ginguppin.de/files/minimo.tar.bz2 tar jvxf minimo.tar.bz2
Copy it over to the FreeRunner:
scp minimo_* root@openmoko:/tmp
Then on the FreeRunner:
opkg install /tmp/minimo_0.02\+cvs20070626-r0_armv4t.ipk
You'll probably also want to change the keyboard including the keyboard toggle applet
Importing contacts
If you can export your contacts to VCard format, either multiple files or single file containing all of them, you may use the script on Import Vcf Contacts page to bring them to Neo.
The next steps
Congratulations for setting up your Neo FreeRunner. There are many more ressources to help free your phone:
Customize the interface: clock, keyboard...
The stock Openmoko2007.2 image flashed onto the Neo FreeRunner is really just the bare bones. For example, you don't have the clock and the quick-launch icons showing. Here's how you can change that:
# dbus-launch gconftool-2 -t boolean -s /desktop/poky/interface/reduced false # /etc/init.d/xserver-nodm restart
If you rather have a regular clock instead of the digital one, do this instead:
# dbus-launch gconftool-2 -t boolean -s /desktop/poky/interface/reduced false # dbus-launch gconftool-2 -t boolean -s /desktop/poky/interface/digital_clock false # /etc/init.d/xserver-nodm restart
More information about today screen customization at Today/2007.2.
With either clock, you may wish to set the correct Date and Timezone.
Also, if you prefer having a full keyboard, using matchbox's qwerty keybord, see these instructions. Then you may also see these, which describe a way to add an applet allowing the showing/hiding of that keyboard.
GPS, GPRS and WLAN
See GTA02 WLAN about wifi. See Manually using GPRS.
Simple guide to get going with GPS:
# opkg install gpsd # echo "GPS_DEV=\"/dev/ttySAC1\"" > /etc/default/gpsd
and restart gpsd, the gps daemon, with
# /etc/init.d/gpsd restart
To test GPS, you can use agpsui:
# opkg install openmoko-agpsui
For a nice map, try tangoGPS:
# opkg install http://www.tangogps.org/downloads/tangogps_0.9.2-r1_armv4t.ipk
More information on GPS page.
According to some posts, GPRS might be broken currently (2007.2), though. There are also critical GPS Problems. To install the updates when they become available, you will probably want to learn about Booting the Neo FreeRunner and Flashing the Neo FreeRunner.
The community
Mailing lists
There are several [Mailing lists]
There is an active community mailing list. You may ask for help on the support mailing list : more details at https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
An excellent tool for searching all the openmoko mailing lists is http://openmoko.markmail.org/
The wiki
If you want to know more about the Neo FreeRunner then you can get more information in the following topics:
- GTA02 Openness
- Neo FreeRunner
- Neo FreeRunner GTA02 Hardware
- FreeRunner/Buttons and LEDs
- Latest Images
- Distributions
To search this wiki with Google, use the following search term:
<search term> site:http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/
Blogs
The collection of blogs on OpenMoko.