Online Development

Vala: the future?

2009-10-09T12:26:00.004+02:00

Vala is a new programming language that aims to bring modern programming language features to GNOME developers without imposing any additional runtime requirements and without using a different ABI compared to applications and libraries written in C.

That is the description you will find when searching for Vala. The idea of making Vala started around 2006 and now Vala is getting better and better. The goal of Vala is to bring modern language features to C. The problem Vala solves is that most programmers want to develop in high-level programming languages, but can't use C# or Java due to various reasons. Vala solves this in this way that it actually just produces C code out of the given Vala source.

Pros:
- The generated C code is generly as fast or faster then hand-coded c++
- Using external C libraries aren't difficult
- Making C libraries out of Vala files isn't difficult aswel
- Syntax is almost identical with C#

Cons:
- Vala is relatively young. So still less community support then C++
- Lack of documentation (improving really fast)

If you're interested and want to have a look. This tutorial shows you the basic of the language.

New Firefox Icon, my opinion

2009-05-18T19:42:00.010+02:00

The User Experience Designer Alex Faaborg is taking the community on a ride. The Firefox logo is getting a revamp and Alex Faaborg is posting updates almost every 24 hours. He started with a post about logo's and how they mostly evolve with the product brand. In that post he also explains Firefox 3.5 is a significant release that's worth a revised logo.

There are already several iterations for the new Firefox logo and they are looking better with each iteration. Though this post doesn't handle that.

This post is for giving you my vision on the logo,
but first some background about logos...

Some background

The name of a brand is mostly represented by the logo. So people can better link the logo with a name and vice-versa. There are several ways to achieve that. You can either use the name itself, like you can see in many logo designs.

Or another common way is to use the meaning of the brand name. For example, the Firefox logo has a fox with a tail on fire in it.

The third and last way is to link the philosophy of a brand with the logo. That's also the hardest to do. For example, Windows. The name 'Windows' is chosen because the system could do multitasking and use multiple windows, what wasn't common back then. That idea has become their logo.
Back to the Firefox logo

The Firefox logo can be categorized in the second category. It's uses the meaning of it's name (Firefox) and represent it by a fox with a tail on fire in the icon.

It can also be categorized in the third or final category. I see the Firefox logo as follow. The globe on the icon represent the Internet itself. The Internet is something global (that's why the globe), but it's also something anonymous. Anonymous, because the web does not belong to one person or country, but is for everyone (that's why the globe has generic continents).

My vision on the Firefox logo

One of the aspects planned for change, is integrating the globe with the fox. In the current logo, the fox and the globe look like 2 separate layers that are painted above each other. The integrating will be done by making the tail look more 3D and let it wrap around the globe. You can find more planned changes and there reasoning on the blog of Alex Faaborg. I also agree the globe and the fox should be integrated more.

I also think we can put more of Firefox's philosophy in the logo. Mozilla Firefox wants to promote the open web. In the current logo, you can't find any reference to this mission. For example, there is no interaction between the globe (the internet) and the fox (Firefox). I feel there is an opportunity to improve on that area.

My idea:
As you can see on my mockup, the fox is playing with the globe. It has a connection with the globe (the internet). So the Firefox is online on the internet. The fox is also plopping in the water of the globe. Actually Firefox is playing the internet, hoping to improve and promote it.

Things I'm proud off:
- The rimples are subtle and only visible on high-resolution versions
- The globe and the fox are more integrated into eachother

Things that should be improved
- The arm is to small in proportion to the fox
- This design is based on the current logo, not on the concept renderings

Porting Android: small steps at a time...

2009-02-11T19:17:00.003+01:00

In my previous post, 'How close?', I did say the android was almost ported. It only missed an onscreen keyboard. Not much later, there were images with a working keyboard. Sean McNeal released them in the normal location.

So the android is fully working?
No, we are past the 'alfa' stage. Everything is supposed to work, because all code has landed. Though it doesn't guaranty everything to work. Sean, Bricode and many more (like the freelancer Panicking) are actively solving the remaining issues. So bear with us, while we are heading for a fully working android on the Neo FreeRunner.

Well how far are we?
Koolu started to release beta's of the Android with a lot of functionality a while ago. They did come mostly with an interval of 2 weeks, but that's not a rule.
- beta 1: 15 January
- beta 2: 20 January
- beta 3: 4 February

Please define 'a lot of functionality' for beta3.

Messaging: I will have to disappoint you directly by telling you messaging isn't really stable at the moment. Sending messages was a total fail, because each time you enter a new message, the gsm modem will fail. The only remedy to get the gsm modem again to work is removing the message and restart. So sending messages doesn't work. Also receiving messages doesn't work.
Calling: Calling to the Freerunner works good and receiving a call to the Freerunner is working good (If you know you need the open the onscreen keyboard and push the right button to answer the call). Only one problem, I still have an 'Echo' on both sides of the line.
Wifi: Wifi is working good for me. I can enable wireless, scan the wireless networks in the area and connect to one (Even if it has WPA2 security). The only downside: my gsm modem doesn't work anymore after connecting to a Wifi network.
Bluetooth: I can enable bluetooth and making myself visible, but actively pairing 2 devices didn't work for my. I couldn't hit the Ok button after inserting the pass of the other GSM.
GPS: Working splendid. It starts when necessary. it stops when necessary. And it did get a fix within 3 minutes on my FreeRunner.

