Re: Why one cannot recommend the freerunner as a daily phone (was Re: Is a FreeRunner sufficient for me?)

2009-06-23 Thread Brian C
I've had my Freerunner since day 1 and sadly have to agree with almost
everything Joerg has said.  The surprising thing to me is that we
haven't seen more significant improvement on the software side in the
last year.  I'm not saying things haven't improved, I've just had the
following in the back of my mind this whole time:

I can buy a $20 pay-as-you go phone that has reliable SMS and voice
calls, audible call volume, decent battery life, a fast boot process,
reliable input method, a working calendar, and a few silly games.  This
made me believe that the software side of things was relatively easy.
(If that cheapo phone can do it, the Freerunner developers will have
these kinks worked out in no time I thought.)  Maybe, as Joerg
acknowledges too, all these little things ARE working on some distro or
other or can be fixed by someone willing to tweak it for three months
but in all this time I haven't been able to just flash the thing and get
everything to work as reliably as my $20 junk phone.  This has surprised
me.

I keep hoping that Koolu is going to release a version of Android that
accomplishes this, but that seems at least a few more weeks (months?)
off as well.

Every couple of weeks I take the time to install what appears to be the
best distro and fiddle with it for a day or so before being confounded
by an array of things that still don't work.  Then I set it aside and
wait another couple of weeks and repeat.

I couldn't advise even very experienced GNU/Linux users like our
original poster who want the FR to replace a capable smartphone to try
it right now.  As I see it, only two results are possible: he'll give up
disappointed or he'll spend way too much time (3 months) trying to
tweak the FR to do that list of things he wants it to do and ultimately
succeed, but will have spent 3 months without a usable daily phone.

If those of us who feel like this are missing a great FR experience that
the rest of you daily users are having, then perhaps the wiki needs a
new section Daily Users where each person who is completely satisfied
with their FR setup can describe in excruciating detail (command by
command) how they got to that point so that the rest of us could
cut-and-paste their HOWTO and have the same experiences.  Without
something like that, I don't expect to be a daily user any time soon.

Brian

Joerg Lippmann wrote:
 Am Montag 22 Juni 2009 schrieb Ben Wong:
 
 I want to thank Joerg for taking the time to give a clear list of
 reasons why a person might consider the Freerunner unsuitable as a
 phone.  I think it'd be helpful if these and other points were put on
 the wiki so that potential buyers can see the arguments against the
 Freerunner, and what the community response is.  (E.g., Solved?
 Kludged?  In progress?  Unfixable?)
 
 Good starting point!
 
 I'd like to thank everyone who answered my disgruntled mail in a constructive 
 manner. You all made a good case for the freerunner/openmoko and I appreciate 
 that. I think I see clearer, why I'm so unhappy with it now and maybe that's 
 the case for other people, too. 
 
 I think, most of the technical answers totally missed my point. 
 
 The guy wanted a smartphone. He didn't ask for an exiting piece of hardware 
 experimentation lab and developer paradise. If you recommend to tweak this 
 mixer-setting and install that tool and use that kernel-fix, then you prove, 
 that it's not for him. 
 
 I listed a lot of points, where I got stuck or where I got frustrated with 
 the 
 Freerunner to show, where he might get stuck, too.
 
 Granted, most of my points may be solved in distro A or fixed in Kernel B, or 
 fixable by tweaking settings in illume. but the point is, that there is (to 
 my 
 knowledge) not a single distro out there, that works perfectly out of the box 
 and has all the fixes already installed. Thats whats needed, if you want to 
 recommened it to the end-user.
 
 You are offering me and this guy single proofs-of-concept, and that is great 
 for further development, but thats not a working everyday smartphone.
 
 let me cite another mail (from Vasco Nevoa):
 
 Yes, it needs A LOT of attention and tweaking for about 3 months until 
 you get it just right for yourself, but after that it's good enough 
 as a phone and GPS, and a pretty good PDA.
 
 See my point? 
 
 Best wishes!
 j�...@home
 
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Re: [debian] sid/squeeze on freerunner

2009-06-23 Thread Brian C
Robin Paulson wrote:
 yes, but the packages i need require a long chain of dependencies from
 sid/squeeze, and i don't want to do that - i'll get a broken system
 very quickly. i'd rather get the whole OS
 
 is there way in lenny to reliably upgrade to sid/squeeze?
 
 i've heard the idea of changing all instances of 'lenny' to 'sid' in
 the sources.list file, but that sounds very flaky

Yes, if you just change lenny to sid, you should expect a lot of things
to break.  What you want to learn about is apt-pinning.  Google that.
You need to change your /etc/apt/sources.list to include both lenny and
sid and have an /etc/apt/preferences file that tells apt which packages
to pull from lenny and which from sid.

