tuxmaniac’s blog

Free Software updates

- PIKLab, the  IDE for application development for PIC Micro controllers was failing to build from source on Fedora 9. Fixed it and uploaded into the Fedora repos. Thanks to Chitlesh for sponsoring the upload. Here is the commit message.

- Working on getting Ecos packaged for Fedora. Fedora Electronic Laboratory 10 “DVD” is on its way..
- Still no updates from the Regents of the University of California regarding the license of Magic. Still to get into Debian/Ubuntu. Same story holds good for IRSIM. But, IRSIM has an explicit COPYRIGHT file which clear mentions that it is licensed under GPL, the debian mentors team would want it to be included on all source file headers. May be I misunderstood this thread. If anyone can provide more clarity on this, I would be more than happy because its struggling to get into the repos.

- Committed a patch provided by Marcelo Souza to fix SF Bug #1966993 in gnusim8085. Still loads more to go.

- It is very clear now that Debian/Ubuntu are lagging behind in the tools available for Electronic design, embedded development. May be I can change that. Seems like the target I set for the year regarding the same is on track, just with some of the above mentioned license issues stopping it from going to completion But its Never say Die. Certain things are never in your hands.

Personal updates

- Been living like a nomad for the past few days out of my car. Sleeping at all friend’s places, using my employer’s restrooms to great extent.

- My three year long stay in Bangalore coming to an end. More updates on that soonish.

Never before have I found so many talks in a Conference in India , I am curious about. Looks like FOSS.IN has changed the trend. I would be happy to find these talks in the final list.

1. Harald Welte - OpenMoko: What, why and how
2. Holger Hans Peter Freyther - Using OpenEmbedded to power Open Devices
3. Pramode C.E - FreeBird - A GNU/Linux based mobile robotics platform for introductory Computer Science and Engineering education.
4. Rakesh Peter - Hacking the Air Waves with GNURadio
5. Thomas Gleixner - Turning Linux into a Real-time Kernel
6. Naba Kumar - Introduction to Maemo development
7. Naba Kumar - Anjuta DevStudio; where we are and where we want to be
8. James Morris - How and Why You Should Be a Kernel Hacker
9. Lennart Poettering - The PulseAudio Sound Server

Be there.. It can never get bigger than this. FOSS.IN

Disclaimer:  The above list is solely my interests and does not relate to, in any form any other organisation/individual ’s point of view.

Wow! Today Matt Zimmermann announced the opening of the Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded Project on the ubuntu-devel-announce list here. Its a welcome move. With the handheld devices sector gonna take over the world in a short while and more importantly I being a person who loves playing around with hardware and software, this is exciting. A lot of Embedded announcements in the past few days. Intel announced the the Ultra mobile platform for Mobile Internet Devices. The GNOME Community announced the Gnome Embedded and Mobile initiative. The Openmoko guys are rolling fast! So I am actually getting a bit confused with so many options of getting involved in a project. But one thing assured. Its gonna continue to be a lot of fun and learning. Looking forward to the bright days ahead. But first I have something to keep myself busy for the next 20 days. After that…

After the Mark Shuttleworth’s talk at Y! Office (or was it the Fedora Guy’s talk??) I had gone to the BLUG Meet yesterday. So what was special?? Yes, it was the Openmoko core guys Harald Welte and Sean speaking on the Open Mobile Kommunications Platform or in short the OpenMoko Project.

The room was filled with about 100 people or may be even less by around 1600 hrs and Tejas welcomed the audience and introduced the speakers (did they really need an intro???) Sean started off with how he got this whole idea of developing a Open Phone and the difficulties faced in convincing the FIC Management to go and support this project. Then Harald Welte took over and started speaking about the more interesting aspects of the phone. Yes, the technical details. An interesting piece of software is the “devirginator” which will enable you to completely reflash the entire phone right from the firmware. The Neo1973 phone comprises of two proprietary blocks apart from the completely Free and Open Applications Processor. One is the GSM Module (the application processor can communicate using standard AT commands to this chip) and the other is the AGPS module. Apart from these two every piece of “substance” that goes into the phone is Free and Open. Harald gave a live demo of Dialing and Incoming call and also the UI as such in general. Snacks were served and everything wound up by around 1930 hrs. I met up with empty_mind, kushal, shres, t3 and my long lost friend “Manager” Mahendra I had discussions with Sean regarding setting up Labs in Universities with OpenMoko providing the platform. Some of the Indian Universities should think about this as Sean is already thinking on a win-win cost model for Universities (especially in India). Great Learning opportunity in Hands University guys!! Make use of it.