More advanced functionality overview

So we can call the android beta3 release not yet fully functional ready, but maybe the next release will contain a working messaging system. And from that moment, We could say the Android has the same working features as the other FreeRunner distributions. Huray!

How to get the images?
You can find the images here. A guide for installing the images and making your Freerunner ready for the Android can be found here.

Porting Android, Phase 5: How close?

2008-12-03T10:29:00.002+01:00

As Koolu has released their source code today, we are more than close to a fully port. Even more, we are close to fully working android, because Sean McNeil has promised to insert an on-screen keyboard in the next images.

Make compatible Linux kernel (done)
Replace ARMv5 specific code (done)
Create images (done)
Replace hardware specific code (done)
Adding additional software, like on-screen keyboard

Koolu, what for beast is that?
Koolu is an organization that is actively distributing open source phones. For the moment it sells only the Neo FreeRunner, because it is the only open source phone (That is still sold). Next to that, Koolu port and installs third party software to the Neo FreeRunner.

They also claimed, they wanted to sell Neo FreeRunner with Android before the end of Novembre. The deadline is already past, but they rescheduled to decembre. Looking at the status, it is really realistic to have a working Android system on the Neo FreeRunner before this year's end.

When getting issues become a help?
The Android images were offline for a couple of days. That's because all the images (Om2008.9, FSO, Qtopia, Android) contained a media codecs where neither Openmoko or Google has license for. So they removed all the images containing this media codecs and are regenerating them without the media codecs. While they are looking at solving the licensing problem, they encountered an advantagement.

Because the media codecs isn't included in the source code, Koolu comes in a situation it is easier to release the source code instead of the binary images. So that's what happened and Koolu has released a git containing all the Android sources and the patches Sean McNeil has produced.

How close can you get?
Yestarday, Sean McNeil made a new image for the Neo FreeRunner. This image still hasn't an on-screen keyboard, though there are already several solutions. They only need to be patched into the Android source code. Sean McNeil has promised to include them in the new images, but has forgotten them. So how close can you get...

Firefox 3.1 development state

2008-11-17T11:14:00.000+01:00

Proposed beta 2 shedule

Note: This shedule is subject to change. But shows already when to expect the release.

tree closed / frozen	November 4th
en-US builds generated	November 10th
l10n builds generated	November 11th
results QA tests	November 20th
release targeted	November 21th

Testplans state:

Testplan completion %:	86.30% (last week: 86.30%)
Estimated testcases:	748 (last week: 748)
Testcase completion %:	59.05% (last week: 59.05%)

Various bug fixes and recently added features
Bug 463938 - Fix smooth downscaling for images on Linux

Bug 464329 - Land private browsing icons

Bug 463929 - Support 8-bit WAV streams

Last week WAV support was added, like suggested by the HTML 5 spec. Then 8-bit WAV streams weren't supported. This is now fixed and 8-bit WAV streams should now work.

Bug 463692 - Clear the findbar text when leaving the private browsing mode

Back to basics: Update

2008-11-14T11:59:00.002+01:00

We are now 4 weeks after Openmoko announced the 'back to basics' plan. After one week they had all of us fooled. Most of us thought Openmoko hadn't done a thing. But a day later they gave us a rather long list of things they had done. After 2 weeks they even got a real name, the 'Optimization' team. In the 3th week some nice optimizations were made. And so we are at the 4th week.

What's on the menu?
Openmoko has planned a release before the end of this month. They want to surprise us with the release of Om2008.11. This release will most likely contain all the work done by the 'Optimization' team so far. You can find the list of bugs that they want to smoothen out here.

For that reason the 'Optimization' team will not begin new and huge tasks but will smoothen all the work already done. And do some minor bugs. So the testing team can begin testing the new release. So it's solid when it is released.

At which bugs will the Optimization team look?

#69 speed up system initialization: Olv will merge his improvement into testing repo next week.
#1489 sometimes volume is too low during a call: Tick will implement a volume control in qtopia dialer.
#2031 scroll list implementation: Tick will improve etk_scroll_list to fit our designer's idea.
#2113 suspend time come up right after you change the time: Jeremy will look into this.

Official status report

Mozilla firefox 3.0.4 is available

2008-11-14T11:05:00.003+01:00

The 3.0.4 release is only a security release, so no new features are added. This release is only for fixing security issues and important bugs found after the release of Mozilla Firefox 3.0.

The changelog looks like this:

- Fixed several security issues.
- Fixed several stability issues.
- Official releases for the Icelandic and Thai languages are now available.
- Beta releases for the Bulgarian, Esperanto, Estonian, Latvian, Occitan, and Welsh languages are available for testing.
- Updated the internal Public Suffix list.
- Fixed an issue where the IME input tool used to enter Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Indic characters was covered by the "Add Bookmark" panel. (bug 433340)
- Enabled additional EV root certificates. (bug 451305)
- Fixed an issue where some passwords saved using Firefox 3.0.2 did not work properly. (bug 457358)
- In some cases, Firefox would not properly save proxy settings for protocols other than HTTP. (bug 446536)

download here

Back to basics: Update

2008-11-10T18:36:00.006+01:00

We are now 3 weeks (and a few days) after Openmoko announced the 'back to basics' plan. Let's look at the changes.

