Update (Nov 12 '08) Benno has got android running on Openmoko. Gr8 job!
News of the day! Android is open. First thing after returning from work was setting up the git download and build.
Follow the download and build instructions here.
Tip: If you are running x86_64 box, make sure you install *-devel.i386 packages as well. You will keep getting errors otherwise, that the libraries found in /usr/lib64 weren't deemed good candidates by the build system for linking.
For the description of each subdirectory of the project tree, check this.
The things of interest are the toolchain and location of bare-bones libraries. Toolchains are located inside the prebuilt directory.
mydroid $ prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.2.1/arm-eabi/bin/gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
Target: arm-eabi
Configured with: ../../toolchain/android-toolchain/gcc-4.2.1/configure --prefix=/android/mathias/armdev/toolchain-eabi-4.2.1 --program-transform-name=s,^,arm-eabi-, --prefix=/android/mathias/armdev/toolchain-eabi-4.2.1 --target=arm-eabi --host=x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu --build=x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu --enable-languages=c,c++ --disable-libstdc__-v3 --disable-libssp --enable-threads --disable-nls --disable-libmudflap --with-float=soft --with-fpu=vfp --with-arch=armv5te --enable-target-optspace --with-abi=aapcs : (reconfigured) ../../toolchain/android-toolchain/gcc-4.2.1/configure --prefix=/android/mathias/armdev/toolchain-eabi-4.2.1 --program-transform-name=s,^,arm-eabi-, --prefix=/android/mathias/armdev/toolchain-eabi-4.2.1 --target=arm-eabi --host=x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu --build=x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu --enable-languages=c,c++ --disable-libstdc__-v3 --disable-libssp --enable-threads --disable-nls --disable-libmudflap --with-float=soft --with-fpu=vfp --with-arch=armv5te --enable-target-optspace --with-abi=aapcs
Thread model: single
gcc version 4.2.1
The basic libraries are available under bionic subdirectory:
bionic/
bionic/libthread_db
bionic/linker
bionic/libdl
bionic/libstdc++
bionic/.git
bionic/libm
bionic/libc
After your build is successful, the android binaries should be available under out/target/product/generic/obj/lib/
mydroid $ file out/target/product/generic/obj/lib/libc.so
out/target/product/generic/obj/lib/libc.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, ARM, version 1 (SYSV), stripped
I tried to compile a simple helloworld.c, but no luck :(
mydroid $ PATH=./prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.2.1/libexec/gcc/arm-eabi/4.2.1:prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.2.1/arm-eabi/bin/gcc:$PATH prebuilt/linux-x86/toolchain/arm-eabi-4.2.1/arm-eabi/bin/gcc hellodroid.c
Assembler messages:
Fatal error: Invalid -march= option: `armv5te'
I can't wait until someone compiles python with this toolchain. I don't have enough time and know-how in how to arrange this toolchain in a manner so that Python's autotools can compile in it. Hopefully scratchbox or OpenEmbedded people will take up that task and we will soon have a Pydroid.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Has it started?
The recession!
Elon Musk's post on taking the Tesla Motors' chair
Mark Shuttleworth's post on the financial crisis
Paul Graham's post yesterday
Elon Musk's post on taking the Tesla Motors' chair
These are extraordinary times. The global financial system has gone through the worst crisis since the Great Depression, and the effects are only beginning to wind their way through every facet of the economy. It’s not an understatement to say that nearly every business will be impacted by what has unfolded in the past weeks, and this is true for Silicon Valley as well.
Mark Shuttleworth's post on the financial crisis
The term “credit crunch” is very misleading for the current crisis. It suggests that the problem is merely one of confidence, that calm will return if liquidity is introduced to the system.
My view, though, is that the real issue is one of solvency. This is the systemic bankruptcy of 2008.
Mortgages are just the beginning.
Paul Graham's post yesterday
The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid seventies.
When Microsoft and Apple were founded.
As those examples suggest, a recession may not be such a bad time to start a startup......
Monday, October 13, 2008
Inkface v0.1
After spending about a month on bug fixes and writing python bindings, Inkface v0.1 is ready. Check out the video that demonstrates two applications written in Inkface framework. The video also shows how the GUI is designed in Inkscape and how to get the app running with few lines of python code.
If you want to try these applications yourself:
Check out the project wiki for future plans of the project. It has some notes to get you started. A look into simple python scripts mentioned above will also help.
Here is my last month's post that discusses the idea behind the project.
If you want to try these applications yourself:
- Install the .deb packages (libaltsvg, inkface-python)
- Download python scripts and GUI SVG images: Keyboard (.py .svg) IRC (.py .svg)
# Install Inkface libraries
dpkg -i libaltsvg_0.1.0_armel.deb inkface-python_0.1.0_armel.deb
# Keyboard demo
python inkface-keyboard.py keyboard-entry.svg
# IRC demo
python inkface-irc.py irc.svg
Check out the project wiki for future plans of the project. It has some notes to get you started. A look into simple python scripts mentioned above will also help.
