I built the dev tools on my Ubuntu (Gutsy) machine and managed to get the classic “hello world” running. I need to build some autotools projects but this is a start!
I needed to install lighttpd on my N810 but could not find a packaged version. I wanted to find the least painful way of solving this. I noticed that the OpenEmbedded (OE) project had a bitbake receipe for lighttpd. I already have OE running on my desktop so in theory I could edit local.conf to specify the correct machine and distribution and build the package. It sounded to good too be true but did in fact work. I replaced some OpenMoko specific settings in local.conf with the following:
MACHINE = "nokia800"
DISTRO = "chinook-compat"
and then simply issued the command “bitbake lighttpd” to generate a bunch of debs. Depending on how you configure lighttpd you will require a selection of modules. Everything is available here. Note, installing the debs gives some post install type errors relating to update-rc.d but everything will still run.
I dug out my Sharp Zaurus and flashed it with Poky Linux. It has a really clean interface. I prefer it to OpenMoko in terms of simplicity. I was close to getting my wireless card talking to my Airport Extreme BS but gave up in the end. I need to read up on WPA.
So it appears that if I idle on a TCP connection a TCP RST takes place. At first I thought this was something in my software, then I assumed it was something in pppd. After a discussion on #openmoko I think this is something happening at the Vodafone NAT/router. It is easy to simulate by simply ssh’ng to a remote server and remaining idle. After several minutes (not timed yet) your ssh session will be disconnected but the ppp link remains active. I was able to exhibit the same behaviour on my Neo and my Eee PC connected with a different phone. I wonder if this is Vodafone specific or other networks are implementing this? It seems a bit annoying to have to periodically send traffic over a metered network to keep a TCP session alive! Will have to do some more research…
I managed to get my Neo connected to Vodafone PAYG using the scripts I found here. In ‘/etc/ppp/peers/vodafone’ I replaced ‘/dev/modem’ with ‘/dev/ttySAC0 115200′ and set user and password both to ‘web’. In the ‘/etc/ppp/vodafone-chat’ I changed the APN from ‘internet’ to ‘pp.vodafone.co.uk’.
I can now actually test my software without being connected to my PC which is how my Neo has been since I bought it. The battery life should hopefully be enough to do the tests I need to do with GPS.
One of the things I would like to use my Eee PC for is killing some time using IRC on my train commute. I already own a BT dongle which I used on my Sharp Zaurus. I also had bought a cheap Motorola phone for connecting with a Nokia 770. So in theory it should be straight forward to get everything connected and running on my new Eee PC. Turns out it was quite a bit more fiddley than I anticipated. In short the problem was pairing with my phone. What was required was the bluez-gnome package which provides the bluetooth-applet. This needs to be run before attempting pairing. You can then click on the applet on the Eee PC to complete the pairing process. I now have XChat running over my phone’s GPRS connection. This will give me something else to do on the train other than reading the free newspapers!
OpenMoko released the binary for the in-built GPS chip. I did some testing today and was impressed with the sensitivity of the receiver. I was able to maintain a fix with the receiver in my pocket in central London. I also left the receiver running as I took a train home and it eventually picked up a signal. I plotted the logs using http://www.gpsvisualizer.com to see where I had been!
Looking forward to intergrating the new functionality with thumbtribes.
It has been a while seen I updated my Chicken Scheme package for OpenMoko. The build system moved away from autoconf to a more traditional make system. Fortunately it was pretty easy to migrate the change to my cross development environment. The new package can be installed as follows:
ipkg install http://zedstar.org/ipk/chicken-scheme-interpreter_2.733_armv4t.ipk
I will be attending Future of Mobile in London on November 14th. Anyone attending who is interested in OpenMoko or the thumbtribes project and wants to hook up please get in touch. I will bring my Neo1973 with me.
After an update to my Neo I can now browse the web. The browser is based on the WebKit engine and seems to run really smoothly on this hardware. A nice feature also now available is the ability to switch screen orientation. Here is a screenshot in landscape mode of my Neo accessing thumbtribes.mobi.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.