Alternatives to FR

[William Kenworthy]

What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...

The android phones (htc dream?) - none of which are fully functional on
FSO/SHR (I think), and access through android to the underlying system
is minimal.

Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
GSM device, but not both at the same time.

Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.

What others are available NOW?

BillK




-- 
William Kenworthy 
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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Neil Brown]

On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:12:54 +
William Kenworthy  wrote:

> What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
> 
> The android phones (htc dream?) - none of which are fully functional on
> FSO/SHR (I think), and access through android to the underlying system
> is minimal.
> 
> Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> 
> Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> 
> What others are available NOW?

http://www.exedamobile.com/

Looks like an interesting device.
Not terribly cheap, and they seem to want you to buy in lots
of 1000, but once you find the price page:

   http://www.compulab.co.il/exeda/html/exeda-price.htm

it does appear that for 40% extra you can buy them in ones.
Maybe $US672 with wifi, bluetooth, gsm, gprs, gps,
$US32 extra for a camera.

Claims (http://www.compulab.co.il/exeda/html/exeda-os-support.htm) to all
work with Linux.

If you buy one, let us know how it goes :-)

NeilBrown

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Re: Alternatives to FR

[William Kenworthy]

I'd looked at this one but its not 3G capable.  I like the physical
keyboard, though being 96mm wide its a small book!

3G is almost essential as on my last holiday in northwest Australia,
there were a lot of 3G only areas - GSM seems like its disappearing :(

BillK



On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 19:01 +1100, Neil Brown wrote:
> On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:12:54 +
> William Kenworthy  wrote:
> 
> > What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> > want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
> > 
> > The android phones (htc dream?) - none of which are fully functional on
> > FSO/SHR (I think), and access through android to the underlying system
> > is minimal.
> > 
> > Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> > there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> > GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> > 
> > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> > 
> > What others are available NOW?
> 
> http://www.exedamobile.com/
> 
> Looks like an interesting device.
> Not terribly cheap, and they seem to want you to buy in lots
> of 1000, but once you find the price page:
> 
>http://www.compulab.co.il/exeda/html/exeda-price.htm
> 
> it does appear that for 40% extra you can buy them in ones.
> Maybe $US672 with wifi, bluetooth, gsm, gprs, gps,
> $US32 extra for a camera.
> 
> Claims (http://www.compulab.co.il/exeda/html/exeda-os-support.htm) to all
> work with Linux.
> 
> If you buy one, let us know how it goes :-)
> 
> NeilBrown
> 
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Home in Perth!


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Re: Alternatives to FR

[A.A.]

2010/1/4 William Kenworthy 

> I'd looked at this one but its not 3G capable.  I like the physical
> keyboard, though being 96mm wide its a small book!
>
> 3G is almost essential as on my last holiday in northwest Australia,
> there were a lot of 3G only areas - GSM seems like its disappearing :(
>
> BillK
>
>
>
> On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 19:01 +1100, Neil Brown wrote:
> > On Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:12:54 +
> > William Kenworthy  wrote:
> >
> > > What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> > > want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
> > >
> > > The android phones (htc dream?) - none of which are fully functional on
> > > FSO/SHR (I think), and access through android to the underlying system
> > > is minimal.
> > >
> > > Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> > > there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or
> a
> > > GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> > >
> > > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> > >
> > > What others are available NOW?
> >
> > http://www.exedamobile.com/
> >
> > Looks like an interesting device.
> > Not terribly cheap, and they seem to want you to buy in lots
> > of 1000, but once you find the price page:
> >
> >http://www.compulab.co.il/exeda/html/exeda-price.htm
> >
> > it does appear that for 40% extra you can buy them in ones.
> > Maybe $US672 with wifi, bluetooth, gsm, gprs, gps,
> > $US32 extra for a camera.
> >
> > Claims (http://www.compulab.co.il/exeda/html/exeda-os-support.htm) to
> all
> > work with Linux.
> >
> > If you buy one, let us know how it goes :-)
> >
> > NeilBrown
> >
> > ___
> > Openmoko community mailing list
> > community@lists.openmoko.org
> > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
> --
> William Kenworthy 
> Home in Perth!
>
>
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>


Else Intuition
-- 
A.A.
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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Timo Jyrinki]

2010/1/4 William Kenworthy :
> Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.

Probably, but to be more precise "not yet" instead of "at this time".
It's the only one that seems to have realistic possibility of some day
having a free distribution running with all features enabled. But it's
not today, and it remains to be seen how active the community around
it is.

I'm personally thinking that in 1-2 years I could have a pure Debian
(maybe custom kernel) running on N900, with everything except probably
3D working. That assumes some people will reverse-engineer the battery
loading etc. whatever is needed.

But until then there is simply no choice besides Neo FreeRunner,
unless something new appears or community around Palm evolves to reach
the level of free distribution hackers around Maemo and the modem
stuff is reverse-engineered.

And even with those, I would have to give up free hardware :S I'd
really hope for "FreeRunner with 3G and Glamo ripped off, possibly
newer CPU" some day. For example some company joining gta02-core
effort to semi-productize something new...

-Timo

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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Warren Baird]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 1:35 PM, Timo Jyrinki  wrote:

> 2010/1/4 William Kenworthy :
> > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
>
> Probably, but to be more precise "not yet" instead of "at this time".
> It's the only one that seems to have realistic possibility of some day
> having a free distribution running with all features enabled. But it's
> not today, and it remains to be seen how active the community around
> it is.
>
>
Depends a bit on how you define 'free'...   I interact with a phone mostly
as a user, and possibly as a app developer - so for me if I can run free
software on it, and I can develop free software for it using free tools,
it's 'free enough'...I really want a device that I can use as a phone,
and a hand-held linux box.   The FR does the hand-held linux box part very
well, but not so much the phone part.

I've been using my FR for 1.5 years, as my primary phone for a lot of that
time(on QtEI and the more recently shr-u), and I must admit I'm getting more
and more frustrated with it - between the regular crashes and hangs, the
incredibly slow performance (so slow that I still occasionally miss a call
because I can't unlock the phone in time to answer it), the horrible GPRS
performance, and the various idiosyncracies (like the  recent 'feature' to
progressively dim the screen while I'm trying to use it, inability to
connect to wifi much of the time, etc.)...

There have been improvements, but it's been very slow, and IMO we're still a
*long* way from having a phone with even a half-decent user experience...
and there is nothing we can do can fix issues like the poor glamo bandwidth,
and the crappy GPRS performance.  When I'm out of the house and need to look
something up on the web, I borrow my wife's Iphone - I can look up what I
need before the FR's browser finishes launching, let alone loading the
google homepage...