It was a lot of fun. Photo set here

The BOSSA Conference is a conference on OpenSource, Mobile Multimedia and Internet. The talks scheduled seems to be inline with my area of interest especially after I have been meddling around with OpenEmbedded for quite smetime. Also a recent interest in the OpenMoko project and my work at office which involves Mobile Multimedia and Interfacing with Car Multimedia Systems all fall in place. Lovely. It would be wonderful if I get to be there. Whats more!! Its in the land of Pele, Ronaldo, Cafu, Ronaldinho !! Braziiiiil!! Ulalalalalala!!! W0w! Beaches, The brazilian babes, Landscapes!! Err.. I gotta be there somehow. Especially after I missed this year’s FOSDEM at Brussels, Belgium by a month . Mobile technology + Open Source freaks!! This is the right confo! Be there. And sing the Brazilian song of Open Source together. It happening on the March 12-14 2007. Hope to get some leave from Office especially with so many “Freeze” Deadlines both at Office and Home coming together next month

After some long investigation for why bluetooth remote control which seemed to be an interesting feature of my K750i mobile phone, does not work with my Ubuntu Laptop I figured out the problem.

There are two files in which the HIDD_ENABLED flag has to be set as against my assumption of setting it in only the /etc/default/bluez-utils file.

The other file in which the flag has to be set is /etc/init.d/bluetooth i.e HIDD_ENABLED = 1. Then do a restart of the bluetooth services by

sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart

and lo and behold bluetooth RC works. In my excitement I tried the .hid configuration files of mplayer from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothRemoteControl so that I could control mplayer using my mobile phone. Yay!!! I am controlling movie playback lying on my bed. Next step was to try the Totem configuration file from the same page. It worked. So I decided to write my own configuration file and image for Rhythmbox, my most used music player. And here it is, tried and tested with K750i mobile phone.

Download the Rhythmbox configuration file here. I also modified the image in the HID configuration file to depict the mobile keypad keys <-> functionality mapping. It looks something like the one below.

After these changes to the two files I made, even the file system browsing via bluetooth using the object exchange protocol works. Yay!

Y0! A cool Saturday morning in Chennai ! I got picked up at home by Mr.Maran (Placement Officer, SSNCE) for the Embedded GNU/Linux and VLSI CAD tools workshop we were gonna conduct today. We moved on to the college after picking Shakthi. After reaching college at around 9:00 AM we met up with the CSE Head Of Dept Dr. Chitra, and quite a few other CSE Staff. The workshop began with a introduction to FLOSS philosophy by SK. After which I took a session on Icarus Verilog and other GNU EDA tools that can be used by the students. After demonstrating some small examples, SK demonstrated the ALLIANCE VHDL CAD Tool. Next came the surprise package. The one that dazzled the students. Yes! It was a demo of AIGLX on my laptop. Every body were shell shocked or rather surprised We moved on to meet the principal and then lunch. Back from good lunch at the college Guest dining room, I introduced the students to basics of Embedded Systems followed by some probable projects that one can do. SK gave a demo with his Little Chips board of how exactly “Embedded Systems Development” takes place. SK also presented a Embedded GNU/Labs How to and then we had some discussion with the students. At around 3:45 PM we left the college.

Photos are here: SSN Embedded Workshop Photos
PS: w00t!! We treated like real BIG guests Special thanks to Srikanth and Jagadeesh and the entire CSE Dept. Thanks to Mr. Maran (Placement Officer), Dr. Chitra (HOD, CSE) and Mr. Prasad for all the support and hospitality they extended.