N770 OS2007 hacker edition made it to the title page of Linux Weekly News

Hello,

N770 OS2007 hacker edition made it to the title page of
Linux Weekly News
"Two examples of abandoned hardware" http://lwn.net/Articl
es/229341/

It is subscriber only for one week. 

It does not contain big news for this group though. It
summarizes the 
statements from Ari and Quim. The overall conclusion for the
N770 is negative 
due to "a fair amount of non-free software at all
levels [in the 770]", 
though they see some hope that Nokia opens up more
components, which would 
change the picture especially for the N800.

Thanks,
Rainer
-- 
Rainer Dorsch
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email: rdorschweb.de
jabber: rdorschjabber.org
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On 4/12/07, Rainer Dorsch <rdorschweb.de> wrote:
>
> N770 OS2007 hacker edition made it to the title page of
Linux Weekly News
> "Two examples of abandoned hardware" http://lwn.net/Articl
es/229341/

It's a good article, up to LWN's usual high standards and
worth
reading for anyone interested in how Maemo's now being
perceived
outside of the somewhat closed community in which we're
operating.

> It does not contain big news for this group though. It
summarizes the
> statements from Ari and Quim. The overall conclusion
for the N770 is
> negative due to "a fair amount of non-free
software at all levels [in the
> 770]", though they see some hope that Nokia opens
up more components,
> which would change the picture especially for the
N800.

The easiest situation for Nokia here is not to carry on the
OS2007on770 work in private, but provide documentable,
reusable steps
for how it was accomplished. Then the community could take
over
ownership *and* (most importantly, I suspect, to Nokia)
support.

A proposed plan:

  1) [Nokia] Update the Os2007On770 page with an up-to-date
position on
             status, no legacy information (the history can
be retrieved
             if necessary).

  2) [Nokia] Update the Os2007on770 page, or the garage
project, with a
             build system and documentation which
(preferably) outputs the
             current FIASCO image from a series of source
components (or,
             where necessary, closed source binary blobs).

             This step needs to include how OS2007on770 can
be updated when
             later OS2007 releases are made for the N800.

  3) [Nokia] Ask on maemo-developers for volunteer
administrators of the
             Garage project, and give them admin rights.

  4) [Community] Join OS2007on770 project and provide
community support
                 through Garage forums/mailing lists.

  5) [Community] Improve stability. Track N800 releases. Get
to an end-user
                 ready state and polish build systems and
processes.

  6) [Community] Promote and publicise on planet.maemo.org,
ITT, LWN,
                 maemo-users etc.

  7) [Community] Go to step 5.

Yes, this requires some more work on the part of Nokia - but
to be
honest, did anyone there think another binary-only image for
the 770
was really going to cut-it? The problem may only be one of
perception
and that all the bits are available, but I certainly think
it'd help
recover some of the widening PR negativity which is out
there.

Thoughts, as ever, welcome.

Cheers,

Andrew

-- 
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>   2) [Nokia] Update the Os2007on770 page, or the garage
project, with a
>              build system and documentation which
(preferably) outputs the
>              current FIASCO image from a series of
source components (or,
>              where necessary, closed source binary
blobs).
> 
>              This step needs to include how OS2007on770
can be updated when
>              later OS2007 releases are made for the
N800.

I wish to be able to have free updates for the nokia in a
free format. When I
say "free" I say "free as software, not as
beer". So distributing the firmwares
in the FIASCO format is weird so it's a propietary/privative
format and for me
all the privative components of the rootfs should be removed
or replaced by
free software. 

The only required parts to install OS2k7 is kernel, initfs
and rootfs, so the
blobloader still out of these components and can be freely
distributed.

BTW I can't understand why follow hacking on blobs when we
should be able to
build our own maemo rootfs's.

This way will be safer, because upgrading the blobloader is
dangerous (because
of version incompatibilities, no source, and it's the more
harmful piece of the fw)

>   5) [Community] Improve stability. Track N800
releases. Get to an end-user
>                  ready state and polish build systems
and processes.

For me Os2007On770 is more stable, usable, faster and
lightweight than the latest
SU2k6 firmware on n770. 