Unfortunately, I've been actively looking for a device lately to replace my
FR - I'm just too fed up with it.   The N900 is currently my leading
contender.   I had originally written it off, because it doesn't support the
3G data frequencies currently available here in Montreal - but I realized
the other day that it's 'fallback' data support is EDGE, not GPRS.   The
*fallback* on this phone is still 20x to 50x faster than the best data
tranfer rate I can get on the FR...

And to be blunt, I don't give a damn if the battery loading software isn't
open...  As long as it's a linux stack, and it's easy to cross-compile the
app software I want for it, using the standard open source libs I'm familiar
with --- that's free enough...

So long, and thanks for all the fish...

Warren

-- 
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http://www.synergisticimages.ca
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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Wolfgang Spraul]

Warren,

> I've been using my FR for 1.5 years, as my primary phone for a lot of that
> time(on QtEI and the more recently shr-u), and I must admit I'm getting more
> and more frustrated with it - between the regular crashes and hangs, the
> incredibly slow performance (so slow that I still occasionally miss a call
> because I can't unlock the phone in time to answer it), the horrible GPRS
> performance, and the various idiosyncracies (like the  recent 'feature' to
> progressively dim the screen while I'm trying to use it, inability to
> connect to wifi much of the time, etc.)...
> 
> There have been improvements, but it's been very slow, and IMO we're still a
> *long* way from having a phone with even a half-decent user experience...
> and there is nothing we can do can fix issues like the poor glamo bandwidth,
> and the crappy GPRS performance.  When I'm out of the house and need to look
> something up on the web, I borrow my wife's Iphone - I can look up what I
> need before the FR's browser finishes launching, let alone loading the
> google homepage...

Just want to say thanks for writing this up!
It's tough, but I think you pretty much sum up the experience of a lof of
people. It's the best that we could achieve (I worked for Openmoko before).

> And to be blunt, I don't give a damn if the battery loading software isn't
> open...  As long as it's a linux stack, and it's easy to cross-compile the
> app software I want for it, using the standard open source libs I'm familiar
> with --- that's free enough...

Sounds like a plan.
We all want a 100% free phone, but we gain nothing from building on sand.
So with the FreeRunner in the state it is, I think development will fragment
for a while, until it comes together again in a new attempt at a 100% free
phone one day. Until then, if the hardware is not stable you cannot do kernel
development, if the kernel is not stable you cannot do middleware, if
middleware is not stable you cannot do apps.
Doing it all at the same time like with the FreeRunner lead to what you
described above.

For myself - I went back to an old Blackberry Pearl, I think I will buy
a new Linux phone only if one exists that can do telephony when reflashed
with an image built by OE/OWrt or so. Like you I would also accept some
binary parts temporarily.
As far as I understand that still doesn't work with the Palm Pre or N900,
so I'm in wait-and-see mode.

Wolfgang

On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 05:28:34PM -0500, Warren Baird wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 1:35 PM, Timo Jyrinki  wrote:
> 
> > 2010/1/4 William Kenworthy :
> > > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> >
> > Probably, but to be more precise "not yet" instead of "at this time".
> > It's the only one that seems to have realistic possibility of some day
> > having a free distribution running with all features enabled. But it's
> > not today, and it remains to be seen how active the community around
> > it is.
> >
> >
> Depends a bit on how you define 'free'...   I interact with a phone mostly
> as a user, and possibly as a app developer - so for me if I can run free
> software on it, and I can develop free software for it using free tools,
> it's 'free enough'...I really want a device that I can use as a phone,
> and a hand-held linux box.   The FR does the hand-held linux box part very
> well, but not so much the phone part.
> 
> I've been using my FR for 1.5 years, as my primary phone for a lot of that
> time(on QtEI and the more recently shr-u), and I must admit I'm getting more
> and more frustrated with it - between the regular crashes and hangs, the
> incredibly slow performance (so slow that I still occasionally miss a call
> because I can't unlock the phone in time to answer it), the horrible GPRS
> performance, and the various idiosyncracies (like the  recent 'feature' to
> progressively dim the screen while I'm trying to use it, inability to
> connect to wifi much of the time, etc.)...
> 
> There have been improvements, but it's been very slow, and IMO we're still a
> *long* way from having a phone with even a half-decent user experience...
> and there is nothing we can do can fix issues like the poor glamo bandwidth,
> and the crappy GPRS performance.  When I'm out of the house and need to look
> something up on the web, I borrow my wife's Iphone - I can look up what I
> need before the FR's browser finishes launching, let alone loading the
> google homepage...
> 
> Unfortunately, I've been actively looking for a device lately to replace my
> FR - I'm just too fed up with it.   The N900 is currently my leading
> contender.   I had originally written it off, because it doesn't support the
> 3G data frequencies currently available here in Montreal - but I realized
> the other day that it's 'fallback' data support is EDGE, not GPRS.   The
> *fallback* on this phone is still 20x to 50x faster than the best data
> tranfer rate I can get on the FR...
> 
> And to be blunt, I don't give a damn if the battery loadin

Re: Alternatives to FR

[Wolfgang Spraul]

Timo,

> I'd really hope for "FreeRunner with 3G and Glamo ripped off, possibly
> newer CPU" some day. For example some company joining gta02-core
> effort to semi-productize something new...

Yeah definitely.
There are a number of efforts going on to regroup, here's my perspective
on the lower layers (everything up to Linux kernel):

---1
Just yesterday Harald announced a new GSM development board he will be working
on with some others:
http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2010/01/07/#20100107-gsm_devel_board-planning
I think this is a very promising project, like Harald says right now he can
only handle people with GSM experience and EE or DSP skills, but if you are one
of them, maybe get in touch with Harald.

---2
gta02-core, which you already know, is mostly stuck right now waiting for
components from Openmoko. I also see it as a project to learn more about
the good and bad of KiCad.
http://docs.openmoko.org/trac/log/trunk/gta02-core

---3
Ben NanoNote - the project I currently work on, a very simple zero-RF pocket
computer, we are going in parallel with gta02-core in trying to verify a
design process around KiCad. I think it's important that we figure out a
complete design process using free tools.
http://projects.qi-hardware.com/index.php/p/board-qi-avt2/timeline/

---4
USRP - well known for a while coming at the RF problem from the GNU Radio angle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USRP

---5
Milkymist (www.milkymist.org), the "fastest open source system-on-chip capable
of running Linux". Somehow I'm dreaming but I think this may become the
basis for GPL'ed application processors in the future, and we can integrate
logic developed by USRP or Harald's new project.  The Milkymist SoC uses a
LatticeMico32 core, and can boot Linux today. Their latest move is the
Milkymist One development board
http://lekernel.net/blog/?p=803

All of these projects are on the lower layers, however, and I doubt this will
lead to another free phone for another few years maybe. If anybody knows more
projects please holler. Also I do know that these things are not really
connected to each other, lots of disorder. But with some imagination you can
see how important pieces of the puzzle are contributed in various places...

