Community update, Dec. 1st, 2008

Minh Ha Duong haduong at centre-cired.fr
Mon Dec 1 22:05:20 CET 2008


Dear friends,

Good evening/day/afternoon (whatever your TZ is). This is our sixth "community 
community update". Congratulations to Valério, he won the first 24h-coding 
prize at Sapo Codebits by turning freerunner in a mouse and gamepad using the 
accelerometers. Code will be merged with ReMoko. Another month goes by 
without a 2008.x release, but Openmoko's optimization team invites volunteers 
to install the latest testing image and report. And we have lots of newer 
applications.

Contents (read the hypertext version at :
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Community_Updates/December_1st%2C_2008 )

    * 1 Applications
    * 2 Distributions
    * 3 Hardware
    * 4 Kernel and bootloaders
    * 5 Community

[edit] Applications

    * A new Pong game.
    * Newrotate 0.5 is out, uses really little CPU now.
    * Gtkaddpoi 0.5 : software to add a Point Of Interest to TangoGPS.
    * neoqplayer 0.1 : codenamed frog. A media player that conserves CPU 
cycles.
    * First release of TwitterMoko, a twitter client for openmoko.
    * ShortOm 0.2 : an application/shell launcher.
    * openmoko-panel-plugin 0.6 : support for fso frameworkd milestone 4.
    * Unison works. It is a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It 
determines all differences between two directory trees and lets the user 
decide, how to proceed with every differing file.
    * OpenMooCow 0.2. Mooes more, runs headless, tickleable.
    * AaTerm, an improved openmoko-terminal2.
    * Azmodie proposed a solution for right and middle clicking: Use the gnome 
accessibility tool mousetweaks (.deb).
    * Auxlaunch 0.6, a finger-friendly app launcher and window switcher. 
Bugfixes/integration update. 

[edit] Distributions

    * SHR: a newer snapshot is available.
    * ASU: The official 2008.9 image is back online without the questionable 
audio codecs. This month's 2008.11 is not going to see the light, but here 
are instructions to install the current 2008.testing build. It has all the 
goodies from optimization team (read their progress report, previous 
reports), i.e. about 1 minute boot and Volume control during call... The bug 
count is decreasing in the latest testing report. See also the previous 
testing report hardware revision A7 with capacitor was declared good for mess 
production ;).
    * For Android: Walter Chang made a soft keyboard. Rui Castro implemented 
an OnScreen Keyboard. It was immediately included in Sean's image, to be 
released at the usual page without mp3 support soon. Koolu posted an update 
on their release plans: they too are busy dealing with the audio codecs IP 
issue.
    * Following a post on the French wiki, the Distribution page was updated 
by adding FIVE new distros: Hackable:1, NeoPwn, RunningBear, Poky and PyNeo. 

[edit] Hardware

    * For an armband to hold the Freerunner while exercising, Gilles Casse 
recommends the UMC-3 from Case Logic.
    * Patrick Beck grafted a light on a miniusb - connector, to make an 
OpenMoko flash light. More lumens the bright white screen one get with the 
Flashlight script.
    * The official fix for buzzing is to add a 100uF capacity here and replace 
one resistor there. Technical details to be published in an Openmoko rework 
SOP paper. The company is looking at how to fix *all* devices sold.
    * The Calypso GSM firmware moko10 was released, it fixes ticket 666 for 
those users with 3G SIM cards. A few Indiana Jones types did try and follow 
the wiki instructions to reflash, most with success, some with hubris (def: 
excessive pride). For the rest of us, a user-friendly installer is being 
prepared. 

[edit] Kernel and bootloaders

Big bad bug of the month prize goes to ticket 1841 white screen of death 
(WSOD) after resume. This bug shows itself only by cold weather! Nicolas 
Dufresne found out that the culprit was probably a too tight timing in the 
JBT driver. Hopefully this will be fixed soon now, and we can all switch to 
Linux 2.6.28 happily everafter. Developers must read Andy's explanations 
about kernel branch management.

    * Preview upcoming changes to the /sys directory.
    * Improvements to the touchscreen, backlight and accelerometer kernel 
drivers.
    * Qi gets lots of GTA03 love, audio back and a memory test ability (called 
when there are no valid kernels).
    * The opkg package manager was patched to cache downloaded files. 

[edit] Community

    * Removed the tagcloud extension that messed up with page formatting.
    * There are many links to nice Ringtones on the wiki, but the page and the 
whole topic need a good overhaul.
    * GnuPhone here we come: Sten Kvamme explains how to make a call from the 
command line (on FSO).
    * For your pleasure, here is the OpenMoko Jokes page. Thanks to the 
community, keep them coming ;) We (Coolcat and I) are also thinking about 
adding a pic of the week to the homepage, so stay tuned.
    * Courtesy of Dale Maggee, here and here are a few funny splash screens. 
Note that you already trust Dale if you are using neotool to flash your Neo.
    * A few brave souls signed up to start a 3D driver for Glamo. 

Yours,
Minh




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