The problem will be this long chain of dependencies.  Before you even
begin, you should investigate exactly what versions of each package will
be needed, then in your /etc/apt/preferences file, you can pin each of
those packages to sid, keeping lenny as the default for everything else.
 I assume by long chain you understand that when sid package A
requires sid package B you should also check the dependencies of sid
package B as it may require further upgrades (and so on...this is what
makes it a chain.)  In looking into this you may learn that a required
dependency isn't in the arm sid repository that freerunner uses and then
you will be stuck, but better to learn that in advance than once you
have a broken system.

Brian

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Re: minimo (browser on freerunner)

2008-07-30 Thread Brian C
henrikz wrote:
 arne anka wrote:
 does it happen with the charger only or everytime you connect usb?

 It happens both with the AC charger and the usb-cable.
 
 Intrestingly it doesn't freeze the keyboard when using i.e. the terminal,
 however it messes up the key-bindings e.g.:
 
 With usb plugged in:
 the minus key - outputs a backslash \
 the } outputs a ∼
 
 with usb unplugged the signs are output correctly!
 
 seems that the usb port/drivers are interfering with the matchbox-keyboard
 :) 

I experienced the - outputting \ a few days ago and didn't realize it
was related to the cable being connected, but I'm sure I had the cable
connected at the time.  Nice find.

Brian

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Re: Community contributions to core apps features. (Was: Terminalfor ASU)

2008-07-29 Thread Brian C
steve wrote:
If you want to start a wiki about OM. Sean is the CEO, I am the VP of
 marketing, Wolfgang is the VP of Engineering. we announced this a long
while ago in the press.  

First attempt: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Employees

Based on review of all press releases at openmoko.com and looking for
openmoko.org or openmoko.com email addresses in the June/July archives
of the community, support, and documentation email lists.

This first effort likely leaves out some people and even of those
listed, official titles are often not known.

It's a wiki: please contribute to make this more complete.

Brian

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Re: Openmoko on Design

2008-07-29 Thread Brian C
Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:
 
 Dear Community
 
 
 Design.

This is a long, careful response to Sean's Openmoko on Design post.

If one goes back to the beginning of the Terminal for ASU thread, what
you find is that several users were just getting things set up and
mostly working in ASU and then they upgraded and found numerous things
were broken because they no longer had a means of manually bringing up a
keyboard.  A keyboard that always automatically knows when it is needed
sounds great in theory, but prior to that perfect keyboard being
implemented, what happened here was that users experienced a degradation
in usability and had no obvious means of restoring the lost
functionality.  They were understandably frustrated by this.

At the same time we heard comments from a key developer who indicated
that the decision was made above him by unnamed individuals with whom
the community has no obvious means of communication, and who apparently
don't even listen to the reasonable technical arguments of key
developers.  This also seemed to reveal something about the internals of
Openmoko that weren't expected: development decisions are not entirely
made by the developers, but instead they answer to some people who the
community cannot readily identify and who the community doesn't know how
to interact with or if they even can interact with these decision-makers.

This led to another set of questions.  Many in the community presumed
that they would be permitted to contribute code/ideas/design to the
software stack that Openmoko is developing, i.e., ASU, but if there are
unnamed designers implementing a private design superstructure that
overrides even Openmoko developers, then the usefulness or likelihood of
thinking that an ordinary end user could become an important part of
that development process seems extremely diminished, if not
extinguished.  This understandably disappointed developers who had hoped
to make such core contributions.

When prodded to respond, Openmoko employees indicated a willingness to
answer questions.  At least the following very specific questions were
asked:

1) Who is Openmoko's design department?
2) Many in the community believed that Openmoko wanted the community to
contribute code to the core applications/functionality of the software
stack.  Is this not the case?
3) If the design department is operating from a design document, has it
been made public?  If so, where?  If not, why not?

Sean responded with a lengthy email.  It illustrated again why he is the
CEO.  A CEO needs to be focused on the big picture, as was his response.
 A CEO also needs to point his or her team and the customers towards
that vision.  Sean's email was great at this.  However, I think many in
the community just wanted some specific answers to the questions above.
 Sean's email only partially succeeds at this.