For the upper layers, I agree with others that intermediate solutions are
phones like the Palm Pre or Nokia N900, which allow to continue development
of things like FSO or mobile apps while the lower layers are progressing.

No reason to be demotivated, I think! 2010 should be a fun year, and hopefully
the FreeRunner can continue to be a source of inspiration, more than
frustration :-)
Cheers,
Wolfgang

On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 08:35:02PM +0200, Timo Jyrinki wrote:
> 2010/1/4 William Kenworthy :
> > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> 
> Probably, but to be more precise "not yet" instead of "at this time".
> It's the only one that seems to have realistic possibility of some day
> having a free distribution running with all features enabled. But it's
> not today, and it remains to be seen how active the community around
> it is.
> 
> I'm personally thinking that in 1-2 years I could have a pure Debian
> (maybe custom kernel) running on N900, with everything except probably
> 3D working. That assumes some people will reverse-engineer the battery
> loading etc. whatever is needed.
> 
> But until then there is simply no choice besides Neo FreeRunner,
> unless something new appears or community around Palm evolves to reach
> the level of free distribution hackers around Maemo and the modem
> stuff is reverse-engineered.
> 
> And even with those, I would have to give up free hardware :S I'd
> really hope for "FreeRunner with 3G and Glamo ripped off, possibly
> newer CPU" some day. For example some company joining gta02-core
> effort to semi-productize something new...
> 
> -Timo
> 
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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Timo Jyrinki]

2010/1/9 Warren Baird :
>> having a free distribution running with all features enabled. But it's
>
> Depends a bit on how you define 'free'...   I interact with a phone mostly
> as a user, and possibly as a app developer - so for me if I can run free
> software on it, and I can develop free software for it using free tools,
> it's 'free enough'...

I understand. I meant "free distribution" as a whole, most preferably
Debian without any binary blobs. But, as you define, N900 is
definitely the way to go, not a bad choice by any means and allows to
continue working on the free software ecosystem... and there is even
the possibility of running truly free distributions some day on it. It
might easily take the lifecycle of N900 anyway before something like
FreeRunner again appears.

I'm also recommending N900 to any "normal" person as well.

> I've been using my FR for 1.5 years, as my primary phone for a lot of that
> time(on QtEI and the more recently shr-u), and I must admit I'm getting more
> and more frustrated with it - between the regular crashes and hangs, the
> incredibly slow performance (so slow that I still occasionally miss a call
> because I can't unlock the phone in time to answer it), the horrible GPRS
> performance, and the various idiosyncracies (like the  recent 'feature' to
> progressively dim the screen while I'm trying to use it, inability to
> connect to wifi much of the time, etc.)...

> There have been improvements, but it's been very slow, and IMO we're still a
> *long* way from having a phone with even a half-decent user experience...
> and there is nothing we can do can fix issues like the poor glamo bandwidth,
> and the crappy GPRS performance.

Well first the glamo bandwidth I think just doubled some time ago in
andy-tracking thanks to Thomas White ;) Slow still, and in practice
the benefit is not double, but still nice. Together with the another
30-50% speedup all in all regarding these disabling of debug features
in kernel, I really feel FreeRunner is a lot more usable
performance-wise now than it was ca. 2 months ago. What's incredible
of course that it took so long time to notice those two things. This
is truly a project of obstacles...

But the GPRS is crappy. It works fine (=slow) if I use it on Neo, or
if I browse via Bluetooth from computer with images disabled in
browser, but otherwise it's easy to hang it with multiple connections.
Some people rumor the newest muxers are able to do something about it,
but I'm not sure if they have stress-tested it or only used it on
FreeRunner itself. And anyway - 3G would be nice of course. But I'd
take reliable GPRS gladly as well.

> When I'm out of the house and need to look
> something up on the web, I borrow my wife's Iphone - I can look up what I
> need before the FR's browser finishes launching, let alone loading the
> google homepage...

I'm using woosh quite successfully for quick web browsing nowadays.
And I just checked that with the new debug-disabled-kernel (see
another thread) Midori isn't too bad either starting up. Of course
it's not iphone or other smartphone-like, but usable.

> Unfortunately, I've been actively looking for a device lately to replace my
> FR - I'm just too fed up with it.

Even though I'm defending FreeRunner, I completely understand you! I
hate these problems myself as well, even though it's also rewarding to
have many of those actually fixed in the long run. Coupled with the
fact that I'm not willing to go for a less free phone (at least
software-wise) yet, I'm staying with FreeRunner. But it is _very_ easy
to understand that people are fed up, even despite the whatever slow
progress has been made.

> And to be blunt, I don't give a damn if the battery loading software isn't
> open...

I could also live with otherwise free Debian if the battery loading
software isn't eg. incompatible with some libraries or something, but
completely self-sustaining. But I think it will be possible to replace
it with a free software alternative, according to some estimates.

Good tinkering with N900!

-Timo

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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Michal Brzozowski]

2010/1/8 Warren Baird 

> There have been improvements, but it's been very slow, and IMO we're still
> a *long* way from having a phone with even a half-decent user experience...
> and there is nothing we can do can fix issues like the poor glamo bandwidth,
> and the crappy GPRS performance.  When I'm out of the house and need to look
> something up on the web, I borrow my wife's Iphone - I can look up what I
> need before the FR's browser finishes launching, let alone loading the
> google homepage...
>
>
It sounds like you haven't spent enough time configuring your FR.

First thing I do when I reflash SHR is get rid of enlightenment, install
Icewm, install Links2, literki, and this thing is like a speed devil. Links2
is faster on the FR than Firefox on my laptop. You have dillo too, but it
probably still doesn't support ssl.