Here is my last month's post that discusses the idea behind the project.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Musical discovery of the week
Well, there are couple.
During the zombie nights of the worst-ever jetlag I spent some time reviving my 4G iPod. Just before its release 3.0 was announced on Slashdot, I installed Rockbox on my ipod. It's fantastic! The installation was smooth (unzipping a file and running an executable that will tweak the bootloader). With it you can do more things with the playing song than what you could do with the Apple stock interface. You can save locations in a song as bookmarks, change the pitch, and there are more things in the context menu that I haven't tried. The fade-in/fade-out on play/pause is pleasant. Also there are cross-fade options.
You can program it to pause the song when you remove the headphone jack. You can organize the songs in more sane format/ directory structure. I have a custom bash script to sync my songs with my music player, I will be able to use it now and free myself from iTunes. Rockbox also comes full with custom themes and choice of fonts. It also has truck-load of games and apps. I played Chessbox a little. As for the internals I was surprised to see that it runs its custom kernel (not linux, but still GPL). The project has been around since mid-2000 (wikipedia).
Do try it if your device is on the supported list!
As for the other discovery - Nerina Pallot.
Some awesome tracks: Geek Love, Damascus, Everybody's gone to war, Sophia
Enjoy!!!
During the zombie nights of the worst-ever jetlag I spent some time reviving my 4G iPod. Just before its release 3.0 was announced on Slashdot, I installed Rockbox on my ipod. It's fantastic! The installation was smooth (unzipping a file and running an executable that will tweak the bootloader). With it you can do more things with the playing song than what you could do with the Apple stock interface. You can save locations in a song as bookmarks, change the pitch, and there are more things in the context menu that I haven't tried. The fade-in/fade-out on play/pause is pleasant. Also there are cross-fade options.
You can program it to pause the song when you remove the headphone jack. You can organize the songs in more sane format
Do try it if your device is on the supported list!
As for the other discovery - Nerina Pallot.
Some awesome tracks: Geek Love, Damascus, Everybody's gone to war, Sophia
Enjoy!!!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Die Berlin-Affäre
[Originally written on 09/21 on my n810 while waiting in Frankfurt airport]
Needless to say, Last four days were amazing. I met a lot of interesting people; saw all the cool things they were doing; dived in insightful discussions; showed the demo of my UI project to all; ... And sometimes ended the day with overdose of buzzwords like 'fragmentation' :)
In OSiM, some notable talks came from Sean Moss-Pultz (OpenMoko) reinstating their mission to provide an open device that gives freedom to innovate; Andreas Constantinou (VisionMobile) - analysing which mobile stacks are more open source than the others (even though everyone claims to be as open as classic FOSS projects), Ari Jaaksi announcing Nokia's next version of Maemo SDK - with HSPA connectivity, high-def camera, omap3 processor (with improvement in multimedia and 3D acceleration in hardware), Ken Banks (kiwanja.net) giving a very insightful presentation on very uncommon businesses built by people in African countries to suite their needs - especially some social projects that are built on top of mobile infrastructure to spread information that is otherwise restricted by non-democratic governments.
Among the "suit" presentations (Ari Jaaksi's term for execs as opposed to t-shirts for geeks), I liked Christy Wyatt's presentation. Although it was well above the technical details (in the world of graphs and trends), I found her opinions honest and frank - also unlike other execs she seemed to have right idea about actual technology problems (for instance, problems faced by independent developers in the face of dozens of SDKs - otherwise referred to as the fancy buzzword 'fragmentation').
The Maemo-summit was enormous fun. Largest gathering of smart geeks and tech enthusiasts, I have ever attended. Over couple of dozen projects/ideas were presented in the "Lightening sessions" (fast 5-minute presentations/demos). The setting of the event deserves a description. The event took place inside a building of an organisation called c-base. Imagine a shabby building used by artists for various purposes and you will get the idea. It has been the venue for other open source events as well (ubuntu for e.g.). The philosophy of the c-base project is also interesting, check it out. Back to summit. The entire summit schedule was posted and collaboratively updated by people as different sessions took place. There was free wifi and everyone was logged in using their n8x0s or apple/ubuntu laptops. While listening to various speakers we could on the spot check the online resources they were talking about. That's why this setup made all the sessions extremely productive.
Among many prsentations the ones I found very useful for my interests were: debian chroot running on n8x0 by Alan Bruce (qole) and liqbase by Gary Birkett (lcuk). The former one is the first virtualization solution I have seen running on the tablet so far. The awesome part was Alan gave the presentation inside openoffice presentation running on debian inside chroot environment on his n8x0. This gives enormous flexibility to developers trying to build custom rootfs for their tablets. They can test such experimental rootfs inside chroot before flashing their device.
The liqbase demo was eye-opening. All the time I spent wondering when will 3D hardware arrive for me to program cool animations on the tablet, seemed futile after seeing what Gary had achieved on existing hardware. So far what I understand is, he is leveraging the X video extension (the same backend used by mplayer) and converting regular rgb data to yuv and drawing it. He demonstrated smooth scrolling like I have never seen before on a tablet. I can't wait to reach home and look into his library (I checked it yesterday, but didn't have enough time in the cafe).