We learned:

Being open doesn't mean we put the essential ideas behind each product
to a public vote. which suggests that there may be some parts of what
Openmoko is developing that the community will not have a means of
directly participating in, and tends to confirm some of the fears
expressed above.

But we also learned:

We're building an empty vessel for you to fill with your ideas. and
Change anything you want to our interface and we will gladly deliver it
to everyone. and these suggest that community contributions are
welcome, even to the interface, and those contributions will sometimes,
at least, become an officially distributed part of the Openmoko
interface.  So that tends to counteract those fears.

And while we didn't get any answer to question (1)--who is the design
team?--we were told that an answer to question (3)--is there a design
doc?--would require working as an Openmoko employee for several months.
 I think the implication of this has to be that, No, there isn't a
single design document that can be pointed to at this moment that
explains every decision made or priority had by the Openmoko team.  OK.
 Fine.

Everyone should step back and recognize that the device has not even
been on sale for a full month.

Maybe some people were expecting from day one to use it as their
everyday phone for push email, calendar, and contacts, and web browsing
and video/mp3 playback, and GPS applications-galore, all with a
bluetooth headset that would be operated by accelerometers or something.
 But we all recognize now that it's not there yet.

So, we all should also recognize that there are a million little (and
some big) things that need to be done to get the device to have all the
capabilities that its hardware make possible.

But the community can have (at least) two distinct ways of helping with
that giant TODO list.  1) The community can build applications that run
on a framework delivered to us by the Openmoko team; or 2) the community
can be directly involved in working on the underlying framework on the
device; or 3) both.

It was this incident with the keyboard that made several people 

Re: mark a missed call as seen

2008-07-29 Thread Brian C
 On Tuesday 29 July 2008, reaper527 wrote:
 is there any way to mark a missed call as seen?

 I've seen the same thing, and deleting the missed calls is the only thing
 that's worked for me. I should have checked for bug reports I suppose, or
 better yet dug out the source and patched it.

Ticket created for this bug/defect, which I also experience:
https://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/1690

Brian

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Re: Volume?

2008-07-24 Thread Brian C
Bastian Muck wrote:
 julien cubizolles schrieb:
 | Le jeudi 17 juillet 2008 à 17:53 +0200, papa-piet a écrit :
 | Hi,
 | I didn't tested it yet but maybe this will help:
 |
 | http://freeyourphone.de/portal_v1/viewtopic.php?f=5t=170start=75#p3277
 |
 | I thinks it's the original one. I adjusted this one (increased the Mic2
 | from 0 to 50) and nobody complains anymore when I call them...
 |
 No, it is not the original one. I adjusted the mono-volume, so everyone 
 can understand me but without echo. Before the adjustment, everyone 
 complained, that i was not loud enough.
 
 Greetings Bastian

I've read this entire thread a couple of times and there are just so
many options in alsamixer that I cannot figure out how to turn up the
volume enough so that I can be heard by the person I'm calling.  Would
someone who has figured this out please place very simple instructions
on the wiki?  Thanks.

Brian

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Suggestion: default /etc/resolv.conf

2008-07-24 Thread Brian C
Suggestion:

The rootfs should contain a resolv.conf that lists some
publicly-available dns servers so that people with new FreeRunners would
have a chance of getting net access without editing that file first.

Despite clear instructions on the wiki, this issue continues to cause
people problems and so the question comes up constantly on the list.

Brian

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Re: Public build host (proposal)

2008-07-24 Thread Brian C
Marek Lindner wrote:
 Hi,
 
 since it seems to be extremely difficult to build software for the
 OpenMoko on my home machine, perhaps it would be usefull if someone
 (within OpenMoko?) would set up a globally reachable build host with
 an openembedded and toolchain environment on it.
 
 could you describe what kind of problems you experience ? The only way to 
 improve the situation is by naming the issues at hand.  :-)
 
 Marek
 

I have yet to get a single application to build on my Ubuntu machine.
Everything I've tried ends up missing some library or other and the
instructions for adding libraries not in the toolchain are totally
unclear to me.  (Also, it seems like some extremely basic libraries are
not in the toolchain, so that makes no sense to me either.)  Finally,
there was discussion on this list, in another thread, I think, that much
of the toolchain's .la files still refer to gta01 or neo1973 directories
and that this causes a lot of problems.  I'm not sure if that's what is
causing my issues or something else, but I'll echo what another list
member said: One would think that a working toolchain would be a priority.