After one week they had all of us fooled. Most of us thought Openmoko hadn't done a thing. But a day later they gave us a rather long list of things they had done. After 2 weeks they even got a real name, the 'Optimization' team. Now the third week,

What are the main things they did?

The boot time of a bare image (without any GSM stack) is reduced from 50 to 30 seconds. That was done by replacing the well known U-Boot by Qi. Qi is a boot loader developed by Openmoko with the focus to do just booting. It was developed, because u-boot was getting to big. It wanted to support everything and it began to look more on a kernel. Qi has focused to leave everything (except the booting) to the kernel. Even initializing the screen is considered the duty of the kernel. So a boot menu isn't included. You can do multi-boot by the times you press the power-button. It's not yet advised for replacing U-boot with Qi, because you will not be able to use dfu-util anymore.
They also looked into reducing the network registering time at the Qtopia stack (The GSM stack that is used in Om 2008.9). They have been able to reduce it by 32 seconds. There are no images yet, but it will be merged in the future.
Also the suspend/resume issues still get attention. They looked into various bugs, like #1991, #1347. The first bug is when you try to resume, it will stay a black screen. The later is when you try to resume, it immediate suspends again without any reason. For the first one, they have to do a little more debugging. For the latter, they found a fix, but they are looking into a better fix. Btw. There are patches for #1884. That's the bug, when you push the power-button just after suspending, it will do a double suspend. It will be submitted very soon.
They also worked on their python loader for faster booting python applications. They could already reduce the load time of the pyhon sudoku from 2.59s to 1.38s.

Official status report

Porting Android, Phase 4: Done

2008-11-10T16:52:00.005+01:00

Sean McNeil is still actively porting the Android to the Neo FreeRunner. Today there were new images. For a getting started manual, look in my previous blogpost.

In short

Make compatible Linux kernel (done)
Replace ARMv5 specific code (done)
Create images (done)
Replace hardware specific code (done)
- SMS (done)
- Calling (done)
- Wifi (in progress)
- GPS (done)
- Bluetooth (done)
- Accelerators (done)
Adding additional software, like on-screen keyboard

In depth
Most of the devices are already working in the first image that Sean McNeil has posted. Though Bluetooth wasn't fully patched in the images, because Sean forgot to apply one patch. So it didn't work. With the new images (That you can find on the same location as the previous), Bluetooth works magically. In the new image is Wifi still not working in all situations and can be unstable.

The biggest improvement in the new image is the screen redraws. Sometimes you could see the redraws, for example when you opened the 'Shutdown menu'. That has now been solved by implementing 'Page flipping' for the Glamo.

What's next?
By looking at the porting strategy above, you will see that we just need one thing. W'e need a working on-screen keyboard, before we can fully use the Android. To bad for us, Sean will not start to make something like that. There are 2 reasons for that.

Firstly Google has announced they would make an input device management system with an onscreen keyboard in the first quarter of 2009. Secondly it isn't that easy for making a onscreen keyboard. At the moment there are no java bindings for letting a program insert keystrokes to other programs (Due to security constraints). So if you make an onscreen keyboard, you would have to change every program to work with your onscreen keyboard.

So what's next?
There is still plenty to do:

Optimizing the code and all the patches. (And sending upstream)
Making a way to accept incoming calls. (On the HTC G1, there is a accept call button)
Let suspend work reliable

Firefox 3.1 development state

2008-11-09T11:06:00.002+01:00

The code freeze is active now. That means the code will not be changed in favor of adding features. The developers then start to build the browser for the upcoming developer release. The estimated release date is now one day later too. For the coming week, it will be almost only polishing to get a robust and solid developer release.

Proposed beta 2 shedule

Note: This shedule is subject to change. But shows already when to expect the release.

tree closed / frozen	November 4th
en-US builds generated	November 10th
l10n builds generated	November 11th
results QA tests	November 20th
release targeted	November 21th

Testplans state:

The Testcase completion is already above the level (50%) it had to be for the beta 2 release. Testplan completion is coming a bit behind, because it didn't reached 100% yet. Probably it will not reach it too, before release.

Testplan completion %	86.30% (last week: 76,52%)
Estimated testcases:	748 (last week: 762)
Testcase completion %:	59.05% (last week: 59.05%)

Various bug fixes and recently added features

Bug 453440 - Extend "Clear Private Data" dialog with time period option

Just like in chrome it is now possible to remove Private Data from the last hour, the last 2 hours, the last 4 hours, the last day or just everything.

Bug 428096 - Make clipboard and drag-and-drop import and export HTML on Mac.

This makes it possible to paste HTML into rich text editing widget and to copy HTML from the browser to programs supporting HTML.

Bug 449315 - Support WAV format in <audio> element.

Following the HTML5 spec the <audio>-tag should support WAV-files. This implements this, only 8-bit samples aren't implemented.

Bug 461891 - switch to using v2.2 safebrowsing servers.

The differences between the v2.1 and v2.2 aren't that big. So this bug only adds the ability to have empty add chunk as a way to fill in gaps in the chunk list.

