| Author |
Linux applications for mobiles? |
tonyitalian
Joined: Sep 02, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Earth
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sob sob 
SE Rulez! | |
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sco0bydo0byd0p3
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
Posts: 3
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To answer your questions and clear up a few things,
the a760, a768i, e680 motorola phones all use an embedded version of linux. As far as kernel version well im not sure myself, but you can download the GPL'd kernel sources for the a760 here:http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=116309&package_id=126302
or just search for motorola linux phone in the search box at sourceforge.
Since the a760 was the first moto linux phone, i think that the other models would be based on similar architecture (sf arch: arm)
I havent download the tux kernel srcs yet, but when i do, i will begin to make some opensource apps.
Besides that, all of these phones support java midp 2.0
and the e680 and a780 both have 3d java libs. This is the idea in the phone world, to make the most out of one application or game, use java - since it will work on nearly all platforms. You can download the j2me sdk from sun, and www.motocoders.com will no doubt have some libs for u to play with. As for the objection to the phones eternal memory (TransFlash), this is not necassarily true - since tf is highly upgradable. For example - the moto e398 uses transflash for its external memory, and they are already selling them with 64m cards. I think these cards will max out at about 1G.
As for the comments about the different 'kdes', thats not true either, since none of these phones use kde, they use (as far as im aware) embedded Qt, possibly Qtopia (kde is based on the Qt widget set), There are other options popping up for this too, as with all linuxes, another desktop is comming into season - the GPE (Gnome Pocket Edition, i think is what it stands for) They havent tested it on arm processors yet, but if they build it properly, it wont take much hacking to make it work on the moto phones. So as you can see, in the _Future_ there _Will_ be more apps for these types of phones. Just look at the thousands and thousands of packages available to normal tux's today, just 7 years ago, there werent that many. Now there are probably more apps for tux (no doubt some overlapping projects - oo, koffice, kde, gnome) then there is for winblows or mac |
sco0bydo0byd0p3
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
Posts: 3
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PS
You might try looking up apps and games for
"Qt/Embedded"
or "Trolltech" |
sco0bydo0byd0p3
Joined: Nov 12, 2004
Posts: 3
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Now i have the full specs of the moto e680 - the phone that is best for me i think, i know a few more things -
not all of the phones run the arm processors - the e680 runs an intel xscale @300mhz. I guess, this could be the case with the series names - e-models run intel, a models run arm series. This wont make any difference for the 3d java apps, however, more complex tasks and applications, that call processor functions directly (very very goddam rare in any linux, as the kernel handles nearly all io) - lets take a native (not java) app that has been released for say an arm processor, if it needs to do some file/io or run direct calls to specific hardware, then id say that it wont be able to run properly on an intel specific platform. Of course if the sourcecode is released, then it is all sweet, since all you need is the kernel sources for that particular model, then just ./configure (on your computer) make. Then transfer the bins over to your home dir on your phone. (fyi i am making a lot of assumptions and simplifications here - for example - im assuming (cuz i simply dont know yet) that the embeded linux (montevista) uses the exact same file system architecture as that to any other linux - ie / /etc /root /home /usr) My first project is to port a terminal over to the Qt/Embedded system (found out e680 runs qtopia 2.0 as its GUI) Since there are already many, many terminal emulators built with Qt, i believe (and according to the trolltech website too) that porting a regular KDE app (qt) would basically just be a simple size adjustment of the window. |
Davo_169
Joined: Sep 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: perth/thredbo
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i just found out that you can get linux kits for your PS2
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p1gnone0
Joined: Dec 16, 2004
Posts: 1
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Quote:
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On 2004-10-25 08:44:55, vineet_d wrote:
ya dude, if he finds something then i guess i would also think of getting a moto A780 for myself 
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So what have you seen of pricing in Mumbai? trend? .. |
OugouFeray
Joined: Dec 17, 2004
Posts: 1
PM |
Hi,
does anyone know if the access to the filesystem
on the Motorola E680 through the filemanager is
somehow restricted i.e. is it possible to view and
access the complete directory structure e.g.
/, /etc, /usr and so on?
@sco0bydo0byd0p3
Did you already succed in porting a terminal to
the E680?
[ This Message was edited by: OugouFeray on 2004-12-17 11:41 ] |
OluYom
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Nigeria
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Reading thru this thread, there's so much technical stuff flying, and all a guy wants are apps for a phone. Looks like one has to be a Geek to get the best out of a Linux-based phone  - at least till developers get round to fine-tuning things. Until then, I'll stick with Symbian, Palm or Windows Mobile.