Brian

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Re: Has anyone tried the invisibleSHIELD on the freerunner?

2008-07-23 Thread Brian C
Søren Kristiansen wrote:
 Hello
 
 As the subject says, has anyone tried the invisibleSHIELD on the
 freerunner?

I received the full-body invisibleSHIELD recently.  I don't have a lot
of patience for tasks like this, but I found the back cover useful and
the screen protector good.  The front cover piece is so flimsy that I
could never get it in the right position and when I came close, to me it
just made the FreeRunner look horrible, so I took it off.  I never even
bothered with the side pieces.  I'm going to have to try to re-apply the
screen piece a few more times because I couldn't get all the air bubbles
out the first time, so those spots will eventually drive me crazy, but I
don't think the glare issue is too bad.  I would prefer a little of that
to a scratched-up screen, anyway.

Brian

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Re: USB connector not Mini-AB?

2008-07-20 Thread Brian C
Joerg Reisenweber wrote:
 see:
 http://www.electronicproductonline.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1781
 /j

Yes, something like this should be added to the contents of the
FreeRunner box.  Would likely be cheap to buy in bulk, but amazingly
useful for users who could instantly connect a world of existing USB
devices to their FreeRunner.

Brian

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Re: Terminal for ASU

2008-07-20 Thread Brian C
Ken Restivo wrote:
 Crap.
 
 I was considering opening a bug report (enhancement, probably) on this-- the 
 ASU needs a terminal.
 
 But I don't want to get smacked down with a ASU will never have a terminal, 
 it's not a supported use case closure for it.
 
 *Will* the ASU have a terminal app that works with the Qtopia environment? Or 
 is that something I shouldn't expect to work?
 
 -ken

1. It's an open platform, so it's inevitable that it will have a terminal.

2. If it were not possible to have a terminal on ASU, then OpenMoko
should just abandon ASU immediately.

Therefore, you should feel free to open the bug.

Brian

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Re: pdf in openmoko?

2008-07-19 Thread Brian C
arne anka wrote:
 i put epdfview up to http://www.ginguppin.de/node/18

I installed epdfview (thank you!) but neither the openmoko-browser2 nor
minimo knows to hand off a pdf link to another program.  Neither even
gives a Save As option.  These results should probably be filed as
bugs unless someone can explain how to fix.

Brian


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Re: Reason for GPS problems found!

2008-07-18 Thread Brian C
Andy Green wrote:
 Yes GPS chip is very sticky, even when depowered for some time it
 seems to hold state and not act in a deterministic way.  It makes it
 hard to know if the last thing you changed is responsible for the
 behaviour staying the same or changing, or if it was going to do that
 anyway.  That makes debugging it very confused.
 
 -Andy

While the issue you mention may have affected my test, here's the results:

1. Upgraded to today's kernel:

[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/# uname -a
Linux om-gta02 2.6.24 #1 PREEMPT Fri Jul 18 02:16:41 CEST 2008 armv4tl
unknown

2. Tested GPS TTFF without SD card (from an indoor position not near a
window): 306s

3. Shutdown and insert SD card

4. Tested GPS TTFF with SD card (from same indoor position not near a
window): 484s

Previously from this same spot with SD card I could let it run all night
long and never get a fix, so maybe the fix in step 2 is helping the fix
in step 4, but the impression I get is that the most recent kernel has
improved things.

Brian

Note: I get much better TTFF times outdoors, but didn't have opportunity
to check.

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Re: Calendar events

2008-07-17 Thread Brian C
Curtis Vaughan wrote:
 I've noticed a strange issue with the calendar.
 So I created the same event again, but left it at it's default time of 
 09:00. OK, it was there. So then I changed the time to 14:00 and closed 
 out it. It was still set at 09:00.
 Any clues on what's up?

Thank you for confirming the bug I reported here:
http://docs.openmoko.org/trac/ticket/1612

The calendar program does not allow one to edit the time of an event
once it is initially entered.  So, right now it's a great calendar for
people who never make mistakes...

In all seriousness, if you could add your experience to that bug perhaps
 someone would take a look at it.

Brian

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Re: Claws Mail

2008-07-15 Thread Brian C
arne anka wrote:
 as promised, i uploaded a tar ball with everything belonging to claws-mail  
 to ginguppin.de/node/17
 included are libetpan11 and ibgnutls, at least libetpan11 (whatever it  
 does) is not available from the feeds.
 if dependencies are missing, drop a mail.
 