Bug 17612 - view-source link-browsing

This bug adds the functionallity to click on links in the source-code of a page. That way it will be very easy to view the source and follow the stylesheets or javascripts that are in different pages. Normally it should already be in Firefox, but it isn't possible in the last nighlty yet.

Bug 449307 - Support duration attribute on media elements
Bug 462916 - Update liboggplay to pick up ability to compute Ogg duration

This bugs adds properties of duration, bufferedBytes, bufferingRate, and totalBytes for the <video>-tag. The big problem was the duration, because it isn't easable readable in the file. Normally it should be given in the header as X-content-duration, but that is mostly not the cause. Therefor it was needed to peek to the end of the file, to know the end timestamp. Now therefor the server need the ability to get only the last part of the file. As last it is also possible to read the file-size and estimate the length of the video

Getting started with Android on Neo FreeRunner

2008-11-05T00:14:00.002+01:00

Getting ready for Android

The sd-card: The android want a sd card placed into the Neo FreeRunner before it will successful start. The sd card also has to be configured with 2 partitions. The first may be fat32 or ext3, but may not be bigger than 256mb. (Edit: Some people has already stated it work with a bigger partition) The second partition has to be ext3. The first partition will be used for storage for music/pictures/movies/... The second will be used for storing settings and for cache.

These partition should preferable be empty, because the Android can stop booting if he finds certain files in one of the two partitions. (That gave the early people who tried running Android a headache. After hours of trying and chatting on the openmoko channel, we finally figured it out.

If you follow these instruction on the wiki for partitioning and formatting your sd card, Android should boot.
The SIM card: Firstly you will have to disable PIN security on your SIM card. (You will have to disable it with another phone, because there is no distribution for the FreeRunner that allow you to disable PIN security) (Edit: Apparantly you can disable PIN security in Qt extended) If you don't do this, Android will ask you to type your PIN on boot. That's no problem, because you get an onscreen keypad for typing your PIN, but even if you type the correct PIN code, the android will tell you otherwise. So you will not get past that screen.

Also you need a working SIM card in the FreeRunner, before Android will start. On the other hand, there are already people confirming they can start the android without SIM card. Though there are also people confirming they need a SIM card, before the Android will start. So if you want to try Android, you have more chance for letting it work if you insert a working SIM card.
Power: Make sure your battery is not empty. I just say this, because you can't tell the difference between a booting Android and a Neo FreeRunner that has an empty battery. They have both black screens.
U-boot: Normally it should be no problem for booting Android with an older bootloader. Though if you don't get your Android working, maybe try upgrading your u-boot to the newest version.

Installing Android

Download the Android images made by Sean McNeil
Flash them using Dfu-util or the easier Neotool. It is at the moment not possible for putting the Android on a SD card. So you will have to overwrite the distro that's located on your Nand memory.

Now you will be able to boot the Android. Just boot by pressing the power button and wait. First you will have a black screen for a minute or two and then the icon of Android will appear. After another minute, you will see the home screen.

Configuring Android

Disable screen timeout: If you don't disable the screen timeout, Android will go into suspend after a minute. The problem is, you will not get Android out of suspend, so you should better disable it. You can do that by scrolling the main button up, than click on the icon 'settings'. Than click on 'Sound & Display', than scroll down and push 'Screen timeout' and choose 'Never timeout'.

Navigating Android

The aux button is the back button. So if you want to leave some part of the system, you will have to press the aux button.
The power button (if you press it shortly) is the menu button. This will give you extra buttons for doing various things. (like customizing)
The power button (if you hold it for 2 second) will lock the screen. I don't get it out of this state without rebooting.
The power button (if you hold it for 4 second) will give you the closing menu. This will let you shutdown Android or choose silent mode.
The power button (if you hold it for 10 seconds) will shutdown android.

What's working?

The GUI: The graphical interface of Android is totally working. There are some glitches with transparency, but it's still very usable. Also the GUI seems to respond very fast.
Calling: Some people are saying they can place outgoing calls, but that's not the majority of the people trying the Android. (And the sound isn't loud enough for understanding eachother) With my Neo FreeRunner I always get 'No SIM card' and can't call other people. Also nobody has already archieved to attend incoming calls.
SMS: You will not be able to send SMS, because there is no onscreen keyboard and that will probably not change very soon. Although Google has already announced they would make one in the first quarter of 2009, maybe somebody of the community can make an onscreen keyboard in the meanwhile. I also don't have read about someone receiving SMS. (Edit: Some people have claimed they can receive SMS)
WIFI/GPS/...: The hardware specific code isn't fully ported yet, so these services will not work now. But Sean McNeil and other people are still busy with porting the Android. So maybe soon.
Batterly life: Because the Android can't go out of suspend, we have configured Android to not to suspend. So battery life will suck. I had a battery life of 6 hours yesterday. But this will most lickely become better.

Edit: I've added some remarks that were in the comments of this blogpost. Thanks Ceci and Tobias, I appreciate it.

Porting Android, Phase 3: Done

2008-11-04T17:02:00.000+01:00

Many blog are now celebrating the successful port of Android. I want to warn everybody, the port isn't done. But today we have images to test android on our Neo FreeRunner.