Another mentionable presentation was from frogmetrics. This 6-people startup in NY is using n810s for collecting surveys from customers. There are putting n810 to use in a unique way. I was further impressed after learning more about them during a chat with Doug later on.
After listening to all the talks about open source solutions in mobile, I find Nokia to have made the most genuine effort in this field. I think it is indisputable that they pioneered this field when they brought n770 to market 3 years ago.
The overall Berlin trip was awesome. In first 3 1/2 days I explored the city as much as I could. Hopefully I will soon find time to upload the snaps. One observation I didn't mentioned in my last post was the domination of glass in new Berlin's architecture. By that I don't mean the shiny reflective façades, but the use of trancelucent glass as walls. In some buildings it induces a fear of height, because even if you are standing on a solid structure, the transparent walls on all sides challenge your sense of balance. I felt this predominantly in Sony center.
Looking back, this turned out to be a successful trip - for me it opened a window to a new world in many senses.
Needless to say, Last four days were amazing. I met a lot of interesting people; saw all the cool things they were doing; dived in insightful discussions; showed the demo of my UI project to all; ... And sometimes ended the day with overdose of buzzwords like 'fragmentation' :)
In OSiM, some notable talks came from Sean Moss-Pultz (OpenMoko) reinstating their mission to provide an open device that gives freedom to innovate; Andreas Constantinou (VisionMobile) - analysing which mobile stacks are more open source than the others (even though everyone claims to be as open as classic FOSS projects), Ari Jaaksi announcing Nokia's next version of Maemo SDK - with HSPA connectivity, high-def camera, omap3 processor (with improvement in multimedia and 3D acceleration in hardware), Ken Banks (kiwanja.net) giving a very insightful presentation on very uncommon businesses built by people in African countries to suite their needs - especially some social projects that are built on top of mobile infrastructure to spread information that is otherwise restricted by non-democratic governments.
Among the "suit" presentations (Ari Jaaksi's term for execs as opposed to t-shirts for geeks), I liked Christy Wyatt's presentation. Although it was well above the technical details (in the world of graphs and trends), I found her opinions honest and frank - also unlike other execs she seemed to have right idea about actual technology problems (for instance, problems faced by independent developers in the face of dozens of SDKs - otherwise referred to as the fancy buzzword 'fragmentation').
The Maemo-summit was enormous fun. Largest gathering of smart geeks and tech enthusiasts, I have ever attended. Over couple of dozen projects/ideas were presented in the "Lightening sessions" (fast 5-minute presentations/demos). The setting of the event deserves a description. The event took place inside a building of an organisation called c-base. Imagine a shabby building used by artists for various purposes and you will get the idea. It has been the venue for other open source events as well (ubuntu for e.g.). The philosophy of the c-base project is also interesting, check it out. Back to summit. The entire summit schedule was posted and collaboratively updated by people as different sessions took place. There was free wifi and everyone was logged in using their n8x0s or apple/ubuntu laptops. While listening to various speakers we could on the spot check the online resources they were talking about. That's why this setup made all the sessions extremely productive.
Among many prsentations the ones I found very useful for my interests were: debian chroot running on n8x0 by Alan Bruce (qole) and liqbase by Gary Birkett (lcuk). The former one is the first virtualization solution I have seen running on the tablet so far. The awesome part was Alan gave the presentation inside openoffice presentation running on debian inside chroot environment on his n8x0. This gives enormous flexibility to developers trying to build custom rootfs for their tablets. They can test such experimental rootfs inside chroot before flashing their device.
The liqbase demo was eye-opening. All the time I spent wondering when will 3D hardware arrive for me to program cool animations on the tablet, seemed futile after seeing what Gary had achieved on existing hardware. So far what I understand is, he is leveraging the X video extension (the same backend used by mplayer) and converting regular rgb data to yuv and drawing it. He demonstrated smooth scrolling like I have never seen before on a tablet. I can't wait to reach home and look into his library (I checked it yesterday, but didn't have enough time in the cafe).
Another mentionable presentation was from frogmetrics. This 6-people startup in NY is using n810s for collecting surveys from customers. There are putting n810 to use in a unique way. I was further impressed after learning more about them during a chat with Doug later on.
After listening to all the talks about open source solutions in mobile, I find Nokia to have made the most genuine effort in this field. I think it is indisputable that they pioneered this field when they brought n770 to market 3 years ago.
The overall Berlin trip was awesome. In first 3 1/2 days I explored the city as much as I could. Hopefully I will soon find time to upload the snaps. One observation I didn't mentioned in my last post was the domination of glass in new Berlin's architecture. By that I don't mean the shiny reflective façades, but the use of trancelucent glass as walls. In some buildings it induces a fear of height, because even if you are standing on a solid structure, the transparent walls on all sides challenge your sense of balance. I felt this predominantly in Sony center.
Looking back, this turned out to be a successful trip - for me it opened a window to a new world in many senses.
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