About Clutter

I've been playing around with Clutter lately and find it intresting project. So shortly it's a library to create fast, visually rich and animated graphical user interfaces. It uses OpenGL or OpenGL ES for rendering, but hides their complex API.

It uses GObject as base of it's classes and people who has been coding with GTK or glib are very home with Clutter. Additional libraries provides features like GStreamer playback support, Cairo rendering and embedding into GTK.

Building an simple application seems to be easy following the documentation. There seems to be lot of features, and basic operations works nicely. I made a test app utilizing clutter-gtk for GTK embedding, an it run smoothly on my desktop. However when I tried same application using OpenGL ES backend I faced problems. Clutter was missing XEMBED support for ES backed. I found this support in normal OpenGL version and find out making support for ES was quite easy job. I made a patch and posted it into Clutter's Bugzilla. Now I got a response and they seems to be excited about this patch.

It seems that Clutter is a nice project and the project team members are doign a good work. The library could be used more widely to make some nice, smooth UI's. However I'm not a graphic so didn't manage to create too smooth UI, but maybe somebody else success more better than me.

A word about Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded

The most popular Linux distribution (according DistroWatch.com) on desktop, Ubuntu, is aiming on the embedded market. They aim their embedded distribution mainly on devices which are called "Internet tablets" or "mobile Internet devices".

Currently the target is on Intel platform called MID (Mobile Internet Device) and available devices such as Samsung Q1 Ultra, HTC Shift and Elektrobit EB MIMD. The distro will aim on Intel based system leaving for example ARM based devices like Nokia N800 out of the scope.

About the project itself. It tries to use existing software as it's base, but is not afraid to implement it's own applications when suitable one not available. It's intresting that the project took Hildon as it's UI framework. Hildon is originally developed by Nokia for it's maemo platform. However, Hildon is open source and such thing is possible to do and kind of open source spirit, and in the line with the policy to use existing components if availble.

They're targeting to release first version with Ubuntu 7.10, meaning very soon from now. As I see these Intel based devices are yet to come to the markets and we'll not see this in use in this year but in a year or two those devices with Ubuntu's embedded version might be a everyday. Only the time will show...

Poky Linux

Recently Opened Hand announced Poky Linux for embedded devices. Currently the system runs on various Sharp Zaurus devices and there is also experimental support for Nokia N800 and OpenMoko Neo1973 devices. I tried the Poky system on qemu and also installed it on my Nokia N800.

The system contains UI component called Sato, which is corresponding component to the Hildon widget set. The system is fully open, and contains currently basic applications such as web browser and video player, a PIM suite called pimlico and some games.

Here's a capture of Poky Linux running in qemu:



And the system running on Nokia N800:



Seems that network is not supported yet on N800 so I was not able to test the browser any better. But currently the Poky Linux seems a promising option.

Lost in Berlin

On last week I was visiting Berlin. I took my Nokia N800 and a GPS receiver with me. I have installed Maemo Mapper on the device and loaded Berlin maps beforehand on it. Navigating was working nice, but I still had to buy a paper map. There's something that a digital map can't replace.

Another reason for taking the N800 with me was the WLAN connection. I succesfully connected to the hotel's WLAN. Also it was handy on the airport where I had to spend several hours. However the WLAN spots were not free so it cost some money but I can manage a few euro's cost.

I also finally ordered the Neo1973 (OpenMoko) device. I'll be waiting for it, and I will surely report first impressions on this blog. But until that I'm testing the development tools and tell more about them later...

OpenMoko finally here

So they really got first developer versions of OpenMoko device Neo1973 for sale. I'm about to purchase one of these very soon.

After reading specs and documentation I found this device even more better. The developer version of Neo1973 will include:

• Neo1973 (GTA01B_v4)
• Battery
• Stylus
• Headset
• AC Charger
• Phone Pouch
• Lanyard
• SanDisk 512MB MicroSD Card
• Mini USB Connectivity Cable

There's also available advanced package but I'm not currently intrested about it. But the final (sales) version of Neo1973 sounds even more better, it'll will have WiFi, Graphics accelerator and 2 accelometers. I think I must buy it as well when it will be available.

While waiting for the device I've been playing with OpenMoko system in QEMU. It seems quite slowish but can't yet say anything about the speed on the device. Here's a little video capture (sorry about the wrong aspect ratio):



So now waiting for getting the device on my hands to be able to tell more about it...


P.S. Nokia N800 got updated software and is running now Skype. Works fine but unfortunately it's closed software. However nice move...

GPL version 3

Recently Free Software Foundation released the final GNU General Public License version 3. What that does really mean?

First of all many software says it uses version 2 or NEWER. The key word is the later one because user may choose which version to use. Is there going to be two branches of one software, one for version 2 and one for the 3rd one? Ok, that might be a problem. However there's still some software which insist to use version 2 only. On of these are the Linux kernel. It will be version 2 unless something else is decided...

Also version 3 defines that some vendors can't any more lock their devices to use only the official binary provided by them. Vendors must now allow customized code to be flashed or uploaded to the device and not to lock it on any way. Sounds fair.

Secondly software patents are not allowed. This prevents deals which Microsoft has made lately with some Linux providers. It will be interesting to see the real affect. For now on we must only speculate.

Generally the GPL version 3 is good thing, but people should take a little bit careful with it at first. The future will tell what comes.

P.S. First developer versions of OpenMoko based phone Neo1973 will be available since 9th of July. I'll be waiting for it...

Long time indeed

First I must apologize for not writing for a long time, but have been busy and doing everything more important. And it's been silent lately.

Fortunately now the phase 1 of OpenMoko based phone Neo1973 is near. It's means that some devices will be available for developers to order. I try to be one of those lycky ones, but let's see first how many of these devices they're able to get for sale. Hopefully enough.

Meanwhile I got Nokia N800 (for the discounted price, thanks goes for Nokia) and had some time to play with it. It's quite impressive and a real improvement from 770. Now there's enough memory and CPU seems fast enough. It makes a really good tool with GPS receiver and Maemo mapper. Used it a few times to navigate while being at a car. And the media player is also a good piece of software, for example I tried playing music over UPnP from a friend's Windows XP Media center edition and it did a nice job. But again I have had a very little time to play with it more and implementing my own stuff for it.

Hopefully I have more time in future to update this blog but until then it's a bye.