...stuff I do and things I like...

Sunday, November 27 2005

h63xx Linux progress ... I got an SMS

the h63xx Linux port is making progress. Today I got a SMS (short message) from Mika which he apparently send from his h6315 using gomunicator. This is awesome!

Also right now I'm busy with other stuff (Nokia770) so I don't really have time to work on it myself. Also now we need to get audio working with ALSA which is a big project I defently don't have time for :-(

Wednesday, November 23 2005

Xtris on the 770 - it's Tetris

xtris I wanted to start writing my first maemo application but instead I ended up porting xtris a very cool Tetris implementation. The package is available here. The nice thing about this game is that it supports multiplayer mode, the foto shows me playing against myself (laptop vs. 770). To play in multiplayer mode you need to start xtris by hand from the console (xterm) like this: xtris x.z.y.a where x.y.z.a is the IP address of the host running xtserv. If you start it via the menu the server is started for you, so your opponent just needs to know your IP and your good to go.

Now I want a second 770 :-)

T42p and 2.6.14 with swsusp

yesterday I did a big update, first apt-get dist-upgrade (testing) with about 600 packages (!). Then kernel update from 2.6.13 -> 14, xfree -> xorg, hotplug -> udev and finally cardmgr -> pcmciautils.

Only two things gave me problems, first something in the Synaptics driver config changed so my loved scroll function on the touchpad went away - this was an easy fix. But then swsusp stopped working actually only resume failed (WTF?). It took me quite some time to find the solution, which is modifying the kernel source. It's basically some stupid timeout, which needs to be increased. The file is: kernel/power/process.c and the part is change 6 * HZ to 30 * HZ (I guess a lower value should be ok too). The whole thing is described here, since I didn't figured it out myself!

1 day lost through updating - ARG

Tuesday, November 22 2005

Digging around on the 770's filesystem

so I started pulling my 770 apart. First I flashed in the developer rootfs, which turned out to be very striped down - so I decided to immediately switch back to standard and add a few things on the way. But first I needed to get the original image back, to do this you have to go here. And by the way, this nice awesome hardware is made in good old Germany!

I started going through the filesystem, a modified stuff like /etc/sudoers to include user ALL = NOPASSWD: /bin/sh so I can just get a root shell, without calling gainroot.

Searching further I found all the images, like the big Nokia logo that you see on startup (/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/hildon/qgn_indi_startup_nokia_logo.png) and the Nokia hands (/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/hildon/qgn_indi_nokia_hands.png). Guess what, of course I replaced them - no big magic. I also found this funny logo - actually its not funny if you get to see it (/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/hildon/qgn_indi_startup_failed.png).

failed
Also all the themes are nicely split up into multiple files, so modifying or creating new themes should be easy (I can't do graphics).

I guess I'll built me a real nice image over the next days. Also I don't know how the licensing is - can modified images based on the original firmware be redistributed?

Monday, November 21 2005

770 Wireless Issues

I played around with WiFi (802.11) over the weekend. And found that promisc mode is not working on the 770, this means no fun with tcpdump or dsniff (which I spend hours on building). Also the whole monitor mode thing doesn't seem to work right now. When asking on the developer list about this issue, I got told that they are currently working on these things (due to popular demand!), which is nice to hear.

Also changing the MAC address of the device seems to work, its not really a feature that is needed by many people but I happen to need it.

Saturday, November 19 2005

The 770 and sunlight

so I just did the sunlight test (to see if the display is readable under direct sunlight [I used genuine Californian sun]). In the default brightness setting it is very hard to read anything (images are ok). If you crank up the brightness setting to the maximum setting the text is actually readable. I guess the battery wont last as long in the max setting.

I guess the display passed :-)

Nokia770 - finally I got it!

N770 and h6315 so I finally got my 770! And from the first second I loved it! It's small, black and has a big screen. WiFi and Bluetooth work like a charm. The first thing I did was: enabling the R&D mode (to get root), installing xterm and dropbear-sshd.

morg@n770 The Nokia 770 is really nice, it boots fast. The UI seems pretty usable, sometimes a little to slow for me (I'm an old Palm user) but since I'm used to PocketPC it's fast :-)

obex-ftp The first thing to test was of course web browsing (since it calls itself an internet tablet). WiFi setup was fast and easy (it found a tone of access points around here (I haven't looked for some time now)), so I could kick it of right away. Browsing is real fun thats clear. Most of the web pages I checked showed nicely.

rooted it So Bluetooth, the sad thing is no GUI support. But it works once you have the shell. OBEX, when I first setup my network connections the device asked me for the phone setup (for dial-up and file transfer). File transfer is OBEX, so I fired up sobexsrv on my laptop and told the 770 that it is a phone. And whups I can browse the files on my laptop from my 770 with the built-in file manager, this is awesome! This makes installing applications really easy, just double tap the .deb file and it gets installed (from your laptop). The next step was then to compile sobexsrv for the 770 so I can browse the files on it from my laptop. It of course supports regular push/pull too. In the next weeks I will try to port all my Bluetooth applications to the 770.