In short

Make compatible Linux kernel (done)
Replace ARMv5 specific code (done)
Create images (done)
Replace hardware specific code
Adding additional software, like on-screen keyboard

Getting the images

download the images
flash the images with neotool to nand (You cannot boot from sdcard)
make sure you have an fat32 and ext3 partition on you sdcard (Important, else it will not boot)
make sure the sdcard and the simcard are properly installed
boot the images

ps. The android isn't usable for daily usage. SMS + calling doesn't work and it suspends after a while. Also wifi doesn't work.

Back to basics: Update

2008-11-02T20:59:00.000+01:00

We are now 2 weeks (and a few days) after Openmoko announced the 'back to basics' plan. Let's look at the changes.

After one week they had all of us fooled. Most of us thought Openmoko hadn't done a thing. But a day later they gave us a rather long list of things they had done. Also this week, they have worked on the plan and they even got a real name, the 'Optimization' team.

What are the main things they did?

The main problem with the touchscreen is when you try to scroll through a list. It's hard to keep your finger on the screen the whole time. Sometimes you lift your finger of the touchscreen and the FreeRunner things you clicked somewhere. That's now solved in 'testing' image, because those finger presses are filtered if they happen withing 0.3 sec of each other.
Secondly they fixed the testing images. It wouldn't start because of some Wifi trouble. After that, they still have some trouble with the newest release of illume. (Some applications will not launch.)
The echo when someone is calling to the FreeRunner should be solved, but a part of the people are still complaining of the echo. So Openmoko is looking into making a new firmware of the calypso gsm modem. They got green light of TI for letting the users upgrade their calypso modem themselves. (Thank you TI) Plus they have hired someone new for diving into that chip in particularly. Also they are still experimenting with alsa state file for better audio quality, but it's hard to find an alsa state file that works for everyone.
Also there's made an image with the speedup's from previous week.
The Optimization team is also looking into the suspend/resume issues. Nothing earthshaking is happened on these issues, except they are analyzing the issues.

Official status report

Firefox 3.1 development state

2008-10-31T14:50:00.008+01:00

Again a week passed by since the previous development state post. This week there not that much interesting bug fixes and no added features. This is also normal, because now it's time to iron every bug out. Notable is that JIT is finally on by default for content. That means is getting more and more stable for daily use. There was also several fixes for the <video> tag. For the testplans, there is an enormous progres. The number of existing testcases almost doubled. To bad there were added some testplans, leaving minor progression in the testplan completion. The passed testcases increased too and is almost at the 50%. (That is the number it should get before release of Firefox 3.1 beta 2).

Proposed beta 2 shedule

Note: This shedule is subject to change. But shows already when to expect the release.

code freeze	November 4th
builds start	November 7th
qa starts	November 10th
release targeted	November 20th

Testplans state:

Testplan completion %:	76.52% (last week: 70,45%)
Estimated testcases:	762 (last week: 469)
Testcase completion %:	44.05% (last week: 28,33%)

Various bug fixes and recently added features

Bug 456439	add about:rights and a "Know Your Rights" infobar to Firefox.
Bug 462378	Cache video/audio downloads to file
Bug 462294	Add "View Video" to context menu for >video> elements.
Bug 459567	reuse the Session Restore page's window for restoring the session;
Bug 459950	Polish about:sessionrestore;
Bug 459546	Make about:sessionrestore look good on all platforms, Mac part. Also fixes Bug 459740.
Bug 448909	Need more controls WHATWG Video tag (followup patch)
Bug 448680	Starting <video> playback causes master volume to jump to max
...	Enable JIT by default for content
Bug 461281	CPU usage goes to 100% after playing some Ogg files

Android status update

2008-10-29T22:59:00.005+01:00

We are now 9 days after Google brought Android into the opensource community and many people are eager to see the Android on a Neo FreeRunner. There are also many people busy with making this wish reality. Let's look at what's already done.

In short

Make compatible Linux kernel (done)
Replace ARMv5 specific code (almost)
Replace hardware specific code
Adding additional software, like on-screen keyboard

In depth
The Linux kernel was almost directly made compatible by McNeil, because he had early access to the Android source code and could start (in complete silence) with porting it onto the Neo FreeRunner. So most of this work was already done when the Android became open source.

After that Leslie and McNeil started the second phase. They had to find all ARMv5 code and replace it by other. Luckely for them, there exists tools like grep. So they could easily locate the files that had to be changed and they made a nice spreadsheet about their progress. That phase is almost done, only 2 files need to be changed.

So now we are balancing between phase 2 and phase 3. In theorie the whole android can now be compile and thrown into an image. And that's what Benno is trying to do. He started and verly early he noticed he had to change the default filesystem (YAFFS) of android and turn it into jffs2. That was because the YAFFS filesystem doesn't want to mount. After he had more trouble with the filesystems, he was forced to put a part of the system into a YAFFS partition and a part into a jffs2 partition.

After that horror was done, he could make some images and throw it onto his Neo FreeRunner and test if all the theory and coding has paid off. He could let the system boot and go trough the init. It started most of the system services, but failed at some graphics code with an out-of-memory error.

So we have almost a working android. In the next phase, they will try to replace the hardware specific code. So they will for example replace the specific gsm modem code by code that the Neo FreeRunner modem understands.

