what do I install now?

Brian bneil at rochester.rr.com
Sat Nov 26 17:32:18 CET 2011


On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 18:55:58 +0100
Matthias Apitz <guru at unixarea.de> wrote:

> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm thinking in a fresh install of my FR GTA02 (at the moment
> Om2008.9); what I would need at least are:
<snip>
> Any recommendation for a distribution I should install?
> 

Like a few others I'd recommend giving QtMoko a try. I've been pretty
happy with it myself and it works fairly well when using the FR
primarily as a phone. I've been using v31 on NAND and playing with v36
on an SD card. I find it the easiest distro to live with.

I've just spent the morning trying out the Android SD card only install
for Froyo. It's a bit quirky and prone to crashing but I'll chalk that
up to using a bad SD card as QtMoko locked up on the same card. My
previous experience with Cupcake on NAND was better. But you're already
familiar with Android on FR.

I haven't used SHR in a very long time and I was initially pleased with
it. Using a distro that runs X has it's advantages and it's easier to
work with in a number of ways. SHR used to stand for Stable Hybrid
Release but there have only ever been testing and unstable branches. No
disrespect to the devs but I gave up on using it when it wiped all the
contacts from my SIM card. Which wouldn't have been a big deal back
when I used to be able to recall names and the numbers associated with
them from memory but those days are long gone. For the younger folks
this is how PIM worked before we had the term and we used dead tree
media as a backup! The testing branch images are looking pretty stale
(27-Sep-2010 23:55) but the unstable branch is newer (22-Aug-2011
14:33).

I'd probably try it again but unless someone can confirm it won't wipe
my SIM contacts I'm only willing to dip my toes in the water sans SIM
card. Since I use my FR as a phone this is an unrealistic situation.
It's a shame really since I miss X native apps a lot. :(


> - GPS && OpenstreetMap (tango)
On QTMoko Navit is the non X GPS app and it uses OSM data. You can run
TangoGPS and FoxtrotGPS using QX. SHR opens up more options but I'm
afraid I can't say how good they are now.
> - TCP over USB and SSH into the FR
This will work as expected for USB regardless of distro excluding
android as it only allows ADB see [1] and [2].
> - Terminal with Stardict
You get QTerminal on QtMoko and can run an xterm in QX. SHR offers the
best experience for a CLI junkie. Android offers the worst; you have to
use ADB to install busybox. Stardict in a terminal?
> - PIM, SMS, call
SMS and calling worked fine for me in all 3 distros albeit some mic
tweaking was required in the past (lowering the mic volume). PIM is
supported in all 3 but syncing on QtMoko isn't possible for me as it
only supports syncing with a Windows machine running software that
needs to be compiled. I don't have experience syncing with the other 2
distros .
> - X11vnc server
I've never had a use for this although I recall getting it working in
the past for kicks on SHR and QtMoko.
> Btw: I own another GTA02 with Android installed on. I feel that it
> reacts much faster on the screen while moving around through the
> applications or menus. How they do this, as well with X11?
Android doesn't use X[3], Neither does QtMoko, SHR does. Any of the 3
are bound to offer a better user experience compared to Om2008.9. Out of
those 3 I consider android to be the slowest, especially Froyo, but
Cupcake is very usable and the UI is quite nice. I love a lot of the
stuff that Android does well and wished it was easier to customize but
it appears to be outgrowing the hardware.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> 	matthias

You're Welcome,

Brian

[1]http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/USB_Networking
[2]http://code.google.com/p/android-on-freerunner/wiki/AndroidDebugBridge
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Linux



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