Re: [Angstrom-devel] Google Summer of Code ideas for Angstrom
On Wednesday 05 March 2008 19:28:57 Stanislav Brabec wrote: > It needs general discussion before starting to implement: > - Should it be based on hal? And should be hal the technology for OE to > go? > If yes: > - Should OE use upstream hal? > - Should OE use cut-down hal version? > - Should OE use uHAL (micro hal), small and device specific daemon > providing device independent interface? > - Should it duplicate design of NetworkManager (only one network > active in one moment)? > - If no: > - Should it use script based ifup/ifdown? > - Should it use D-Bus to notify users about change? > - How to solve huge overkill of any actions (fork, [unswap,] start > shell interpreter, start binary, change setup) > > There are several tools, which try to do the same, but none of them is > really usable on PDA: Now this is something that grabs my attention. A plugin-based device daemon is something I think could make a nice project. We started brainstorming this @ freesmartphone.org and it's going to happen eventually this year anyways, but I would be glad if someone beat me to it. [snipped more cool ideas] I'm willing to mentor one project, but I'm not available as general organizer. -- Dr. Michael 'Mickey' Lauer | IT-Freelancer | http://www.vanille-media.de ___ Angstrom-distro-devel mailing list Angstrom-distro-devel@linuxtogo.org http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/angstrom-distro-devel
Re: [Angstrom-devel] [Test fodder] initramfs images for h2200, h3900, h5000 and hx4700
This helps with the menu - it gets reduced to 3 positions. jffs nfs and shell. But I was not able to boot form mdt1 - it is looking for mtdblock1 Message read from LCD : ROOT_DEVICE=mtdblock1 CMDLINE=keepinitrd root=mtdblock1 (SNIP) loading modules "No valid root device was specified. Please add root=/dev/something to the kernel command line and try again." About the patch : We want to skip blockdevices and boot form mtdX - don't we ? Maybe the section " if [ "$fstype" == "(jffs2)" ]; then # ROOT_FSTYPE="jffs2" ROOT_DEVICE="$dev" fi" Should somehow compare the partitions numbers ? mtdblock1 should go to mtd1 and so on... Just haven't figured out how to do it in smart way ... Lack of console is annoying too. Is boot_root() section init.sh (in packages/initrdscripts/files/) responsible for that ? "cd $BOOT_ROOT exec switch_root -c /dev/console $BOOT_ROOT /sbin/init " How about changing /dev/console to something else (ie. ttyS0 ? ). Another thing that has crossed my mind today - LAB has nice feature - it there is no action taken it automatically scans for zImage and tries to boot from media that provides it. It would be nice too - especially after 100th boot when you don't want to choose again the proper device to boot from... > From: Koen Kooi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [Angstrom-devel] [Test fodder] initramfs images for > h2200, h3900, h5000 and hx4700 > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- > Hash: SHA1 > > Michal Panczyk schreef: > > > | At this point - how to get params working out of the box? Some kind of > | syncing between initramfs kernel and regular kernel is needed - get > | both of them to support mtd1. Or maybe it is in the boot script > | waitnig to pass the root value as /dev/$1 or something like that ? > > See (thunderbird damaged) patch at the bottom > > | Anther thing in that matter : > | How to get the second kernel (or kexec - i don't know which one is it) > | to be more talkative. Console gets silent after : > > I noticed that as well, it would be nice if boot messages can go over > serial, since psplash obscures them anyway. > > | As it goes for the menu it can see following choices: > | 0 : mtdblock0 (unknown) > | 1 : mtdblock1 (jffs2) > | 2 : mtdblock2 (unknown) > | 3 : mtdblock3 (unknown) > | 4 : NFS (nfsroot=192.168.2.200:/srv/nfs/oe/image) > | 5 : shell > | > | Values 0 and 3 should get removed. > > I think uncommenting line 85 of the bootmenu script would accomplish > that (see patch). > > | SD boot should be added. > > AIUI that gets added when it detects an sd card, so something else is wrong. > > | A reset option would be nice too. > | > | Where in oe is the script controlling that menu ? > > org.openembedded.dev/packages/initrdscripts/files/30-bootmenu.sh > > | The boot process: > | I chose "1" and the screen blanked. Nothing else happened until now. I > | am not sure if I did everything as it was supposed to be done. Judging > | form Koen's experience the new zImage should just be linked to old > | zImage in /boot dir. And that didn't work form me. > | > | The choice process itself is kind a hard - there are debug messages > | comming in from the keys driver that make the screen unreadable, but > | that is a different story. > > That's probably a simple kernel patch, Paul, Milan? > > As promised, the totally untested patch: > > > # old_revision [16f0fa7ec858ba228dd9d241b0cff7a309a42dff] > # > # patch "packages/initrdscripts/files/30-bootmenu.sh" > # from [b378e73bcd2daa97bd9e9134000a2ade7fe2538f] > #to [5d48cde70bc16d340f2c5ad3ec825874bec7c228] > # > > - --- packages/initrdscripts/files/30-bootmenu.sh > b378e73bcd2daa97bd9e9134000a2ade7fe2538f > +++ packages/initrdscripts/files/30-bootmenu.sh > 5d48cde70bc16d340f2c5ad3ec825874bec7c228 > @@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ while read maj min nblk dev; do > > ~ get_partition_type > ~ if [ "$fstype" != "ext2" -a "$fstype" != "ext3" -a "$fstype" != > "vfat" -a "$fstype" != "jffs2" ]; then > - -# continue > + continue > ~true > ~ fi > > @@ -158,6 +158,7 @@ else > ~ # jffs2 is not recognized by mount automagically > ~ if [ "$fstype" == "(jffs2)" ]; then > ~ROOT_FSTYPE="jffs2" > +ROOT_DEVICE="$dev" > ~ fi > ~ CMDLINE="$CMDLINE root=$ROOT_DEVICE" > ~ fi > -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (Darwin) > > iD8DBQFHzbu9MkyGM64RGpERAryRAJ9whcgOKGccyU58MDCeeiU+aoz6JgCgt0GF > RcjqnsKt/eLWfLQDAWfeHO4= > =KsvZ > -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- Best regards Michal Panczyk ___ Angstrom-distro-devel mailing list Angstrom-distro-devel@linuxtogo.org http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/angstrom-distro-devel
Re: [Angstrom-devel] Google Summer of Code ideas for Angstrom
On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:54:45 -0600 Jacob Thebault-Spieker wrote: > Stanislav Brabec wrote: > > Jake Thebault-Spieker wrote: > >> I've been working on coming up with ideas that Angstrom could use > >> for it's Google Summer of Code application. These are the ideas I > >> came up with, some of which were suggested by some people in the > >> community(I think mickeyl, possibly others as well). > >> > >> The ideas are: > >> > >> First time install wizard/config wizard: > >> -Walks through initial configuration/includes explanations > >> -More Timezones > >> -Pretty-fied to me more user friendly > >> GUI package manager > >> -One that functions(doesn't crash when trying to install > >> more than one package) > >> -Maybe w/ opkg > > > > These two projects may be useful, but I guess that they are too > > minor projects for SoC. You can even grab parts of code from other > > projects. > > > >> GUI installation tool(from NAND?) > >> -For ease of install > >> -Is this possible? > > > > Do you think extensions and improvement of u-boot to become generic > > installation tool? > > I like this idea, again, I don't know enough about u-boot and the > built-in bootloader(on the Z) to know if this is feasible/possible. > I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who doesn't know > very much about the inner workings of the booting process in a Z. Me too. But this task needs low level insight. > Wow, you've put way more thought into this than I have, obviously. My > question about the two options, or, more specifically the second one > is this: Does making GPE usable really fall under the jurisdiction of > Angstrom? Or is that an upstream an issue? > Well, not. 99% of work needed on GPE is an upstream work. Ideas described in the previous mail were only straightforward extension of existing projects, and finding its problems. Nothing Angstrom specific. Nokia already uses HAL in their tablets. > As you've pointed out, it looks like like a lot of the things to make > GPE usable fall under the d-bus option. I don't know that much about > D-Bus, but I'm looking into it. Only one part. There are many independent issues, which need high level programmer: - No integrated media player (gstreamer may be preferred, as it has an atomic design not integrating all codecs into one huge application). - No working music player (may be integrated with previous, but GUI must be different). - Improve usability of PIM. - No terminal (rxvt is not integrated and does not share clipboard, vte is only a dumb demo). Maemo has some apps, but I didn't checked them. > As a student, I'll probably be applying for these ideas, so I want to > make sure I understand them. Imagine tools like gnome-power-manager, gnome-volume-manager, NetworkManager. These tools are heavily based on HAL and provide hardware independent way to control suspend, idle suspend, battery charging, inserting and removal of cards etc. GPE needs lightweight counterpart of them. I guess that HAL/D-Bus is the right way for PDA devices, too. Here is a simpe example, how it works: udev/HAL broadcasts: "Hey, there is a new toy inserted into the SD slot. It is a memory card, here are details about this card..." User space tool checks it and answers: "Please mount it with these options..." Compare with script driven solution: udev identifies de ice and calls script; script does some checks and mounts the device. HAL has several benefits: - GUI has high level of control without need to be hardware specific - No SUID helpers, no problems with permissions - No expensive forks, execs or shell interpeters are needed - It's easy to write command line tools - It's easy to embed D-Bus interface to any application in any language. - It's easy to listen to signals and write advanced handlers as a simple addons (e. g.: Is it a card from my camera? If yes, import all photos.) There are also some downsides: - Easy to use NetworkManager way can handle by design only one network at once, all other are down (VPN is an exception and it is implemented there in a bit non-standard way). AFAIK NetworkManager still