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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