The only thing that still doesn't work perfectly for me is wifi.
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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Warren Baird]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 10:21 PM, Wolfgang Spraul wrote:

>
> Just want to say thanks for writing this up!
> It's tough, but I think you pretty much sum up the experience of a lof of
> people. It's the best that we could achieve (I worked for Openmoko before).
>

I understand - I hope I didn't sound too accusatory...   I don't think it's
anyone's fault, and in fact I'm very impressed at the improvements that have
been made.   In my more optimistic moments, I think the FR might at least
become a usable phone  with limited smartphone capabilities in the near
future...

Sounds like a plan.
> We all want a 100% free phone, but we gain nothing from building on sand.
> So with the FreeRunner in the state it is, I think development will
> fragment
> for a while, until it comes together again in a new attempt at a 100% free
> phone one day. Until then, if the hardware is not stable you cannot do
> kernel
> development, if the kernel is not stable you cannot do middleware, if
> middleware is not stable you cannot do apps.
> Doing it all at the same time like with the FreeRunner lead to what you
> described above.
>

Yeah, I think that's a lot of the problem...  when you combine unstable HW
with unstable kernel, it's very hard to build a solid phone stack...   but I
don't think that the work going on now is wasted - it's (slowly) converging
towards a pretty good phone stack, and I think once there's a good candidate
for decent hardware with a reasonable kernel, it'll be quite impressive.



-- 
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http://www.synergisticimages.ca
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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Jeroen Wouters]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 4/01/10 02:12, William Kenworthy wrote:
> What others are available NOW?
> 

The Geeksphone One could also be a possibility:
http://www.geeksphone.com/en/moviles/

It has been discussed here before and they are apparently in contact
with people in the openmoko community:
http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2009-November/057762.html

No word yet on how open it exactly is though (AFAIK).

Jeroen
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Re: Alternatives to FR

[Lowell Higley]

On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 2:45 PM, Paul Fertser  wrote:

>
>
> Lowell Higley 
> writes:
> > So I would say that no, the device drivers will not be open
> > source. I would say the developer community would be provided with
> > binary kernel modules."
>
> I guess that would be very likely to be considered a GPL violation
> then.
>
>
I guess I should read the mailing lists more often. Food for thought, not
even android is GPL.  Since this thread, I have found their SDK license.
I'm not a lawyer so it is thoroughly confusing to me.  Some things seem to
be open source and others are not. If I read their license right, their
Plazma OS (which is linux based) is not open source... which to me IS a GPL
violation.  Again.. not a lawyer.  I'm thinking of sending the license on to
an acquaintance at the FSF and getting his read.  If anyone is interested,
I'll update here.  If not, I won't.
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RE: Alternatives to FR

[Niels Heyvaert]

>
> Lowell Higley>
>
> writes:
>
>> So I would say that no, the device drivers will not be open
>
>> source. I would say the developer community would be provided with
>
>> binary kernel modules."
>
>
>
> I guess that would be very likely to be considered a GPL violation
>
> then.
>
>
>
> I guess I should read the mailing lists more often. Food for thought, not 
> even android is GPL. Since this thread, I have found their SDK license. I'm 
> not a lawyer so it is thoroughly confusing to me. Some things seem to be open 
> source and others are not. If I read their license right, their Plazma OS 
> (which is linux based) is not open source... which to me IS a GPL violation. 
> Again.. not a lawyer. I'm thinking of sending the license on to an 
> acquaintance at the FSF and getting his read. If anyone is interested, I'll 
> update here. If not, I won't.
>

I think we're all interested, to some extend. Keep us posted, I would say.
  
_
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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Margo]

2010/1/4 William Kenworthy :
> What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
>
> The android phones (htc dream?) - none of which are fully functional on
> FSO/SHR (I think), and access through android to the underlying system
> is minimal.
>
> Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> GSM device, but not both at the same time.
>
> Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
>
> What others are available NOW?
>
> BillK
>

The Officer S101 seems interesting:
http://www.road.de/en/handypcs/officer.html
http://blog.hackable1.org/2009/08/running-hackable1-on-the-road-officer-s101.html

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Michael 'Mickey' Lauer]

Am Montag, den 04.01.2010, 20:08 +0200 schrieb Margo:
> The Officer S101 seems interesting:
> http://www.road.de/en/handypcs/officer.html
> http://blog.hackable1.org/2009/08/running-hackable1-on-the-road-officer-s101.html

Unfortunately it has been "just around the corner and almost out" for
about 5 years now and the scheduled price tag when it actually comes out
(of which I'm not convinced) will be way more than a N900 -- I doubt
that it will spread wide that way :/

:M:


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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[W.Kenworthy]

This is one I was not aware of - looks nice but its still not 3G capable


BillK


On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 20:08 +0200, Margo wrote:
> 2010/1/4 William Kenworthy :
> > What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> > want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
> >
> > The android phones (htc dream?) - none of which are fully functional on
> > FSO/SHR (I think), and access through android to the underlying system
> > is minimal.
> >
> > Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> > there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> > GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> >
> > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> >
> > What others are available NOW?
> >
> > BillK
> >
> 
> The Officer S101 seems interesting:
> http://www.road.de/en/handypcs/officer.html
> http://blog.hackable1.org/2009/08/running-hackable1-on-the-road-officer-s101.html
> 
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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Laszlo KREKACS]

What do you think which mobile phone has the most likeliness to RE or
somehow put fso on it?

- Google Nexus
http://www.google.com/phone/

- Motorola MILESTONE (US version: Droid)
http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/XW-EN/Consumer-Products-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/Motorola-MILESTONE-XW-EN

Already rooted the US version (Droid):
http://alldroid.org/viewtopic.php?f=236&t=567

- Nokia N900
http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/

- Palm Pre
http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/

- Apple iphone
http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Maybe apple iphone seems unrealistic, but the hardware is quite
similar to the other ones.
Almost all of the aboves uses omap3430 processor. Google Nexus uses
snapdragon...

Is there some site, who tracks the process of RE of each individual devices?

Best regards,
 Laszlo

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Jim Ancona]

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Laszlo KREKACS
 wrote:
> What do you think which mobile phone has the most likeliness to RE or
> somehow put fso on it?
>
> - Google Nexus
> http://www.google.com/phone/

The Nexus One has an "unlockable bootloader" built-in--just agree to
the risks of modifying firmware and you're in, no hacking required:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/49595

That's certainly a step in the right direction.