has some problems with dial-up. - ifup/ifdown can handle more networks. But it has not yet any D-Busified version. It handles hotplugging pretty well thanks to udev, but for example "No networking, went to offline", "Lost wireless AP" signals don't exist. ifup/ifdown is also a bit expensive - each signal causes running a batch of scripts. - There is not yet any design "fit for all" merging both. For example, while installing OpenSUSE, you have to choose one of the above. - And finally, even D-Bus has a downside. Its design has no simple support for situations, where you need ordered execution of different actions. Example: Got network connection and wants to flush mails. It's easy to do it using D-Bus. When network connection is established, signal is sent, mail handler gets it and flushes e-mails. Got networ
Re: [Angstrom-devel] Google Summer of Code ideas for Angstrom
Stanislav Brabec wrote: Jake Thebault-Spieker wrote: I've been working on coming up with ideas that Angstrom could use for it's Google Summer of Code application. These are the ideas I came up with, some of which were suggested by some people in the community(I think mickeyl, possibly others as well). The ideas are: First time install wizard/config wizard: -Walks through initial configuration/includes explanations -More Timezones -Pretty-fied to me more user friendly GUI package manager -One that functions(doesn't crash when trying to install more than one package) -Maybe w/ opkg These two projects may be useful, but I guess that they are too minor projects for SoC. You can even grab parts of code from other projects. GUI installation tool(from NAND?) -For ease of install -Is this possible? Do you think extensions and improvement of u-boot to become generic installation tool? I like this idea, again, I don't know enough about u-boot and the built-in bootloader(on the Z) to know if this is feasible/possible. I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who doesn't know very much about the inner workings of the booting process in a Z. GUI network config(smart) -Only configures interfaces it detects, non-generic -Easy for beginners, so as not to get confused I guess we don't need yet another GUI tool on top of broken networking design. ifup/ifdown works well for static networks, but has no support for dynamic environments and there is nothing to replace it yet. Implementing following (straightforward for beginners) complex scenario needs much more than only GUI tool. It needs completely new design. Imagine that you are sitting on your desk and you want to continue with your work: 0. Ethernet cable was removed from the device. What to do now? (needs support for hotplug - already implemented) 1. Connect to private AP (implement searching of best fit default route) 2. Out out of signal? (implement signal monitoring) 3. Try to find any free Wi-Fi AP (implement WLAN network scanning) 4. If not found, fire up Bluetooth, check whether mobile phone and GSM signal are available (implement conditional actions and GSM modem support) 5. If yes, run pppd with on-demand GPRS networking (implement on demand networking and PPP support) 6. If not, go offline (implement Online/Offline signalling) It needs general discussion before starting to implement: - Should it be based on hal? And should be hal the technology for OE to go? If yes: - Should OE use upstream hal? - Should OE use cut-down hal version? - Should OE use uHAL (micro hal), small and device specific daemon providing device independent interface? - Should it duplicate design of NetworkManager (only one network active in one moment)? - If no: - Should it use script based ifup/ifdown? - Should it use D-Bus to notify users about change? - How to solve huge overkill of any actions (fork, [unswap,] start shell interpreter, start binary, change setup) There are several tools, which try to do the same, but none of them is really usable on PDA: - NetworkManager: Needs too much memory for mobile devices, has strong design limitation (only one network active in one moment) and cannot be the only networking solution provided for the device. - GPE networking setup: Helper for ifup/ifdown. Can be improved to work well for static setups. Has design limitation, which does not allow dynamic definitions. - WPA supplicant: Specialized application. Has D-Bus support to notify about changes in WLAN networks. Future design of wireless networking in kernel will require similar daemon running. Can be part of future design. Any feedback would be appreciated. I don't know if this is functionality Angstrom is looking for, but it's what I came up with. I can image two projects: - HAL/D-Bus integration for mobile devices - Make GPE really usable Wow, you've put way more thought into this than I have, obviously. My question about the two options, or, more specifically the second one is this: Does making GPE usable really fall under the jurisdiction of Angstrom? Or is that an upstream an issue? HAL/D-Bus integration for mobile devices Do some benchmarks and make a decision regarding to HAL (see above). Customize, implement or design and implement specific D-Bus interfaces needed for portable devices: - Network hotplugging - Card swapping - Screen rotation - Backlight control - Maybe phone interface communication - Maybe positioning device interface - Maybe camera interface - Special keys launching special actions - Headphones handling - Remote control - IrDA control - Idle, auto sleep, sleep blocking - Stylus Most of these proposals already exist from notebook world. Some of them needs to be created. Benefits of such design: - Reuse of existing design will allow to use conforming applications without porting - Applets don't n