Thanks very much for this.  I only needed the claws-mail and libetpan11
.ipk's to get a working claws mail.  I just used it to send a test email
from my FreeRunner (and it worked).  Great!

Brian

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Re: Reason for GPS problems found!

2008-07-15 Thread Brian C
thomasg wrote:
 The problem only occurs if a SD card is set in. Doesn't matter if it's
 mounted or in use, it just has to sit in the socket.

 Testresults from other people appreciated.

I can also confirm this.  I never got a fix on FreeRunner before, even
leaving it on all night (albeit indoors), but without SD card got a fix
indoors (not even really in a good location inside) in about 500
seconds.  I presume if I went outside or stood by a window I could
improve this time.

Brian

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Re: Can OM's wiki be used offline?

2008-07-15 Thread Brian C
john wrote:
 If there is an
 interest in this I could package it up for Openmoko. There is also
 potential for developing a native GUI local search tool using hyper
 estraier because it comes with a C API and other language bindings.
 This would remove the web server dependency.

Please do package this for Openmoko!  This would be a very nice project,
with or without its own GUI.  I could see it being used on downloaded
versions of wikipedia or the Openmoko wiki.

It also would be interesting if it could be integrated into the online
Openmoko wiki, whose current search functionality is often complained about.

Brian

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Re: NEWBIE : beginning development in openmoko

2008-07-15 Thread Brian C
Rahul Ramasubramanian wrote:
 hi
 hope this is the right place for this query.. i am a newbie as far as
 openmoko is concerned , but have abt 2 years of mobile handset dev
 expirience. i want to try my hand at openmoko development.. i have
 worked on Linux based phones and also on phones with Qualcomm's REX and
 Brew platforms , mainly on middleware (VM , FS porting etc)..My question
 is , is ther any doc , guide available to start off working on open-moko
 projects.. any help will be highly appriciated
 Kind Regards
 Rahul

You also may want to start or join a project at http://projects.openmoko.org

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Re: minimo (browser on freerunner)

2008-07-13 Thread Brian C
arne anka wrote:
 i just built minimo and cellwriter for the freerunner (gta02), which went  
 surprisingly well ...
 for ipk see
 http://www.ginguppin.de/node/16

Thanks very much for the .ipk, which installed fine for me.  However, I
have not yet been to an https secure site that hasn't crashed minimo.
Is this expected?  How might I capture more log info to figure out
what's happening?

Brian

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Mediaplayer on 2007.2: gstreamer failed to initialize

2008-07-11 Thread Brian C
The FreeRunner Getting Started Guide suggests:

# opkg install openmoko-mediaplayer2
# wget http://abraxa.dyndns.org:81/random/openmoko-mediaplayer-theme.tar.bz2
# tar xjf openmoko-mediaplayer-theme.tar.bz2 -C
/usr/share/themes/Moko/gtk-2.0

I did that, but when trying to start Mediaplayer I get the following error:

Error: gstreamer failed to initialize. Please make sure gstreamer and
its modules are properly installed (esp. gst-meta-audio).

But, to the extent I know how to check that gstreamer is properly
installed, it seems to be.  For instance, opkg install gst-meta-audio
returns:

Package gst-meta-audio (0.10-r10) installed in root is up to date.
Nothing to be done.

Any thoughts on how to get Mediaplayer and gstreamer to play nice?

Brian

P.S. I am successfully making and receiving calls (as well as SMS
messages) on ATT in U.S.  So far very excited by the device's
potential.  But, could someone put a detailed HOWTO on the wiki for:
1. installing a web browser on default 2007.2 image; and
2. installing an on-screen keyboard with CTRL, ESC, / and so forth.

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Web Browser Form Entry?

2008-07-11 Thread Brian C
On FreeRunner 2007.2, I did:
opkg install openmoko-browser2
and also installed the full keyboard per instructions here:
http://www.ginguppin.de/node/15

Now I browse to Google or any site with a form entry box and I cannot
figure out how to enter text into the form.  What am I missing?

Brian

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Re: Web Browser Form Entry?

2008-07-11 Thread Brian C
Michael Kluge wrote:
 Brian C schrieb:
 On FreeRunner 2007.2, I did:
 opkg install openmoko-browser2
 and also installed the full keyboard per instructions here:
 http://www.ginguppin.de/node/15

 Now I browse to Google or any site with a form entry box and I cannot
 figure out how to enter text into the form.  What am I missing?