Jim

>
> - Motorola MILESTONE (US version: Droid)
> http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/XW-EN/Consumer-Products-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/Motorola-MILESTONE-XW-EN
>
> Already rooted the US version (Droid):
> http://alldroid.org/viewtopic.php?f=236&t=567
>
> - Nokia N900
> http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
>
> - Palm Pre
> http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/
>
> - Apple iphone
> http://www.apple.com/iphone/
>
> Maybe apple iphone seems unrealistic, but the hardware is quite
> similar to the other ones.
> Almost all of the aboves uses omap3430 processor. Google Nexus uses
> snapdragon...
>
> Is there some site, who tracks the process of RE of each individual devices?
>
> Best regards,
>  Laszlo
>
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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Michael Zanetti]

On Wednesday 06 January 2010 17:28:07 Laszlo KREKACS wrote:
> What do you think which mobile phone has the most likeliness to RE or
> somehow put fso on it?
> 
> 
> - Nokia N900
> http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/

The N900 runs a debian like linux with an X11 server. I'm pretty sure it would 
be possible to put FSO on it. It is pretty much open. You can reflash it with 
the official nokia flasher and get root access without any hazzle. Basically 
everything running on debian-arm will run on the n900 (after re-packaging - no 
recompiling).

http://maemo.org

There is also a community based Distro called Mer. It is completely open 
source and based on ubuntu. There is also a freerunner port of it somewhere 
around the net.


> 
> - Palm Pre
> http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/
> 

I had the chance to play around with a Palm Pre. You can activate a serial 
terminal through USB by pressing some fancy key combos. After that you can 
install usb networking and dropbear ssh. You'll find an openembedded linux 
with a very limited version of ipkg. However, you can activate openembedded 
repositories and have pretty much everything you have on an openwrt router. No 
X11 though.

http://www.webos-internals.org

> - Apple iphone
> http://www.apple.com/iphone/
> 

IIRC there is a linux distribution for the iPhone. I have no idea what state 
they have reached... I wouldn't hope too much that FSO is useful on iPhones 
MacOS though... Anyways, IMHO the constant locking/jailbraeking race with 
apple isn't worth it.

About android. Just install it on your FR and play a little around. It is 
pretty much the same you can expect from any android phone I guess (except 
better stability and performance then on the freerunner)... 

From what I've seen every manufacturer (except Apple) lets you reflash the 
phone selecting your own image and getting root access without big hazzle. But 
they are all trying to hide the linux side as much as possible except Nokia. 
The N900 comes with X11 and x-term preinstalled and you have the possibility 
to add devel-repositories where you can even contribute your own projects. gcc 
is just an apt-get install away :)


Cheers,
Michael


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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Laszlo KREKACS]

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Michael Zanetti  wrote:
> The N900 runs a debian like linux with an X11 server. I'm pretty sure it would
> be possible to put FSO on it. It is pretty much open.

> http://maemo.org

You cant use FSO, because the key parts are closed. The modem handling
or even the
battery charger daemon is closed source.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_Maemo

The situation is only better, because it happen to have more open
source developers
who are willing to really free the maemo platform. IE reverse engineer
the closed
source programs.

Best regards,
 Laszlo

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Michal Brzozowski]

2010/1/7 Laszlo KREKACS 

> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Michael Zanetti 
> wrote:
> > The N900 runs a debian like linux with an X11 server. I'm pretty sure it
> would
> > be possible to put FSO on it. It is pretty much open.
>
> > http://maemo.org
>
> You cant use FSO, because the key parts are closed. The modem handling
> or even the
> battery charger daemon is closed source.
>
>
But there's probably some high level API to handle the battery, modem, gps,
etc. Isn't it possible to put FSO on top of that in form of a compatibility
layer? Just guessing.
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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Michael 'Mickey' Lauer]

Am Mittwoch, den 06.01.2010, 17:28 +0100 schrieb Laszlo KREKACS:
> What do you think which mobile phone has the most likeliness to RE or
> somehow put fso on it?
> 
> - Google Nexus
> http://www.google.com/phone/

Unlikely. Same as all other Android phones. Nightmare to get root and
after that, you have quite some work to remove the Androidisms. Or teach
FSO to use them as well. Modem-interface unclear.

> 
> - Motorola MILESTONE (US version: Droid)
> http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/XW-EN/Consumer-Products-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/Motorola-MILESTONE-XW-EN

See Nexus.

> 
> Already rooted the US version (Droid):
> http://alldroid.org/viewtopic.php?f=236&t=567

See Nexus, minus rooting.

> - Nokia N900
> http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/

Likely. It uses basic GNU/Linux, and the modem interface is at least
somewhat known. Advanced drivers (Wifi, BT, PowerManagement, Camera)
unknown though.

> - Palm Pre
> http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/

Very likely, if it wasn't for the completely obfuscated modem interface
which we're still working on.

> - Apple iphone
> http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Unrealistic. There won't be a Linux-port soon.

> Is there some site, who tracks the process of RE of each individual devices?

Not really, FSO has a page on the wiki, but since we're not in the
kernel business, but rather working on middleware, we rely on the
various reverse-engineering communities to do the grunt work.

Cheers,

:M:



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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Nicola Mfb]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Michal Brzozowski  wrote:
> 2010/1/7 Laszlo KREKACS 
[...]
>> > http://maemo.org
>>
>> You cant use FSO, because the key parts are closed. The modem handling
>> or even the
>> battery charger daemon is closed source.
>>
>
> But there's probably some high level API to handle the battery, modem, gps,
> etc. Isn't it possible to put FSO on top of that in form of a compatibility
> layer? Just guessing.

On the maemo developers list there is a discussion about using ofono
on the N900 that "should" work out of the box, so the phone system is
mostly open (excluding the gui part).
Someone tested it using pnatd too, a daemon that provides an "at"
compatibility layer, it may be interesting to test it with FSO.

I want to remember that on N900 root access is trivial, and with few
clicks you are able to install openssh server and login with root
account without problems, IMHO the n900 is the less closed device in
the propretary market.

It may be nice to organize a donation to provide such device to
FSO/OE/SHR staff.

Regards

Niko

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Michal Brzozowski]

2010/1/7 Nicola Mfb 

>
> It may be nice to organize a donation to provide such device to
> FSO/OE/SHR staff.
>


Excellent idea.
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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Petr Vanek]

>> It may be nice to organize a donation to provide such device to
>> FSO/OE/SHR staff.
>>
>
>
>Excellent idea.

+1

Wonderful.

How do we get this going? Seems like 600€ in Germany, dunno if with
contract or what... what service could we use?

Mickey, would this be an option for you? If we get enough people...