Re: [Angstrom-devel] Google Summer of Code ideas for Angstrom
Jake Thebault-Spieker wrote: > I've been working on coming up with ideas that Angstrom could use for it's > Google Summer of Code application. These are the ideas I came up with, some > of which were suggested by some people in the community(I think mickeyl, > possibly others as well). > > The ideas are: > > First time install wizard/config wizard: > -Walks through initial configuration/includes explanations > -More Timezones > -Pretty-fied to me more user friendly > GUI package manager > -One that functions(doesn't crash when trying to install more than > one package) > -Maybe w/ opkg These two projects may be useful, but I guess that they are too minor projects for SoC. You can even grab parts of code from other projects. > GUI installation tool(from NAND?) > -For ease of install > -Is this possible? Do you think extensions and improvement of u-boot to become generic installation tool? > GUI network config(smart) > -Only configures interfaces it detects, non-generic > -Easy for beginners, so as not to get confused I guess we don't need yet another GUI tool on top of broken networking design. ifup/ifdown works well for static networks, but has no support for dynamic environments and there is nothing to replace it yet. Implementing following (straightforward for beginners) complex scenario needs much more than only GUI tool. It needs completely new design. Imagine that you are sitting on your desk and you want to continue with your work: 0. Ethernet cable was removed from the device. What to do now? (needs support for hotplug - already implemented) 1. Connect to private AP (implement searching of best fit default route) 2. Out out of signal? (implement signal monitoring) 3. Try to find any free Wi-Fi AP (implement WLAN network scanning) 4. If not found, fire up Bluetooth, check whether mobile phone and GSM signal are available (implement conditional actions and GSM modem support) 5. If yes, run pppd with on-demand GPRS networking (implement on demand networking and PPP support) 6. If not, go offline (implement Online/Offline signalling) It needs general discussion before starting to implement: - Should it be based on hal? And should be hal the technology for OE to go? If yes: - Should OE use upstream hal? - Should OE use cut-down hal version? - Should OE use uHAL (micro hal), small and device specific daemon providing device independent interface? - Should it duplicate design of NetworkManager (only one network active in one moment)? - If no: - Should it use script based ifup/ifdown? - Should it use D-Bus to notify users about change? - How to solve huge overkill of any actions (fork, [unswap,] start shell interpreter, start binary, change setup) There are several tools, which try to do the same, but none of them is really usable on PDA: - NetworkManager: Needs too much memory for mobile devices, has strong design limitation (only one network active in one moment) and cannot be the only networking solution provided for the device. - GPE networking setup: Helper for ifup/ifdown. Can be improved to work well for static setups. Has design limitation, which does not allow dynamic definitions. - WPA supplicant: Specialized application. Has D-Bus support to notify about changes in WLAN networks. Future design of wireless networking in kernel will require similar daemon running. Can be part of future design. > Any feedback would be appreciated. I don't know if this is functionality > Angstrom is looking for, but it's what I came up with. I can image two projects: - HAL/D-Bus integration for mobile devices - Make GPE really usable HAL/D-Bus integration for mobile devices Do some benchmarks and make a decision regarding to HAL (see above). Customize, implement or design and implement specific D-Bus interfaces needed for portable devices: - Network hotplugging - Card swapping - Screen rotation - Backlight control - Maybe phone interface communication - Maybe positioning device interface - Maybe camera interface - Special keys launching special actions - Headphones handling - Remote control - IrDA control - Idle, auto sleep, sleep blocking - Stylus Most of these proposals already exist from notebook world. Some of them needs to be created. Benefits of such design: - Reuse of existing design will allow to use conforming applications without porting - Applets don't need to poll to get status updates - Control can be done from command line or other applications without confusing of applets - No problem with permissions GPE GPE may be improved in many ways: - D-Busify GPE (see above). - Fix things broken by design (for example GPE applications menu issues system wake-up 10 times per second for no reason). - Fix usability with and without stylus. - Design new space saving widgets. - Fixes of GTK+ regarding of fixed spacing. - Fix unusable applications. - Fix failures