 Brian
   
 Did you see any error messages during the install of the new 
 keyboard*.ipk's? What image are you using? factory or
 
   ScaredyCat? Already rebooted or restarted xserver?
 
 Michael

No error messages during install of the keyboard*.ipk's.  Using factory
2007.2 image.  Rebooted after install of keyboard and web browser was
already installed, so to the extent a reboot could help, I've done one.

Brian

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Re: Import Contacts

2008-07-11 Thread Brian C
Brian C wrote:
[a long error message because he didn't run the script from the OM terminal]

Ok, so the script runs now that I realize it must be run from the OM
terminal.  However, it appears to have entered all null contacts and
so far none of them appear to have any actual contact info in them.

Brian

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Re: Web Browser Form Entry?

2008-07-11 Thread Brian C
Alexander Syring wrote:
 I have a symbol in my panel add the following to /etc/matchbox/session
 
 matchbox-panel-2 --start-applets systray,startup \
   --end-applets 
 openmoko-panel-clock,keyboard,openmoko-panel-battery,openmoko-panel-gsm,openmoko-panel-gps,openmoko-panel-usb,openmoko-p
 anel-bt,openmoko-panel-memory,openmoko-panel-wifi --titlebar 
 
 after that you have to restart the x-server and look what's new ;-)

That did the trick.  Thanks!

Brian

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Web Browser Zoom?

2008-07-11 Thread Brian C
I can't figure out how to zoom in/out while using the web browser
(and/or change the font size).  Is this functionality not yet coded or
am I missing something?  Right now the fonts are too big and I see far
too little of the page for it to be really usable.

Brian

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Congratulations to the OpenMoko Team

2008-07-11 Thread Brian C
Steve's recent message indicating that this first batch of FreeRunner's
has sold out (in approximately a week's time) is, I hope, well-received
news among the OpenMoko team.

I am sure you all have been working hard for a long time to get to this
point, and clearly the world has been waiting too, since it only took us
a week to snap up as many free-as-in-freedom phones as you could deliver.

I'm sure the last week has been exhausting for you all, so thank you for
your overtime efforts.  The community is clearly excited to get a hold
of an open platform upon which it can create whatever they can imagine.
 I am looking forward to seeing all the things people dream up.

Brian


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Re: questions about our mailinglists

2008-07-10 Thread Brian C
Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:
2) Remove 'device-owners'.
 
 2) is a bit more controversial. But, being somebody that loves change, I 
 would like to try it as well.

I think device-owners should be removed.  It is easier, especially for
newbies, to locate a single list community where they can expect to
get an answer to their questions.

If there were to be some benefit from multiple lists, and there could
be, then they would need to be defined differently than community and
device-owners which contains far too much overlap.  If there were a
support list that was clearly intended to be questions about how to
get things working (flashing an image, compiling some software, etc.)
and then some other list for all non-support related discussions (not
sure the best name for it, but community still seems too broad and
would confuse newcomers), then that could be a useful split.  Anyway,
unless two better-defined lists were proposed, I would agree that
removing device-owners and putting everything in community is preferable.

Brian

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New Wiki Page: Latest Images

2008-07-05 Thread Brian C
2007.2, ASU, FSO, SHR -- if you're head is starting to spin at the
options available on an open platform, then, like me, you need a summary
of all these in one place that includes links to the files for the brave
and links to screenshots and/or videos for the merely curious.

Thus, I tried to resolve my own confusion by creating this wiki page:

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Latest_Images

I'm only partially confident that it is accurate, and I'm sure it's
incomplete in that there are probably other good sets of screenshots or
videos out there that I don't know about.

Also, I've heard of Scaredycat images and trolltech ones that I know
nothing about and hence didn't list.

But that's why it's a wiki!  Please improve and enjoy.

Brian

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Re: Openmoko Webshop Reopen NOW!!!

2008-07-03 Thread Brian C
Harry wrote:
 Dear All,
 Sorry for delay long time!!!
 So far, only GSM850 Freerunner is available in stock, Debug board and 
 spare also!!!
 
 http://www.openmoko.com/store.html
 
 Freerunner is running
 
 Thanks and BR

For those who wish to pick up in Fremont, there doesn't seem to be an
obvious option in the checkout process to indicate that.  Can this be
changed or can someone advise what we should do?