For really in-depth story about what benno did, look here

FDOM and it's FDOMizer

2008-10-27T16:25:00.008+01:00

Some history
FDOM was announced a little while ago and had a specific main purpose. It wanted to be a distribution image with many applications applied to it. Just to make the Om 2008.8 more than just a mobile phone image. It fulfills that role very good and it's name was chosen for accentuating that purpose. FDOM stands for 'Fat and Dirty' distribution.

It was created by David-Reyes Samblas Martinez. He just picked the om2008.8 distribution and applied some patches and installed almost all applications, he could find on the wiki. After that he made an backup of the image and FDOM was born.

What's the problem?
FDOM was called a distribution by many people, while it doesn't want to be a separate distribution. FDOM was a default Om 2008.9 installation with many addons. Because FDOM was a separate image, people got confused and begun to thing that FDOM was another distribution.

There were also people that knew FDOM was based on Om 2008.9 and were asking how to upgrade their Om 2008.9 to FDOM. Solely for having the applications of FDOM and don't have to lose their contact or messages. (Or don't want to go reflashing). They would plough trough the wiki without finding a cure.

Introducing FDOMizer
With the new release of FDOM on 13 okt, the team behind FDOM has introduced a script named FDOMizer. It's a script that will turn your Om 2008.9 into FDOM. So it will install all the applications and fixes that are default installed in a fresh FDOM installation.

Turn your Om2008.9 into FDOM

ssh into your Om2008.9
wget http://files.tdobson.net/openmoko/freerunner/fdom/FDOMizer20081023.tar.gz
tar -xzvf FDOMizer20081023.tar.gz
FDOMizer/FDOMizer
follow the script

And now you are owner of FDOM.

Openmoko: 'Base' image status review

2008-10-27T12:04:00.003+01:00

Because yesterday was a theoretic review, just by watching the trac bugs that are in testing mode, today I found the time for doing a practical review.

Base image: info - install instructions

previous review

Solved issues

#2071 The base image cannot be started and stops when the WIFI driver is initialized.
#2082 There are no icons on the home screen, so you could not launch anything.
#1024 If my FreeRunner isn't in suspend, my gsm keeps on reregistering to my phone company. I noticed it by the interference it give by putting my Neo FreeRunner close to a speaker. Because of that, I'm often not available for calls.
#1718 I couldn't run mofi after I had installed it, because there is a problem with the python-pygtk packet. Solution: There is only one character wrong in that packet, so I've manually edited line 82 /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/_init_.py. Replaced 'init()' with '_init()'.

Newly found issues

I couldn't connect to a Wifi spot with the Settings interface. It said only 'unknown' next to the Wifi. Solution: Connect with the terminal, more information.
Connecting through Mofi was not doable, because Mofi doesn't call the keyboard. Also the qwerty symbol on top of the page is gone and cannot be installed. Solution: Connect with the terminal, more information.
The standard theme of Gtk programs is really ugly. It's just white and the text is to big. Solution: Copy http://alasal.be/openmoko/gtkrc into /usr/share/themes/Raleigh/gtk-2.0

Still an issue

#1832 For getting the state on how much money there's left on my prepaid sim card, I have to call #121#. The caller application crashes on these calls.
#1267 The people calling a Neo FreeRunner hear an echo of their own voice.

Getting started with the 'Base' image

2008-10-27T11:54:00.006+01:00

What is the 'Base' image?
The 'Base' image is a distribution that isn't meant to be released. It's a really basic distribution that Openmoko uses for testing the fixes. Because the Openmoko team is now putting their effort into the low-level issues, most likely you will find here the new fixes of these issues.

Install the 'Base' image

Download the kernel, the file system image.
Flash your images with NeoTool

Configuring the 'Base' image

Suspend off: We will put suspend off, because there are to many bugs. For example, you may not get any phone calls anymore. Also it isn't handy for using automatic suspend if you're ssh into you're phone. The connection gets interrupted and cannot be restored again. We put suspend off by opening settings and clicking on the suspend item until it says 'off'.
Restarting device: The first time I started my 'Base' image, I was unable to ssh into it. After I restarted my Neo FreeRunner, I could ssh into it.
Updating opkg: Because the list of applications that opkg can install is outdated, we will have to update opkg by doing:

opkg update
Install nano: We will install nano, because it's an easier editor and most people can work with it. You just have to do the following command:

opkg install nano

If you encounter an problem with packagekit, do:

pkill packagekit
Install calculator: what is a modern gsm without a calculator. It's like a little computer that is unable to calculate while the calculator was the predecessor of a computer. So we open installer (by pressing the bottom bar) and goto Miscellaneous and install qtopia-phone-x11-calculator.
Install phone software: Now we have our base system. But we want to use our base system for calling and sending sms's. So we need to install some phone software. I will go for the phone software that's are also in the 'Om 2008.8' image and is Qtopia based.

opkg install task-openmoko-qtopia-x11

Now we are ready.
Have a nice FreeRunner time.

Edit: The last step will probably fail with the warning he could not satisfy a dependency. You can overrule that by doing 'opkg install task-openmoko-qtopia-x11 -force-depends'.