Re: [Angstrom-devel] Google Summer of Code ideas for Angstrom
I sent a preliminary message to the OE list, and it didn't seem to be very good feedback. From what I saw, it didn't sound like anyone on the OE side of things was that interested in having a GSoC project... Perhaps because there aren't that many 'googly' type of projects that OE needs done. Should I just make a new page on the wiki? -- Jacob Thebault-Spieker Cell: (207) 717-5114 Koen Kooi wrote: Jake Thebault-Spieker schreef: | I've been working on coming up with ideas that Angstrom could use for it's | Google Summer of Code application. These are the ideas I came up with, some | of which were suggested by some people in the community(I think mickeyl, | possibly others as well). | | The ideas are: | | First time install wizard/config wizard: | -Walks through initial configuration/includes explanations | -More Timezones | -Pretty-fied to me more user friendly | GUI package manager | -One that functions(doesn't crash when trying to install more than | one package) | -Maybe w/ opkg | GUI installation tool(from NAND?) | -For ease of install | -Is this possible? | GUI network config(smart) | -Only configures interfaces it detects, non-generic | -Easy for beginners, so as not to get confused | | | Any feedback would be appreciated. I don't know if this is functionality | Angstrom is looking for, but it's what I came up with. Thanks for the ideas, could you add them to the wiki? Now onto the orginazational side of things: Which organizations are going to apply for GSoC? Openmoko, OE, Angstrom come to mind. And who of those organizations will be the GSoC dude? And who will mentor the students? regards, Koen ___ Angstrom-distro-devel mailing list Angstrom-distro-devel@linuxtogo.org http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/angstrom-distro-devel signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Angstrom-distro-devel mailing list Angstrom-distro-devel@linuxtogo.org http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/angstrom-distro-devel
Re: [Angstrom-devel] Google Summer of Code ideas for Angstrom
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Jake Thebault-Spieker schreef: | I've been working on coming up with ideas that Angstrom could use for it's | Google Summer of Code application. These are the ideas I came up with, some | of which were suggested by some people in the community(I think mickeyl, | possibly others as well). | | The ideas are: | | First time install wizard/config wizard: | -Walks through initial configuration/includes explanations | -More Timezones | -Pretty-fied to me more user friendly | GUI package manager | -One that functions(doesn't crash when trying to install more than | one package) | -Maybe w/ opkg | GUI installation tool(from NAND?) | -For ease of install | -Is this possible? | GUI network config(smart) | -Only configures interfaces it detects, non-generic | -Easy for beginners, so as not to get confused | | | Any feedback would be appreciated. I don't know if this is functionality | Angstrom is looking for, but it's what I came up with. Thanks for the ideas, could you add them to the wiki? Now onto the orginazational side of things: Which organizations are going to apply for GSoC? Openmoko, OE, Angstrom come to mind. And who of those organizations will be the GSoC dude? And who will mentor the students? regards, Koen - -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] will go go away in december 2007, please use [EMAIL PROTECTED] instead. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (Darwin) iD8DBQFHztaKMkyGM64RGpERAg/zAJ9/OSDJKuPL8CiCfd2pUA8UC+RRUQCgvAfx rwFZDdMxZmylOcE+BVRBRFU= =pW7i -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Angstrom-distro-devel mailing list Angstrom-distro-devel@linuxtogo.org http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/angstrom-distro-devel
[Angstrom-devel] Google Summer of Code ideas for Angstrom
I've been working on coming up with ideas that Angstrom could use for it's Google Summer of Code application. These are the ideas I came up with, some of which were suggested by some people in the community(I think mickeyl, possibly others as well). The ideas are: First time install wizard/config wizard: -Walks through initial configuration/includes explanations -More Timezones -Pretty-fied to me more user friendly GUI package manager -One that functions(doesn't crash when trying to install more than one package) -Maybe w/ opkg GUI installation tool(from NAND?) -For ease of install -Is this possible? GUI network config(smart) -Only configures interfaces it detects, non-generic -Easy for beginners, so as not to get confused Any feedback would be appreciated. I don't know if this is functionality Angstrom is looking for, but it's what I came up with. -- Jacob Thebault-Spieker Cell: (207) 717-5114 ___ Angstrom-distro-devel mailing list Angstrom-distro-devel@linuxtogo.org http://lists.linuxtogo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/angstrom-distro-devel