Thats it for now. I'll keep writing and porting new applications for my new toy, so keep reading!




sobexsrv v1.0.0

Here is a new version of sobexsrv, my secure scripting obex server. In version 1.0 (-preview3) everything is new!

A few new cool features are: multiple-client support, chroot jailing and internal mode

Friday, November 18 2005

PocketPC Podcasting

so I finally got around to look for some decent podcasting software for PocketPC (for my h6315). Until now I just downloaded the stuff by hand and transfered it to a SD or MMC card, this was pretty annoying. Even if you have an automated download this sucks. The software I use now is smartfeed (free!). Its pretty simple, just select the feeds you want - choose the download directory (e.g. /Storage Card/ to use the SD card) and you're done. It nicely downloads the feeds and you can use what ever player you want.

I really like it this way, I just need to have a wireless connection and I'm good to go. I guess I will listen to more stuff then before, since its so easy now. Any show suggestions?

Wednesday, November 16 2005

Caffeine

just thinking about my caffeine addiction ... here is something for yours. Here is a nice list of Caffeine in drinks, I really like Mountain Dew. Also check the Caffeine FAQ. I got Caffeinated Soap as a gift, but I don't think it helps :-(. And last but not least Caffeine at Wikipedia

updated ... just found this:
You Are an Espresso
At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high
What Kind of Coffee Are You?


another nice link INeedCoffee

Monday, November 14 2005

The Linux Phone Standards Forum

lipsforum.org sounds interesting to me!

More Linux cellphones, soon?

Thursday, November 10 2005

WiFi SIP phones

while reading digg this morning I found this new Linksys WiFi SIP phone WIP300 at linksysinfo.org. Unfortunately the device it not yet available. Anyway the more interesting part is that there are way more WiFi SIP phones then I thought, check out this link.

But WTF? it seems that only two of these phones support 802.1x aka. WPA (also the WIP300 doesn't seem to support it). This is so ridiculous. Not that many people use WEP or WPA to secure their network anyway but for those who have a little more insight the lack of WPA will keep them form using this stuff.

Maybe they all support SIP end-to-end authentication+encryption :-)

I guess I will stick with my PDA SIP (h6315+SJphone) solution for a while.

Monday, November 07 2005

NerdTest

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Saturday, November 05 2005

Nokia770 - maybe the first successful Linux handheld

ok I admit I caught the 770 flu, which is really easy if you follow the mobile computing/handheld scene and read all the blogs and news sites like Engadget or Gizmodo. Also this morning I searched Technorati on blogs which mention the 770 and of course I found a tone of sites. Many redundant things but still - it seams to role.

So why do I think the 770 could be come the first really successful Linux handheld? First it's done by a real big company, ok Sharp (the Zaurus people) is big too but they didn't had the Nokia experience when it comes to handhelds (Nokia -> mobilephones). Secondly they actively involve the open source community from the beginning (actually even before releasing the device to the public!). Third, the don't do monkey business with the OS, they don't hide it, they allow reflashing of the device with what ever Kernel and OS image you want. Some other companies close their Linux based devices with signed Kernel images etc. Also they didn't go with cheap hardware since a 800x480 display and 802.11g is quite good. Also the real benefit for the users will come from the huge open source software catalogue ;-)

I really can't wait to get my 770 - so I can port my Bluetooth stuff and implement some ideas which require a nice Linux handheld.

Wednesday, November 02 2005

btslides: use a Bluetooth headset to navigate slides

a long story, yesterday night while preparing a presentation (I had to give today) I had this idea of using my Bluetooth headset for navigating through my slides. Actually the idea is not new, there already is a Windows application to do this - but of course I wanted this for Linux. I actually just remembered how small the btsco code (thats the user land part of the bluetooth-alsa project) is and that it just reads AT commands. So it should be easy to hack something together. I went to work after finishing my presentation. It turned out to be a real fast and nice hack. After giving my presentation, using btslides, I wrote to the bluez-devel list to ask about integration...

Now here is epox-presenter-0.3.tar.gz with support for generic bluetooth headsets. The Epox-presenter was original written by Marcel Holtmann, the core maintainer of BlueZ.

The generic headset support is able to generate two different key press events. By default these are left and right for up and down. The key events can be changed to control different applications.

Please try, feedback is more then welcome!