Openmoko: 'Base' image status review

2008-10-26T11:28:00.008+01:00

Today I wake up and saw bug #2071 was solved by Openmoko. A couple of minutes later, the newest 'base' images was on my Neo FreeRunner. Here is my review.

Base image: info - install instructions

previous review - next review

Solved issues

#2071 The base image cannot be started and stops when the WIFI driver is initialized.
#2082 There are no icons on the home screen, so you could not launch anything.
#1267 The people calling a Neo FreeRunner hear an echo of their own voice.
#1024 If my FreeRunner isn't in suspend, my gsm keeps on reregistering to my phone company. I noticed it by the interference it give by putting my Neo FreeRunner close to a speaker. Because of that, I'm often not available for calls.

Nice enhancements

You can now switch between the Illume and Qtopia keyboard by going into the Illume settings and changing the keyboard settings.
The new Illume is installed with the new beautifull theme.

New issues found

#2087 The icons and Illume top bar are to small for finger usage.
#2088 Settings application cannot be started

Back to basics: Update

2008-10-24T11:12:00.005+02:00

In my previous blogpost, I was saying nothing was done last week and I'm very glad to announce I was wrong. Because nobody of Openmoko had released any details of what happened, I though nothing was done. Apparently wrong conclusion.

What are the main things they did?

The boottime of Om2008.9 is reduced by 55 seconds. From 2:35 to 1:40. So it's interesting, that the boot time is reduced by a minute in a week. The changes aren't in any image, but will be merged in the future.
#1267: The qtopia echo problem was already solved, but now it's included in testing. Hopefully the base image will boot fully again after they smashed bug #2071, So we can test it. But they already have confirmed to be working on it.
Openmoko has started to look into the touchscreen of the FreeRunner, So they can optimize it for finger usage. They created a program to analyse the finger touches. Analyses were posted to the mailing list. Also a video made it to youtube.

And they did many more and you can read it in a post of John Lee on the mailling list.

Firefox 3.1 development state

2008-10-24T00:02:00.007+02:00

When the previous development state post got posted Firefox 3.1 beta 1 was just released. Now we are again a week further, so it is time to look to the changes. The eye catcher this time is that the work on the video-tag that has landed. Context menu should now be available. Seeker will not take to long to be available. When it happens I will inform you. Most of the backend of private browsing landed too. Thought it will still not work in the nightly releases. The progress on the testplans are going forward too. It needs to, because when beta 2 comes out the testplan completion should be 100% and the testcase completion should be 50%. So some extra work is needed here.

Testplans state:

Testplan completion %:	70.45% (last week: 66,43%)
Estimated testcases:	469 (last week: 424)
Testcase completion %:	28.33% (last week: 27,37%)

Various bug fixes and recently added features

Bug 364315	Speculatively load referenced files while "real" parsing is blocked on a <script src=> load
Bug 449159	Refactor Ogg backend and implement seeking
Bug 426629	"table-layout: fixed" is not invoked if width changes from auto to fixed dynamically
Bug 248970	(PrivateBrowsing) Private Browsing mode (global toggle for saving/caching everything
Bug 324121	(EM Patch) Extensions with available updates for the next version of the app should not be listed in app update extension will be disabled warning.
Bug 456002	Dragging and dropping a tab from a window with 1 tab is broken.
Bug 460751	Progress events should use long long, not long for .total and .loaded
Bug 449522	Context menu for HTML5 <video> elements
Bug 396816	Location bar should be self-describing: "Search Bookmarks and History"

Changes of XMLHttpRequest in Firefox 3.1

2008-10-23T23:54:00.001+02:00

The XMLHttpRequest has undergone an enormous change in Firefox 3.1 (atm not released, the release is for begin 2009) and I would like to let you know what the differences are. Actually XMLHttpRequest has undergone two major changes. One is the support for cross-site XMLHttpRequest. The other new feature is the ability to add progress events to the XMLHttpRequest.

Cross-site XMLHttpRequest

Let's start with Cross-site requests. Until now it was prohibited to get content from other sites then the site it was on. That was because of security raisons. In development that was sometimes a pain in the ass. It happened that you wanted to get data from a server you own yourself, but didn't had the same domainname. Therefor implemented Firefox 3.1 a special way to make it possible to have XMLHttpRequest across different domains.
On the coding part nothing changes for JavaScript. You just change the url to the webpage you want to fetch. On the webpage itself you need to change some bits. You need to let to know that it is alright that the page can be fetched with an cross-site XMLHttpRequest. You need to add an access-control header to the page. There you can specify if it is possible to fetch the page and which domains can fetch it. I will list here some examples of acces-control headers:

// Anyone is allowed to access this resource - no restrictions
Access-Control: allow <*>

// Everyone is denied access to this resource - no exceptions
Access-Control: deny <*>

// Only sites that are hosted on 'mozilla.org' may access this resource
// (this includes sub-domains as well)
Access-Control: allow <mozilla.org>

// All sub-domains but developer.mozilla.org, of mozilla.org, can access this resource
Access-Control: allow <mozilla.org> exclude <developer.mozilla.org>

