Ben NanoNote Software Status

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This page is intended for writing down thoughts about how some layers of the software part can be realized; for sharing, creating, adding and dropping ideas, commenting and spinning on them...

For having issues with already integrated software, please take a look at the issue tracker.

Bootloader

• Currently we're using uboot. We would like to switch to sth. ligther, ideally the "qi-bootloader", but that needs some work.
• It should support setting values to distinguish different hw platforms if these aren't distinguishable by sw (ben & ya)
• It should support setting of the usb-mac address to uniqly identify the device
• For the last 2 points a identity partition in nand would be nice that's not overwritten by flashing a new bootloader

Kernel

• Currently having kernel 2.6.32 running, built within the OpenWrt framework

TODO

• further cleanup of the whole code base for the jz-chip by ingenic
• Add native i2s-support
• Speed up NAND and MMC access using DMA
• Write PWM driver
• Sometimes [Unhandled kernel unaligned access] Process ksoftirqd/0 make kernel reboot. (Unconfirmed)

Core system

• right now the base userspace system is based on busybox, as OpenWrt is using busybox as underlying userspace infrastructure. It's doing it's job for now on the NanoNote, so, in my view, right now no need for alternatives.
• Write alsa config for softvol and dmix

GUI?

• core graphical system
  • Personally I see 3 options:
    • stick to console based software (ncurses) for now
    • using the abilitiy of applications / toolkits to draw to the framebuffer directly (e.g. gtk2, fltk, evas/edje)
      • <maemo>, the distrubition nokia is using on their n-series tables is using <Hildon> as default user interface, based on gtk+. It's optimized for the use on embedded devices - since it is based gtk+ it may be also possible drawing it directly on the framebuffer, without the need of an Xserver.
        • Unfortunately maemo seems to be not as "open" as Nokia is calling it. Lot's of core components seems to be closed, as summarized in [1] and [2]
    • having a real Xserver (propably Xorg) running - might be a bit hard with having just 32MB of RAM within the Ben NanoNote

Key User-level Programs for Release Image

(# indicates that it's currently in there)

Applications

• Gmenu2x (launcher)
• # Vido (wikipedia offline reader)
• Stardict (dictionary)
• Music Player

Data

• 1 million most common articles of en wikipedia
• Dictionaries (which?)
• Music (oggs off Jamendo, which? )

Language Support

• # Lua
• Python (in openwrt currently, works fine: opkg install python)
• # Guile [Scheme varient]

Enormous app status/wish-list

In Release Image

Name	Type	Project Home	Comment	Status/Contact
Lynx	browser	Lynx	simple, text-based browser
vim	editor	vim	console editor
openZIM	offline webcontent	openZIM	This is the openZIM project, a free and open source implementation of the ZIM file format. You will find here documentation about the ZIM file format, the openZIM software and the project management. The ZIM file format was created to provide a standard way to make webcontent offline available. Its major usage is to provide Wikipedia content offline, like in Wikipedia DVDs.	Not release ready, work in progress.
Mutt	email client
Lua	scripting engine
irssi	irc
bc	calculator

In OpenWrt

Name	Type	Project Home	Comment	Status/Contact
Nano	editor	Nano Editor	simple, easy-to-use console editor
elinks	browser		elinks is a web browser originally derived from Links.
sox	audio recorder	sox

Packaged but not in OpenWrt

Name	Type	Project Home	Comment	Status/Contact
Scheme interpreter	guile	guile	Early user reported on list that guile works (package), the guile is already in openwrt-package
kbd	console utilities, including fonts		mailing list	source for package and binary
Links2	browser	Links2	Links is a web browser running in both graphics and text mode. (text mode is work now) (also on directfb)
sc	ncurses-based spreadsheet			binary

Runs but not yet packaged

Name	Type	Project Home	Comment	Status/Contact
nethack			You can get the binary package at http://www.jemarch.net/downloads/nanonote/	jemarch@gnu.org
any Dingoo A320 software			See this mailing list post

Not yet working

Name	Type	Project Home	Comment	Status/Contact
StarDict	dictionary	StarDict	issue tracker	Xiangfu
Rockbox	music player	Rockbox	open source firmware for music players, work done targeting jz chip and Onda player

Blue sky

Name	Type	Project Home	Comment	Status/Contact
LÖVE	2D game engine for games in Lua	http://love2d.org	dependencies: DONE: Lua, SDL, libvorbis, libpng MISSING: PhysicsFS, OpenGL, DevIL, alternatively OpenGL can be replaced by SDL and DevIL by libpng.	bartbes and Textmode on freenode
man/info	documentation		can this be built as part of OpenWrt? Is this a reason not to use this distro? (we're primarily RAM constrained, not space)
GNU Octave	numerical computations			No fortran cross-compiler in the toolchain --RBerenguel 09:37, 4 April 2010 (EDT)
PIM suite to sync with desktop
moosic	music jukebox
cgdb	curses debugger
CenterIM	jabber		There are jabber clients in openwrt. Any reason for wanting this one?
zsh	shell
DirectVNC	VNC client over DirectFB
snownews	RSS reader
Artha	dictionary	Artha homepage	suggested by Ron on developer list
Netsurf	Web Broswser	Netsurf Homepage	Self contained web browser, not reliant on other libraries like Dillo.
Dillo	browser	Dillo	Dillo is a multi-platform graphical web browser known for its speed and small footprint	In OpenWrt, but broken
stellarium	planetarium	http://stellarium.org

This is work in progress.

Audio

• alsamixer

 need enable the [Output Mixer DAC] by press "m". "Esc" to exit.

• client/server music

• ncmpc

 ncmpc is a curses client for the Music Player Daemon (MPD)
 "enter" is play, "P" is pause, "s" is stop, "tab" switch display
 "q" is exit, "1" is help information.

• gmu

download gmu http://www.2shared.com/file/10645537/3ad5338f/gmu-070_BETA7-NANONOTEtar.html

install Libraries:

SDL

SDL_Image

SDL_gfx

editor

• vim
• joe
• zile like emacs.

browser

• lynx
• links

   "Alt + f" for the menu.

Misc

date

The date is not set at the beginning, but setting it manually seems to work OK.

$ date
Thu Jan  1 00:56:39 UTC 1970
$ date -s "2009-09-11 23:07:30"
$ date
Fri Sep 11 23:07:31 UTC 2009

hwclock

Works fine with newer kernel versions.

$ hwclock
Fri Sep 11 23:07:31 2009 0.000000 seconds

To set the RTC to the current date/time as returned by the date command use:

$ hwclock -w