Petr



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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Jim Ancona]

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 6:14 PM, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer
 wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, den 06.01.2010, 17:28 +0100 schrieb Laszlo KREKACS:
>> What do you think which mobile phone has the most likeliness to RE or
>> somehow put fso on it?
>>
>> - Google Nexus
>> http://www.google.com/phone/
>
> Unlikely. Same as all other Android phones. Nightmare to get root and
> after that, you have quite some work to remove the Androidisms. Or teach
> FSO to use them as well. Modem-interface unclear.

No rooting neccessary. As I posted earlier on this thread, the Nexus
One allows users to unlock the bootloader. See
http://tinyurl.com/y9nusuy

Jim

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Bastian Muck]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1
 
Am 07.01.2010 21:08, schrieb Jim Ancona:
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 6:14 PM, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer
>  wrote:
>> Am Mittwoch, den 06.01.2010, 17:28 +0100 schrieb Laszlo KREKACS:
>>> What do you think which mobile phone has the most likeliness to RE or
>>> somehow put fso on it?
>>>
>>> - Google Nexus
>>> http://www.google.com/phone/
>>
>> Unlikely. Same as all other Android phones. Nightmare to get root and
>> after that, you have quite some work to remove the Androidisms. Or teach
>> FSO to use them as well. Modem-interface unclear.
>
> No rooting neccessary. As I posted earlier on this thread, the Nexus
> One allows users to unlock the bootloader. See
> http://tinyurl.com/y9nusuy
Wow, that looks nice. Then there is hope, that (except Freerunner)
there will be another phone looking up for the award of the most free
phone.
>
> Jim
>
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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Michael Zanetti]

On Thursday 07 January 2010 21:57:01 Bastian Muck wrote:
> Am 07.01.2010 21:08, schrieb Jim Ancona:
> > On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 6:14 PM, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer
> >
> >  wrote:
> >> Am Mittwoch, den 06.01.2010, 17:28 +0100 schrieb Laszlo KREKACS:
> >>> What do you think which mobile phone has the most likeliness to RE or
> >>> somehow put fso on it?
> >>>
> >>> - Google Nexus
> >>> http://www.google.com/phone/
> >>
> >> Unlikely. Same as all other Android phones. Nightmare to get root and
> >> after that, you have quite some work to remove the Androidisms. Or teach
> >> FSO to use them as well. Modem-interface unclear.
> >
> > No rooting neccessary. As I posted earlier on this thread, the Nexus
> > One allows users to unlock the bootloader. See
> > http://tinyurl.com/y9nusuy
> 
> Wow, that looks nice. Then there is hope, that (except Freerunner)
> there will be another phone looking up for the award of the most free
> phone.
> 

FWIW, you don't need to void your warranty to get root or flash the device 
with the N900...


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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Michael 'Mickey' Lauer]

Am Donnerstag, den 07.01.2010, 18:55 +0100 schrieb Petr Vanek:
> >> It may be nice to organize a donation to provide such device to
> >> FSO/OE/SHR staff.
> >>
> >
> >
> >Excellent idea.
> 
> +1
> 
> Wonderful.
> 
> How do we get this going? Seems like 600€ in Germany, dunno if with
> contract or what... what service could we use?
> 
> Mickey, would this be an option for you? If we get enough people...

Absolutely. I think I could get it here even for around 500.

Cheers,

-- 
:M:


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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Laszlo KREKACS]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 12:14 AM, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer
 wrote:
>> - Nokia N900
>> http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
>
> Likely. It uses basic GNU/Linux, and the modem interface is at least
> somewhat known. Advanced drivers (Wifi, BT, PowerManagement, Camera)
> unknown though.
>

What I fear about N900 is that it always stays as one single high-end
model to nokia.
There were always single model in the past: n700, n800, n810
No other phones appeared using the same software on it.

So I doubt if it will or want to become a widespread platform, or
always stays as
specialty.

Btw, if there an SHR porting effort to N900? Or e libraries?

Best regards,
 Laszlo

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Neil Jerram]

2010/1/8 Laszlo KREKACS :
>
> What I fear about N900 is that it always stays as one single high-end
> model to nokia.
> There were always single model in the past: n700, n800, n810

Huh?  That looks like 3 models to me.  And the N900 makes 4.

(Note that "n700" should be "770".)

>From the corporate Nokia point of view, I'm sure that Maemo has always
been, and so far still is, an experimental direction.  They have taken
their time to evolve the platform, while at the same time getting some
revenue for selling as "internet tablets".  Pretty clever of them
actually.  I wonder what their overall profit/loss is on this
business?

>From the same point of view, I expect that further expansion of this
platform will depend massively on whether N900 is successful.
Firstly, whether it sells in large numbers; secondly, whether Nokia
estimate that Maemo is now a more efficient platform for future
development than their other options.

(Actually N900 is reported as being Step 4 out of 5 in the overall
plan, so there is already at least one more model planned.  I guess
that that would be a relatively minor increment on the N900, to fix
problems that are found with the new phone aspects.)

> Btw, if there an SHR porting effort to N900? Or e libraries?

Doesn't the N900 use the standard Debian archive?  (I only know that
part of the community has pushed for that for a long time...)  If it
does, the question becomes whether the e libraries are in Debian.

Regards,
Neil

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Sebastian Reichel]

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 10:10:49AM +, Neil Jerram wrote:
> Doesn't the N900 use the standard Debian archive?  (I only know that
> part of the community has pushed for that for a long time...)

I don't know about that.

> If it does, the question becomes whether the e libraries are in Debian.

But e libraries are in Debian, last updated december 2009 ;) If they use
Debian repository there will be SHR for N900, too once I finished
the new packages.

-- Sebastian


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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Michael Zanetti]

On Friday 08 January 2010 11:10:49 Neil Jerram wrote:
> 2010/1/8 Laszlo KREKACS :
> > What I fear about N900 is that it always stays as one single high-end
> > model to nokia.
> > There were always single model in the past: n700, n800, n810
> 
> Huh?  That looks like 3 models to me.  And the N900 makes 4.
> 

I think he meant concurrent models, not incremental releases. However, I think 
(and hope) once the 5 Step program for the maemo development is finished we 
will see a lot more Maemo devices from Nokia.

> 
> > Btw, if there an SHR porting effort to N900? Or e libraries?
> 
> Doesn't the N900 use the standard Debian archive?  (I only know that
> part of the community has pushed for that for a long time...)  If it
> does, the question becomes whether the e libraries are in Debian.
> 

No. The N900 uses dpkg/apt and .deb packages but they are not exactly the same 
as debian ones. There are some additional tweaks and hooks to regard the 
limited ressources on mobile devices. However. You can re-package debian 
packages for maemo without recompiling the source.

