On 1/16/06, Juha Yrjölä <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 2006-01-16 at 13:55 +0200, ext Urho Konttori wrote: > > > This is just a suggestion, but could the following be safe enough for > > consumer grade swap use on Nokia 770: > > > > If user has swapon. User opens MMC door. System pops up a large RED > > GUI that states: You have swap active. Please turn off swap before > > removing MMC from the slot. GUI would have one large button (turn off > > swap). After swapoff, GUI would turn green and say, it's safe to > > detach MMC now. > > We really can't rely on the user nicely waiting for any kind of > permission from our UI. There _will_ be cases when the MMC is abruptly > removed. It is unacceptable for an end-user device to go down in flames > whenever this happens.
Well, if by end user device, you mean "something as simple as a phone," certainly. However, all kinds of nasty things can happen to a desktop PC if a user does something stupid, and still PCs are hugely useful devices which a growing majority of even non-technically minded people in the developed world own. I understand that Nokia would probably like the appeal of the 770 to be similar to the appeal of their phones; it does what you expect and just works. But the fact is, the 770 isn't a phone. I know, it's not a desktop PC, either. But, where a developed market for the device doesn't exist, one has to seriously ask the question whether simplicity and reliability are a substitute for flexibility and openess to experimentation, with the risk that the complexities inherent in a flexible, not-as-intuitive-as-a-phone device will sometimes cause problems for some users. > > The issues regarding what happens when a swap device disappears from > underneath have to fixed first. Is there a roadmap for solving that problem? Will it be solved on LKML, or by Nokia in-house? Or will Nokia open up the device specs & software more so developers can experiment with neat little tricks when the door opens/cards are inserted, etc. so that anyone is able to happily stumble upon the "right solution?" I think Nokia has done a lot of things right w/ the 770, but I do have to say that I think the idea that the 770 will be a huge consumer success by being more "like a phone" than "like a computer" is wrong. Most of the people I've showed the 770 to have been confused about what it would be useful for. For me, it's useful precisely because it's cool and more-or-less hackable, and I might find something really great to do with it, not because it plays songs (iPods and even cheaper devices lining the shelves at Best Buy play songs, and the iPod has iTunes) or lets me check my mail or surf the web (I can do that at work or at home) or listen to Internet radio (is there even anything on internet radio I want to listen to?). It's cool to me precisely because it's a computer but fits in my pocket, and I can do almost anything with it that I can do with my computer. Sorry for wandering a bit from the particular topic (swap). Dave _______________________________________________ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers@maemo.org https://maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