Brian (part of SF Bay Area Group Purchase)

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Re: Fast questions about GTA03

2008-06-27 Thread Brian C
Lucas Bonnet wrote:
 Sean Moss-Pultz [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 
 I encourage you to get involved today. We need your help. Waiting for 
 GTA03 is a possibility of course, but keep in mind how long it took us 
 to go from 01 to 02.
 
 Sure, how can we help?

Well, from the looks of the screenshots, Freerunners will ship without a
GUI email program or web browser.  (Is that right?)  If so, I'd think
that everyone who can contribute to a software update that includes
those apps should.  They seem fairly critical to me for any smartphone.

I would also rate getting the Glamo further figured out so that it will
do video playback as well as it's able is important.

Note: many people on this list don't care at all about video.  I
understand that.  However, I'm thinking more of public perception.  If
Slashdot/Engadget/Gizmodo etc. read reviews of the device that say, as
shipped, it can't do email, web browsing, or video playback, then a lot
of people will simply ignore Openmoko for good.  It would be better for
the community if it instead attracted as many people as possible.  It's
hard to overcome a bad first impression, but if some important software
updates become available within a month or two, there will still be a
chance to bring people around.

Brian

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Re: FreeRunner Quick Start User Guide

2008-06-26 Thread Brian C
BrendaWang wrote:
 Here is the getting start guide from wiki.
 
 http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Getting_Started_with_your_Neo_FreeRunner

In the Flashing the Freerunner section it says, You can use the USB
cable and Openmoko provided tool to flash Neo FreeRunner.

I'm curious about the use of the word can.  Is it possible to flash
the Freerunner from the device itself, without using the USB cable
connected to another GNU/Linux host?

I suspect it's not, and that this section could clarify this by saying,

To flash the Freerunner you must connect it via a USB cable to a host
that can run the Openmoko-provided flashing tool.

(And then I think it might also be true that the flashing tool is
currently only available for GNU/Linux.  Is that right?)

Brian

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Re: upgrade memory card

2008-06-24 Thread Brian C
ian douglas wrote:
[snip]
 Did anyone else test an 8GB card yet? If not, I'll order another one on
 the weekend.
[snip]

I bought an 8GB Sandisk MicroSD card.  I'm part of a group purchase for
the San Francisco Bay Area and we plan to pick up in Fremont, so as soon
as the Freerunners arrive I will be testing it out and will certainly
report back on the result.

Brian

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Re: Vote! Zimbra Mobile on the Openmoko

2008-06-23 Thread Brian C
Joseph Reeves wrote:
 Dear all,
 
 I'd like to bring this poll to your attention:
 
 http://www.zimbra.com/forums/zimbrame-j2me-client/12642-vote-phones-zimbra-j2me-client.html

I voted for this.  I want something that will synchronize my
email/contacts/calendar between my Freerunner and my GNU/Linux laptop.
I'm willing to adopt different software on the laptop (Thunderbird +
Lightning, Evolution, whatever) and even willing to run my own mail
server/collaboration suite if necessary.  I just want it to work.  I'd
be interested to hear how other people who'd like to sync intend to
automate that process.

For instance, will the native Freerunner apps support SyncML?

Brian

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Re: comparing Apples and Oranges $199 iPhone Freerunner GTA02

2008-06-10 Thread Brian C
cedric cellier wrote:
[snip]
 So, how does the Freerunner UI stand in front of the iPhone's ?
 What about the MobileMe initiative ? Do we have anything like that ?
[snip]
The MobileMe initiative was a far bigger announcement yesterday than the
3G iPhone.  Once one uses a Treo or similar linked to an Exchange server
then one is spoiled by having email/contacts/calendar pushed to/from
your phone automatically.  People choosing the Freerunner shouldn't have
to take a step backwards in this respect.  Surely someone can start a
push project for the Freerunner so that its native email/contacts/cal
apps can interact with the most common mail servers and/or
GNU/Linux-based desktop apps.  (Or there's a business opportunity here
for someone who wants to be the intermediate server in the cloud.)

Second, there's been some discussion of Android on the Freerunner.
Since Google is making increasingly clear that they will open source all
the component parts of Android, what's the reason for not throwing
Openmoko's full support behind that project too, and working together
with them on a great  open UI/platform for mobile devices?  Maybe there
is a good reason--I don't know--so, I'm really asking: why compete with
another open source phone project that has such an enormous amount of
support?

Brian

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