// Only this domain, on this port, with this request method can access the resource
Access-Control: allow <developer.mozilla.org:80> method GET, POST

more examples can be found in the W3C Acces Control working draft

Progress events

As of now it is much easier to monitor the state of an XMLHttpRequest. You are now easily able to monitor the percentage that is done. You can run an function when the transfer is complete. The same for when the download is canceled or failed. All that is with the use of eventListener on the XMLHttpRequest. This demands some example code that is coming now...

var req = new XMLHttpRequest();

req.addEventListener("progress", updateProgress, false);
req.addEventListener("load", transferComplete, false);
req.addEventListener("error", transferFailed, false);
req.addEventListener("abort", transferCanceled, false);

req.open();

...

function updateProgress(evt) {
  if (evt.lengthComputable) {
    var percentComplete = evt.loaded / evt.total;
    ...
  } else {
    // Unable to compute progress information since the total size is unknown
  }}
}

function transferComplete(evt) {
  alert("The transfer is complete.");
}

function transferFailed(evt) {
  alert("An error occurred while transferring the file.");
}

function transferCanceled(evt) {
  alert("The transfer has been canceled by the user.");
}

And now hopefully the other browser will adapt this soon, so it gets very easy to monitor the state of XMLRequests.

Is Openmoko working on their 'back to basics' plan?

2008-10-23T22:33:00.009+02:00

Openmoko has announced their 'Back to basics' plan a week ago. It's time to review. Has they stick to their plan to reduce boot time and started to fix the suspend/resume problems?

I've followed the Git branches, mailing lists and trac changelogs closely and I can only say I'm deeply disappointed. There was a hooray of almost 98 messages, when Openmoko announced they would work on the low-level issues. It's sad that they will have to dissapoint them. This week Openmoko has worked on Qi (A replacement of u-boot) and Gta03 (The next openmoko cell phone)

At Openmoko: Please explain me. Am I overlooking things or are you forgotten your own plan? We (the community) hoped, you heard us clear. We want you to handle the lowlevel things. That's our main concern right now: Getting you to handle the things most of us can't.

Answer of Openmoko (John Lee): We are working on multiple issues including the two subjects you mentioned. There will be public update to the mailing list, wiki page update (Improving user experience), etc. Please just be patient.

ps. There is an update of openmoko on their progress with the 'back to basics' strategy, please read.

Phase one of porting Android: Done

2008-10-23T14:50:00.003+02:00

You probably know already that the android platform has become opensource 2 days ago. Else check my previous blog post. Now there are 4 big phases in porting the android to our beloved Neo FreeRunners.

First there has to be made a compatible linux kernel. This is kernel with all the necessary modules for letting the android platform work.
Secondly all the platform specific ARMv5 code has to be replaced by ARMv4 code. That's just because our Neo FreeRunner runs another processor and isn't fully compatible with a newer ARMv5 processor. So basicly Android is written for talking in ARMv5 code to the processor, while our ARMv4 processor in the Neo FreeRunner doesn't understand that.
Thirdly all the hardware-specific code has to be replaced by function for calling the Neo FreeRunner hardware. Because the code in Android thinks he's talking to a HTC G1.
Fourthly we will have to make additional software or change software, before we can fully use the Android. For example an on screen keyboard isn't included in the default stack of the Android.

How far is the port?
Phase 1 (Done): Now 2 days after the release of the sources, phase 1 is almost finished. There is a working kernel with the extras modules necessary located at Koolu (You will have to register). The patches against the Openmoko kernel are already submitted and are ready to be included in the stable kernel branch. Maybe some patches will be rewritten for making the integration into the Openmoko kernel a little easier.

Phase2 (Busy): There are already some people busy with looking into porting the special ARMv5 commands to ARMv4, but nobody has yet reported their result.

So keep up the good working. I want to thank Bricode from koolu.org and Sean McNeil for the patches and work they already have done. It's very appreciated. If anyone wants to help with porting, these are the guys to contact.

Headup on the Android platform

2008-10-22T00:18:00.003+02:00

For the people living in a shelf: Android is an platform including operating system (Linux), middleware (Similar to what the framework of FSO will become eventually) and applications almost all made by Google. So basically an all in one software solution for a mobile phone.

Why doesn't it run on my FreeRunner yet?
The main problem was that Android wasn't opensource. (Although Google had promised it would be opensource) Another problem was that the Neo FreeRunner runs on another architecture (an older one) than where Android was compiled for. Thought this would not be a problem, if Android was opensource. Because then people could start changing on the source and make it work for the FreeRunner. Luckely for us, Google has kept it's promise.

And where can I find the images for flashing it onto my FreeRunner?
You will not find them (yet). But many persons in the community are earerly hacking there way into the Android code, mainly to get it ported onto the FreeRunner. So has Sean McNeil already reported on the mailling list, that he some patches for letting Android work on the Neo FreeRunner.

Whaoooo, finnaly a fully working distribution!
I would say don't exargerate. Most likely, the core bugs like the one when the FreeRunner keeps reregistring will also be in the android. Just because the android will use the same drivers as all other distributions. Luckely for us, Openmoko has decided to target these basic bugs. (more information). Also the android is programmed with in mind that the phone has a reel keyboard. So I expect problems with typing with the android on the FreeRunner. But for every problem, there is a right solution. So we will see, if the android becomes just another distribution or can lift the FreeRunner to a new level.