Cheers,
Michael


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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Laszlo KREKACS]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 11:10 AM, Neil Jerram  wrote:
> From the same point of view, I expect that further expansion of this
> platform will depend massively on whether N900 is successful.
> Firstly, whether it sells in large numbers; secondly, whether Nokia
> estimate that Maemo is now a more efficient platform for future
> development than their other options.

I highly doubt about the selling numbers of Nokia N900. It is the most
expensive
model from Nokia, with no other alternatives (from Nokia).

For example here in Hungary, none of the providers offer Nokia N900, so
paying the full price (590EUR) is pretty much a non-option for an average
person when he can get an iphone for 35 EUR
(plus 70EUR/month minimum talk).

I also doubt if it runs smoothly on a weaker device (processor-wise). Today
on the train I saw a guy with nokia N900. He was reading some texts on it.
Oh dear, the scrolling was awesomely laggish. As an openmoko user I
know a bit about laggish scrolling;-) It is really sad such a highend
device still suffers from it. (not as bad as openmoko though)

An iphone had never such problem, and it has a weaker hardware...

So Im back to my waiting position. In a year or so, my decision will be
crystal-clear;-)

Best regards,
 Laszlo

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Nicola Mfb]

[...]
> I also doubt if it runs smoothly on a weaker device (processor-wise). Today
> on the train I saw a guy with nokia N900. He was reading some texts on it.
> Oh dear, the scrolling was awesomely laggish. As an openmoko user I
> know a bit about laggish scrolling;-) It is really sad such a highend
> device still suffers from it. (not as bad as openmoko though)
[...]

It may be application dependent?

Take a look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHmH_U5-YL8

Regards

 Niko

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Noel]

On 1/8/10, Laszlo KREKACS  wrote:
> So Im back to my waiting position. In a year or so, my decision will be
> crystal-clear;-)

Just don't hold your breath :)
In one year you will have more devices to choose from.
Do you remember when there was only iPhone and Neo? :) You know the
past, you see the present, you see the trend. Isn't the future
obvious?

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Lowell Higley]

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 2:12 AM, William Kenworthy wrote:

> What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
>
>
Sorry to join the conversation so late but this is my favorite so far as a
FreeRunner replacement.  There should be a public developer release soon.
I'd guess (based on the pricing of the Zii Egg Dev kit) a dev kit would be a
little pricey (US$600 to US$800.)  Although considering an unlocked Nexus
One is US$530... maybe not.  All perspective I suppose.

Zii Trinity 
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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Marc-Olivier Barre]

On Sat, 9 Jan 2010 12:58:38 +0100, Lowell Higley 
wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 2:12 AM, William Kenworthy
> wrote:
> 
>> What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
>> want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
>>
>>
> Sorry to join the conversation so late but this is my favorite so far as
a
> FreeRunner replacement.  There should be a public developer release
soon.
> I'd guess (based on the pricing of the Zii Egg Dev kit) a dev kit would
be
> a
> little pricey (US$600 to US$800.)  Although considering an unlocked
Nexus
> One is US$530... maybe not.  All perspective I suppose.
> 
> Zii Trinity 

Hi,

First mail in a while that even catches my attention ! Thanks for that.

Do you know if they provide open sourced drivers for their hardware ?

Cheers,
-- 
Marc-Olivier Barre
XMPP ID : ma...@marcochapeau.org
www.MarcOChapeau.org

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[John Locke]

Hi,

Haven't been reading the list much in a long time... I have a Neo, which
I never could use as a day-to-day phone, due to battery life. Now I've
got an N900, just wanted to comment on this:

From: Laszlo KREKACS 

> I also doubt if it runs smoothly on a weaker device (processor-wise). Today
> on the train I saw a guy with nokia N900. He was reading some texts on it.
> Oh dear, the scrolling was awesomely laggish. As an openmoko user I
> know a bit about laggish scrolling;-) It is really sad such a highend
> device still suffers from it. (not as bad as openmoko though)
>
>   
I find that very much depends on what applications you have running, and
I'm wondering if there's a memory leak in the browser. There seems to be
a browser daemon that uses a lot of processor even when it's not
running--but after killing all the browser windows, it gets responsive
again for a while.

So some of the time it's really responsive, but now and then it gets
really bogged down... killing stuff brings it back. I think most of the
laggishness is completely related to applications, and something that
can be fixed--if I keep the number of open apps down to around 6 or so,
it's usually just fine. I do find myself rebooting it once or twice a
week, which does clear up some of these issues.

> An iphone had never such problem, and it has a weaker hardware...
>   
That's because you can't run multiple apps on it!

I wrote up an initial review on the n900 here:
http://www.freelock.com/blog/john-locke/3/nokia-n900-first-impressions
... already most of the things I identified as shortcomings are no
longer issues, either because there's now applications for it, or there
was a feature I didn't know about (such as a browser mode that allows
for mouseover, select, and drag-and-drop).

In short, after having it for a month, I'm really happy with it. Now to
find a gpsd package so TangoGPS can figure out where I am...

Cheers,

John Locke
http://www.freelock.com

-


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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Lowell Higley]

On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 3:36 PM, Marc-Olivier Barre
wrote:

> On Sat, 9 Jan 2010 12:58:38 +0100, Lowell Higley 
> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 2:12 AM, William Kenworthy
> > wrote:
> >
> >> What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> >> want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
> >>
> >>
> > Sorry to join the conversation so late but this is my favorite so far as
> a
> > FreeRunner replacement.  There should be a public developer release soon.
> > I'd guess (based on the pricing of the Zii Egg Dev kit) a dev kit would
> be a
> > little pricey (US$600 to US$800.)  Although considering an unlocked Nexus
> > One is US$530... maybe not.  All perspective I suppose.
> >
> > Zii Trinity 
>
> Hi,
>
> First mail in a while that even catches my attention ! Thanks for that.
>
> Do you know if they provide open sourced drivers for their hardware ?
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Marc-Olivier Barre
> XMPP ID : ma...@marcochapeau.org
> www.MarcOChapeau.org
> ___
>

No problem.  This came to me over identi.ca and my jaw dropped the more
reading I did.

