Sad Story

Joel Newkirk freerunner at newkirk.us
Fri Dec 12 04:20:55 CET 2008


If there's nothing YOU can do with the freerunner then it's just a
worthless paperweight - wanna sell it for $10?  I might go to $20 if you
insist, it really is a pretty paperweight.

<rant>
I'm sick of people whining like this.  If you have a specific issue, raise
it, if you have a fix, post it.  If you have general bitchiness send it to
/dev/null.  The latest stable kernel version at kernel.org is 2.6.27.8, but
they're working on 2.6.28.  Does that mean that "clearly... they didn't get
it right yet"?

To state that "there is nothing you can do with the freerunner" is just a
sign of whininess, or lack of creativity or interest.  I use mine daily as
a phone and a pocket computer, and nightly as a hobbyist project, and have
for several months.  You don't need to be a programmer, but at this point
in the lifecycle of the FreeRunner you do really need an understanding of
Linux, or at least willingness and capability to learn.  (at least if you
aspire to do more than place/receive calls, use GPS, send/receive SMS, etc
- the smartphone basics don't require linux-specific knowledge)

My GPS works great.  

I've not had any GSM 'buzz' problems AFAIK.  I've suffered from the GSM
echo problem which is now satisfactorily (though not perfectly) addressed,
and the 'bouncing Calypso' problem where GSM loses and regains
registration.  (which is avoided lately - though not yet truly fixed -  and
only apparently affects a portion of shipped units with particular GSM
firmware)

Suspend and resume usually work fine.  (qualified as 'usually' because I
frequently change rootfs, kernel and bootloader - and some combinations
thereof have problems)

Oh, and I've had no problem with GPRS.  At one point I was turning it on
and off via an icon, then I changed over to have it always-on or on-demand
- if not plugged into a host PC and wifi is down it 'just works'.  Setting
this up this way requires some knowledge of linux, granted.  But I found
Assisted-GPS and GPRS to work just fine back under 2008.8 with the
wiki-documented addition of a settings app that enabled/disabled GPRS,
Wifi, and AGPS.  More recently frameworkd (FSO and SHR) has taken care of
AGPS and GPRS nicely, though it's not yet tackled wifi.

AFAIK nobody here was promised a perfect fully-functional smartphone.  If
they were, and want to complain about it, talk to whomever made the
promises.  Most of us, at least, are here to participate in a community
comprised in large part of developers who are finding new things to 'do'
with the FreeRunner every day.

We are ALL the 'they', though I read your post to use "they"="Openmoko". 
Did you happen to notice that Andy, the person to whom you replied, is "one
of them"?  In fact, the same Andy as referred to in the kernel mentioned,
2.6.28 "ANDY-tracking", which AIUI Andy has devoted quite a bit of time and
effort to, making all the Openmoko-specific kernel bits work with a kernel
version that's still not even "out", and is very distinctly a moving
target, as the upstream source changes slightly on a frequent basis.
</rant>

Sorry if I've offended, but I really am getting tired of the frequent
generalized complaints posted about 'it no work', 'it junk', etc.

j


On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:02:13 +0530, "Karthik Kumar"
<karthikkumar at gmail.com> wrote:
> Next week,  not as of NOW. Clearly, the point was, they didn't get it
> right yet. So unless they have actually done something, there is
> nothing you can do with the freerunner.
> 
> On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 10:14 PM, Andy Green <andy at openmoko.com> wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Somebody in the thread at some point said:
>> | Hi,
>> |
>> | For instance, the Openmoko GPS signal level is bummed because of a
>> | hardware fault, also there are merely quirks to solve them. The
>>
>> ... which was worked around in kernel once the aggressor signal was
>> identified.
>>
>> https://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/1542#comment:27
>>
>> | Openmoko battery discharging, suspend and resume have not been ironed
>> | out fully yet. You would see these in _ANY_ basic phone out there. And
>> | people have been giving commands to get the GPRS modem to work. You
>> | see what I'm talking about? Nothing is connected, really.
>>
>> The problem with charger restarting is solved
>>
>> https://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/1158#comment:33
>>
>> and suspend and resume should be on a way more solid footing now on the
>> 2.6.28-rc andy-tracking kernels.  Starting next week the root
>> filesystems will be adapted for these kernels and we start to provide
>> packages for them.
>>
>> | Now, If you can't get to fix these today, how do u expect a person to
>> | program it well enough to rescue it back? You can't expect everyone to
>> | spend all their time getting their bare minimum phones to work, do
>> | you?
>>
>> Well, three of the four things you mention are solved AFAIK.  It leaves
>> "people have been giving commands to get the GPRS modem to work"... it
>> doesn't quite sound like the terrible thing that supports the general
>> argument you're making.
>>
>> - -Andy
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>>
>> iEYEARECAAYFAklBQ4oACgkQOjLpvpq7dMpMqwCeJRix5jq8OH4JHR9OZiy+ylQS
>> KYIAnjwxIPRXmY/qiBsDF0yAXhg1AUIB
>> =JLh7
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>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> support at lists.openmoko.org
>> https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/support
>>
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Karthik
> http://guilt.bafsoft.net
> 
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-- 
Joel Newkirk
http://jthinks.com      (blog)
http://newkirk.us/om (FR stuff)




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