Trapped in a Moko world

Photo by OZinOH

I am currently trapped in a OpenMoko world, trapped between SHR and Debian.

SHR
Has all the latest and greatest phone software.
And even the latest and greatest phone UI and FSO stack does not have the stability or speed of even the cheapest feature phones yet.

So I want the latest in phone software, even trough it always makes upgrading a risky buisness.
Unfortunately often I can not get the OE build system working , even if my life had depended on it.

No problem I just install the needed software for development on the phone SD card right?
In theory it should work, but even basic things like subversion is missing from the SHR repositories.
(and git and cvs for that matter as well)

Debian
Has all the development toys I could dream of.
Development is easier that pie, just apt-get the things you need and work as usual.
Sure it does not compile as fast as my dual core 2 desktop, but eventually it finishes, and it “just works tm”.
(Actually it compile acceptably fast, even Emacs runs acceptably on it)

But here is the catch…
The Debian maintainer team just can not keep up with the ever changing list of requirements and broken versions of software.
So one is stuck with older versions of the primary software for the phone… The phone software…
This would not be so bad if we had a basic stable semi fast baseline

Conclusion/Final words
I have recently put SHR on my SD card replacing the Debian install that used to reside there.
But this does not quite satisfy me.

I suppose I have a big itch and now I just need find some time to scratch it…

Give a man a program, frustrate him for a day. Teach a man to program, frustrate him for life.

Progress not always for the better…

I have “ported” my rotozoomer from the Nokia 770 to the FreeRunner/Neo

For a video output speed comparison I have made a video of it running on a Nokia 770, a Neo and a FreeRunner side by side.

Rotozoomer Demo on YouTube

The result is somewhat sad, but judge for your self.
Just remember that the 770 has 1.25 times the pixel count of the Neo and it is a lot older too.

Sources are obtainable from the Maemo Garage page.

Standup for your freedom…

I finally got feed up with having my FreeRunner laying flat on the table.
So I decided that it was time to construct a stand for it.

I had some 3mm extruded polystyrene laying around (which I use for building model R/C planes).
It is actually just floor insulating material…

The parts

Created a simple design for a cradle/stand for the Freerunner.
Sources are include, batteries are not needed.

The assembled stand

The parts glued together.
(Using “UHU Por”, but regular wood glue would have worked as well.)

The paper was intentionally left on as the floor insulation has groves on one side.

MokoStand after 2 coats of acrylic paint

Painted the stand to hide the paper and give it a more uniform look.

A tale of swap

A couple of days ago I ran an apt-get operation on my newly reinstalled Freerunner.
Around 30% it paused.
At first I did not think much of it as the first apt-get operation after a boot usually takes longer as the files it uses are not cached in RAM.

After some time I started to get annoyed, apt-get had obviously hung it self.
Tried to start top, everything was bogged down, finally it started.
First thing that struck my eye, a load of 6!
Second thing, most of the processes did not use that much CPU.
Third thing, no swap.

I issued the swapon command, almost immediate improvement.
Something had started eating memory and fast, swap usage climbed like a R/C glider.
It did however level out at some 20-30MB, and best of all apt-get started moving again.

Conclusion:

1. Swap can improve the operating speed of a Freerunner (might wear the SD card faster, but who cares?)
2. I hope the next generation free cell phone has more RAM
3. Apt seems to have some sort of slow fall back in case it can not malloc the RAM it wants. (kudos to the developers of apt for this feature)

Debian and the Freerunner

Some time ago I bought a Freerunner as an upgrade for my Neo 1973, I was going to wait for the GTA03 but as you all know it got delayed indefinitely.

Why Debian.
Q) Why Debian?
A) Well I like the fact that it comes with a ton of pre compiled software. Also it behaves just like my regular desktop computer: Development environment, just apt-get install a gcc compiler on the phone and you are set.

Q) Why not a Debian base distro like Neovento?
A) Yet another Debian distro, not again… Also it seems to be geared towards installation onto the internal flash, and I like to install large silly things like emacs, compilers, pcb, gschem, kicad. Also it uses LXDE and I just happen to like Matchbox for embedded devices.

Some historic events
Of course I had bought two Kingston SD-C02G 2GB microSD cards for the Neo 1973 which fails with I/O errors on the Freerunner typically me…
However there is a fix which works for me, well except that the Debian installer at that exact point in time was broken.
Quick fix: Just copy my Neo 1973 install using dd. Install the config for gta02. Works like a charm.

The actual “review”
I bought a Kingston SDC4/8GB as I would like to run the SD controller at full speed, I have not tested this yet but:
The Debian install went smoothly…

The Good

• Comes pre installed with matchbox, my favorite  window manager
• Trayer is installed and works just fine
• openmoko-panel-plugin is installed as default

The not quite so good

• No way of launching additional applications (no panel app with a start menu installed)
• I just can not seem to get the WLAN GUIs to work (they anr not installed by default either), command line WLAN works just fine.
• The default is still running the phone as root. Can not blame Debian as this is still the up stream/FSO way,  I just do not like it that is all.

Conclusion:
The Debian install had included some extra features as default since my last install.
How ever I would like some way of launching additional programs as default, if I just wanted to use zhone I could have installed a number of other distributions.
This can easily be fixed by installing additional software, I guess it is a matter of minimalism to allow the freedom of choice.
Debian still provides a good minimal install for customising your phone, also I like the apt-get upgrade option instead of the eternal complete  re-flash cycle I know from my Nokia N770

So you think you need a blog?

Well I did would have prefered one that ran on my primary webpage talpa.dk but this was faster to setup.

Why I would want one you ask?
Well as a quick way of writing down notes/hints and to inform the world of the progress of my software project, altleast the part of the world that might care.