I don't have a real answer for you.  I've been trying to get into the dev
forums but they have some .asp issues with their site. But here is my best
guess. ZiiLabs is a wholly owned subsidary of Creative Labs. If I read their
propaganda correctly, they will support both android and their own version
of linux, plaszma.  It looks like they will provide tweaked versions of
android, drivers and middleware to the dev community.  So I would say that
no, the device drivers will not be open source.  I would say the developer
community would be provided with binary kernel modules. My best guess but
the official answer would have to come from ZiiLabs.  I'm also guessing a
dev NDA would be involved.  On the other side of the coin, engadget, gizmodo
and most of the gadget news sites keep speaking of the device as Open
Source... so you never know.

They seem to be actively looking for OEMs for this phone.  Perhaps one of
our FR distributors could inquire?  I'm considering dropping $400 on the Zii
Egg dev kit just to start playing with it.  I'd rather have the Trinity but
I am not sure how long that will take.
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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[GNUtoo]

On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 01:12 +, William Kenworthy wrote:
> What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
None yet,palm pre comming very soon...(huge progress have been made with
the modem.)
> 
> The android phones (htc dream?) - none of which are fully functional on
> FSO/SHR (I think), and access through android to the underlying system
> is minimal.
Kernel work has not been finished yet,we are working on it:
Status here:
http://www.htc-linux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Dream#Status
But in another hand you can already use the modem.

> Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> 
> Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
The N900 is very proprietary:
http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_Maemo
The thing in red in the image are proprietary,including some core things
like battery charging.

Denis.




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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Al Johnson]

On Wednesday 10 February 2010, GNUtoo wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 01:12 +, William Kenworthy wrote:
> > What alternatives to the FR (with the same functionality) are there?  I
> > want 3G phone/sms access and the FR doesnt cut it any more ...
> 
> None yet,palm pre comming very soon...(huge progress have been made with
> the modem.)
> 
> > The android phones (htc dream?) - none of which are fully functional on
> > FSO/SHR (I think), and access through android to the underlying system
> > is minimal.
> 
> Kernel work has not been finished yet,we are working on it:
> Status here:
> http://www.htc-linux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Dream#Status
> But in another hand you can already use the modem.
> 
> > Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> > there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> > GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> >
> > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> 
> The N900 is very proprietary:
> http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_Maemo
> The thing in red in the image are proprietary,including some core things
> like battery charging.

Except that if you read the page a number of the things in red are actually 
open, and many are things that don't matter if you're going to put something 
other than maemo on it. Overall it doesn't look any worse to me than the Dream 
or Pre, except that they've had more time for reverse engineering their 
proprietary bits.

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

GNUtoo  writes:
> On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 01:12 +, William Kenworthy wrote:
> >
> > Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> > there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> > GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> > 
> > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
>
> The N900 is very proprietary:
> http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_Maemo
> The thing in red in the image are proprietary,including some core things
> like battery charging.

For those of us who can't see red (and thus can't differentiate
between red and black), would someone be willing to list which items
are `in red' and which are `in black'?

I'm often able to make due by checking colours with xmag, but this
chart is much too big and complicated for that to be workable :(

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr."


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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

On 2/11/10, Joshua Judson Rosen  wrote:
> GNUtoo  writes:
> > On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 01:12 +, William Kenworthy wrote:
> > >
> > > Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> > > there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> > > GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> > >
> > > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> >
> > The N900 is very proprietary:
> > http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_Maemo
> > The thing in red in the image are proprietary,including some core things
> > like battery charging.
>
> For those of us who can't see red (and thus can't differentiate
> between red and black), would someone be willing to list which items
> are `in red' and which are `in black'?

Proprietary:

-Application Interfaces
Sharing plugins
libsharing
calendar-backend
libtime
libcityinfo

-UI Framework
Startup Wizard
Restore factory settings & Clear User data framework

-Location Framework (all proprietary)
gypsy daemon
liblocation
location daemon

-Nokia Graphics (all proprietary)
Sounds
Icons

-Data Management
Backup
Address Book

-RTCom
Mission Control
rtcom-eventlogger
libaccounts
SSO

-Toolkit
Fonts
Themes

- Connectivity framework
Funambol SyncML
xml2wbxml
ICD2

- Multmedia [sic] Framework
-- Policy
   PulseAudio PEP
   libplayback
-- Audio
   EAP
   AEP
   FMTX middleware

- Cellular (all proprietary)
Modem Services
Cellular Modem Software

- Core
softupd
sysinfod
CertMan
OpenGL ES 2.0
Nolo bootloader
Flasher

- System Software
DSME
BME
MCE
Clockd
IPHBD
System UI
Profiled

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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Bill Kenworthy]

On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 23:01 -0500, Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:
> GNUtoo  writes:
> > On Mon, 2010-01-04 at 01:12 +, William Kenworthy wrote:
> > >
> > > Flow - good but pricy, and unless I am looking at the design wrong,
> > > there is only one adapter/interface socket so you can have a phone, or a
> > > GSM device, but not both at the same time.
> > > 
> > > Nokia n900 - probably the best choice at this time.
> >
> > The N900 is very proprietary:
> > http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_Maemo
> > The thing in red in the image are proprietary,including some core things
> > like battery charging.
> 
> For those of us who can't see red (and thus can't differentiate
> between red and black), would someone be willing to list which items
> are `in red' and which are `in black'?
> 
> I'm often able to make due by checking colours with xmag, but this
> chart is much too big and complicated for that to be workable :(
> 

Hi Joshua, download the image and open in gimp - use the "colours/colour
balance" tool to change the image until you can see the difference.  I
could prepare one for you, but I dont know which colours would work for
you.

To help, "sounds" and "icons" in the nokia graphics box are red.

Billk




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Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR

[Helge Hafting]

Margo wrote:

> The Officer S101 seems interesting:
> http://www.road.de/en/handypcs/officer.html
> http://blog.hackable1.org/2009/08/running-hackable1-on-the-road-officer-s101.html

Wow. At least a _useable_ hw keyboard. That is, one that has a couple
of keys to the right of 'p' and 'l'. Which is necessary for so many
non-english languages. A top row ending in 'p' is useless.

Helge Hafting

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ROAD Officer S101 - does it support UMTS? (was: Re: [Shr-User] Alternatives to FR)

[Brolin Empey]

Please avoid top-posting.  That is all I will say:  I do not want to 
start Yet Another™ posting style debate! :P

W.Kenworthy wrote:
> This is one I was not aware of - looks nice but its still not 3G capable

AFAICT, you are correct:  the tech specs page [1] does not mention 
3G/UMTS/W-CDMA.  However, the features page [2] lists:

“Easy acess to any network around you ( wlan/UMTS/edege/bluetooth/GSM)”
  

I guess the features page mistakenly lists UMTS?


[1] 
[2] 

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