[Om2009] testing Release 3

Warren Baird photogeekmtl at gmail.com
Wed May 13 19:56:17 CEST 2009


Hi all,

I thought I'd share my experiences so far with the testing release.   I've
been using QT Extended 4.4.3 as my primary phone for more than 6 months now,
but I decided to try putting the OM2009 TR3 build on my SD card to give it a
shot.

I've only done minimal testing so far - I've been able to successfully make
and receive a phone call, and the first sms I sent work, however the second
one seemed to hang while saying 'sending' for quite a while.   I was very
happy to see that receiving a phone call while suspended woke up about as
quickly as QtE 4.4.3, so I was able to easily answer the call - unlike my
experience with OM 2008.

However, I'd have to say that coming from QT Extended, the paroli user
experience requires a *lot* of work - enough that my first thought was that
my install didn't work.

I saw a black screen with white text showing the time and date at the top,
and 4 lines with "I/O" (or "1/0" - I can't tell for sure), "People", "Tele"
and "Msgs" on it.   On each of the following pages there's no real
indication what to do.  The first thing I did was click on the "I/O" page,
and saw a blank page with an edit button at the top that seemed to do
nothing.    Then I tried to figure out how to get back to the main page...
Took me a lot of random clicking to figure out that clicking on the date at
the top takes you back to the home page.

The Tele page is a little more intuitive, but again, it wasn't obvious to me
that the text 'Call' near the top was an actual button.

I found the msgs page very confusing.  I did figure out fairly quickly that
'+' tries to send a new message - and I was able to send a message and get a
reply.    I do actually like the IM like display showing the messages back
and forth.   However, I couldn't really figure out what to do to send a new
message to the existing conversation.   I got into a mode where it seemed to
be letting me edit the sms message I had just recieved, but couldn't figure
out how to just reply.

It seems like OM2009 has addressed the technical problems that encouraged me
to switch to QtE originally - but I must admit that unless the user
experience is *substantially* improved, I doubt I'll be switching off QtE.

Is there work ongoing in terms of producing a better user experience for
OM2009?   I'd love to contribute.  I don't have piles of spare time, but
I've done a bunch of python coding, am pretty good with the gimp, and worked
with a Ph.D in user experience for long enough to have half a clue about
user interface design.

Warren


On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Angus Ainslie <nytowl at openmoko.org> wrote:

> Hi Max
>
> Thanks Risto for answering some of these.
>
> On May 13, 2009 04:18:47 am Max wrote:
> > First of all thank you for hard work Angus.
> >
>
> Hey I just put the lego together you should be thanking Mirko, and the FSO
> team.
>
> >
> > The very essential things I expect from om-whatever are:
> > - send and receive calls to\from phones in international format e. g.
> > starting with + like +790934534...
> > - read and create contacts both in English and Russian from both sim
> > card and internal db
> > - send and receive sms both in English and Russian
>
> This should be fixed in the unstable feed. To get it you will need to
> install
> Om2009 and the bring that package in from unstable or wait for TR4
>
> > - lock and unlock screen by pressing aux button
> >
>
> AUX button has other uses
>
> > I guess it's pretty common expectations and it sometimes work somehow
> > with om2008.12
> >
> > So my question is - are above mentioned features available on om2009 TR3
> > out-of-the-box?
>
> Not yet
>
> > Is there are some packages I need to install to achieve it or some
> > configuration tweaks needed?
> >
> > If so - how to migrate contacts db and sms message archive from
> > om2008.12 to om2009?
> >
> > As far as I understood it's recommended to flash om2009.
> > Is it possible to use sd instead? If so - where can I find instructions
> > on how to do it with om2009 TR3?
> >
>
> Yes running on an SD card is no problem, and is the method I would
> recommend
> if you just want to test it,  and is the same as any other distro in that
> regard. The instructions vary depend on what bootloader so check the wiki.
>
> > Going a bit further, is there plan to start supporting normal upgrade
> > via something like opkg upgrade since om2009 TR x?
> >
>
> Upgrades should start working before we get to release but there are a
> couple
> of minor bugs that need working out first. If those aren't resloved before
> release I will try to provide an upgrade script that will do the right
> thing
> were opkg can't
>
> > There are also certain features lacking in om2008.12 which I'm really
> > looking forward to see in om2009 in addition to basics mentioned above:
> > - correctly receive call\sms in suspend mode e. g. wake up and work
>
> Part of that with any distro is to make sure you have the modem flashed to
> moko11
>
> > - alarm clock working in suspend mode
> > - wi-fi with wpa2 working out-of-the-box
> > - some media player supporting ogg and mp3
>
> It is unlikely that mp3 will ever be supported out of the box. What I'm
> looking at right now is to ship an mplayer or gstreamer frontend and you
> will
> need to install the mp3 functionality from a different distro.
>
> >
> > It's not clear (maybe I miss something - feel free to point me to
> > appropriate info) if it is in om2009 TR 3.
> >
>
> Om2009 is pretty fluid right now but I'm trying to keep it's page uptodate
>
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Om2009
>
>
> Angus
>
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> community at lists.openmoko.org
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>
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