Daily Snapshot Review 14 Feb 2008

[Kevin Dean]

It seems as if there is a world of difference today. :)

Day 2 with the 2.6.24 kernel and "just about everything" works well.
Today's images and kernel snapshot brought back the ability to use GSM
functions, so the phone and text messages work again! Add this to the
improved sound quality of calls that appeared on the 11th and things
seem to be on track. SD card support is still not in the images, but I
have faith that this will be back in the next day or two, thanks to a
patch submitted yesterday. From what I understand, the 2.6.24 kernel
can read SD cards but it corrupts the data. A patch submitted
yesterday corrects that (As far as I know) so it should be back soon.

Boot time today was down about two seconds, but something interesting
happened that was worth noting. I've measured the boot time from
pressing POWER in uBoot until the clock appears on OpenMoko-today.
Normally the clock is the first thing to appear. Today, however, the
first thing that happened was a popup notified me that I was connected
to my mobile carrier. If this is signifigant or not I can't really
say, but it gave the impression of being faster.

I got a lot of feedback yesterday from both users and developers and
that's awesome! It's good to see that these reviews are useful to
users and that they help the project move along. If anybody wants any
additional information, please let me know and I'll do what I can to
get it.

My full review of today's snapshots can be found at
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Snapshot_review/2008-02-14

My recommendation is that users continue to use the 11 Feb 2008 image
with the 2.6.22 kernel. The exception here is if you don't use your SD
card (and don't think you will in the next 2 days) then I see no
reason not to make the jump into the 2.6.24 world. :) It might be my
imagination but it feels as if apps are a tad bit snappier on the
2.6.24 kernel, as noted above regarding boot time.

-Kevin Dean