PS: I used to be known as AYA |
MohdFaizalYahya
Joined: Dec 29, 2004
Posts: 2
From: Malaysia
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Quote:
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On 2004-12-07 16:47:59, sco0bydo0byd0p3 wrote:
Now i have the full specs of the moto e680 - the phone that is best for me i think, i know a few more things -
not all of the phones run the arm processors - the e680 runs an intel xscale @300mhz. I guess, this could be the case with the series names - e-models run intel, a models run arm series. This wont make any difference for the 3d java apps, however, more complex tasks and applications, that call processor functions directly (very very goddam rare in any linux, as the kernel handles nearly all io) - lets take a native (not java) app that has been released for say an arm processor, if it needs to do some file/io or run direct calls to specific hardware, then id say that it wont be able to run properly on an intel specific platform. Of course if the sourcecode is released, then it is all sweet, since all you need is the kernel sources for that particular model, then just ./configure (on your computer) make. Then transfer the bins over to your home dir on your phone. (fyi i am making a lot of assumptions and simplifications here - for example - im assuming (cuz i simply dont know yet) that the embeded linux (montevista) uses the exact same file system architecture as that to any other linux - ie / /etc /root /home /usr) My first project is to port a terminal over to the Qt/Embedded system (found out e680 runs qtopia 2.0 as its GUI) Since there are already many, many terminal emulators built with Qt, i believe (and according to the trolltech website too) that porting a regular KDE app (qt) would basically just be a simple size adjustment of the window.
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So, did u succesfully port the linux native program to e680 yet? because i'm also an e680 user, i'm very very interest in e680's linux software development... |
vineet_d
Joined: Apr 15, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: MumBhai
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@p1gnone0:
In mumbai it is still not available
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MohdFaizalYahya
Joined: Dec 29, 2004
Posts: 2
From: Malaysia
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Quote:
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On 2004-12-29 10:41:24, vineet_d wrote:
@p1gnone0:
In mumbai it is still not available
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hey, how about tsunami thingy in your place? i'm very sorry to hear that many people killed in India... let's pray for them... |
EmbeddedDev
Joined: Feb 13, 2005
Posts: 1
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Hi,
while the E680 is known as a Linux-based phone, the user experience clearly isn't, i.e. everything is nicely(?) isolated into a standard mobile phone environment, as far as I can tell from my few days of use (I bought mine in Hongkong).
This also means that /etc, /usr etc. are NOT accessible, at least not with the standard very isolated and "integrated" phone environment, AFAICT.
Motorola seems to have put the focus on enabling writing Java applications for this phone instead of any native Linux enhancements (the developers guide is talking about Java only).
So if you expected some kind of "hackable" Linux phone, DON'T buy it.
I decided to buy it in order to support further development of Linux phones, but I'm already gravely regretting this decision:
- battery lifetime is not much more than one day, as witnessed by both me and an internet review (192 hours?? Hahahaa!)
- it supports OMA DRM 1.0 specification, which means DRM forward-lock, i.e. certain non-protected media, no matter which source it originated from (could be a privately recorded sound!) cannot be exported from the phone any more once it has been converted into DRM format, AFAIK so far
- there's not exactly a wealth of Linux-related source code available fo the E680. A poster above pointed out the a760 SourceForge project, but it might be incompatible and it only includes the kernel anyway
So while I wanted to simply buy a Linux-based phone instead of a non-Linux one, in order to support Linux use, I find myself actually furthering Digital Restrictions Management lockin. Nice!
Conclusion: if you want an extensible and *useful* Linux device, then get one of those iPAQs instead that can be equipped with a very usable Opie or GPE environment (make sure to check which one of those there's almost perfect Linux environment support for!!)
http://www.handhelds.org/
And use a braindead simple mobile phone on the other side of the equation...
(i.e. move all "interesting" things to the PDA, while using a phone for contacts only)
I'm strongly thinking of selling my very disappointing phone again (I had decided to never buy any DRM devices, so this discovery pisses me off quite a bit) and going the PDA way instead...
Not to mention that one of the preinstalled RealMedia files is DRM licensed and displayed the "DRM license file expired" message already before I even remembered what had been in that movie... GRRRRRRRRR!!!
(of course they didn't even mention the DRM movie protection in advance...)
Oh, and the very first thing that they need to tell you when opening the user manual is that ensuring media copyrights is not Motorola's, but your responsibility.
Initially I decided to go light on Motorola and simply filed a big DRM complaint on their website, but given the overall very big disappointment with this phone, I decided to not buy ANY further Motorola products, at all.
Some other people would probably come to the same conclusion... | |
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Posted: 2004-10-26 09:51