> Yes, this requires some more work on the part of Nokia
- but to be
> honest, did anyone there think another binary-only
image for the 770
> was really going to cut-it? The problem may only be one
of perception
> and that all the bits are available, but I certainly
think it'd help
> recover some of the widening PR negativity which is out
there.

I was really unhappy when nokia decided to abandon n770
after a year. I know
that nokia is a company,and n770 was just a commercial
strategy/social experiment
to later publish a new device with better features.

But please Nokia. If you abandon your childrens, please,
provide us enought
info to keep them updated by the community.

/me wishes 

  --pancake
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On 4/12/07, pancake <pancakeyouterm.com> wrote:
>
> I wish to be able to have free updates for the nokia in
a free format.
> When I say "free" I say "free as
software, not as beer". So distributing
> the firmwares in the FIASCO format is weird so it's a
> propietary/privative format and for me all the
privative components of
> the rootfs should be removed or replaced by free
software.

Agreed, and with the start of 0xFFFF (how many Fs? ) it's
less
important to get FIASCO images out: it certainly would give
a
community-driven OS2007on770 project flexibility.

However, I'd still advocate in the short term that an
ability to
generate FIASCO images is important:

  1) there's a pretty Windows GUI for it already
  2) 0xFFFF isn't necessarily mature enough yet.

However, I'd imagine in time the OS2007on770 project would
start
shipping tarballs containing bzImage, initfs.img, rootfs.img
(say) and
use 0xFFFF - with knowledge of these tarballs - to upgrade
all the
components (or just the changed components) in one go.

A more laudable aim if OS2007on770 starts forking off from
Nokia's IT
releases would be apt-gettable upgrades (but let's file that
under
"Long Term Goals" ).

Cheers,

Andrew

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Rainer Dorsch <rdorschweb.de> wrote:

> N770 OS2007 hacker edition made it to the title page of
Linux Weekly News
> "Two examples of abandoned hardware" http://lwn.net/Articl
es/229341/
> 
> It is subscriber only for one week. 

Those of you without LWN subscriptions can read the article
at:

	http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/229838/6d98406660425a0e/


jon

Jonathan Corbet / LWN.net / corbetlwn.net
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On 4/12/07, Jonathan Corbet <corbetlwn.net> wrote:
>
> Those of you without LWN subscriptions can read the
article at:
>
>         http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/229838/6d98406660425a0e/


Thanks for the subscriber link, jon - I was wary about
posting one to
a public mailing list (although I know we've had one here
before), so
having you do it was best all round 

Cheers,

Andrew

-- 
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io andrew

> Agreed, and with the start of 0xFFFF (how many Fs? ) it's
less

Heheh, 4, the required ones to fill a short variable :P

> important to get FIASCO images out: it certainly would
give a
> community-driven OS2007on770 project flexibility.
>
> However, I'd still advocate in the short term that an
ability to
> generate FIASCO images is important:
> 
>   1) there's a pretty Windows GUI for it already

What is windows?

I'm writing a GTK+ (glade) frontend in C for 0xFFFF and
other flashers
for embedded devices like the one for the HTC phones. I have
lot of wishes
for it and very little time for coding :(

But i'll happily receive your ideas and tips for it (here or
in the 0xFFFF
mailing list).

>   2) 0xFFFF isn't necessarily mature enough yet.

Well I don't use the nokia one anymore, and works pretty
fine, but I agree
that it needs more work and a better code reorganization,
but it's in a
early stage (0.1). 

> However, I'd imagine in time the OS2007on770 project
would start
> shipping tarballs containing bzImage, initfs.img,
rootfs.img (say) and
> use 0xFFFF - with knowledge of these tarballs - to
upgrade all the
> components (or just the changed components) in one go.

A tarball would be ok, but I would prefer to design a
standard format
for firmwares for embedded devices as I said in:

   ht
tp://nopcode.org/0xFFFF/?p=docu&q=nokia-tips

"""
  The (new and old) FIASCO firmware format is not a very
clean format, it
  doesn't provide any checksumming facility to ensure that
the contents of
  the firmware have been modified or incorrect, so i'll
rather encourage
  to design and create a standard firmware format for
embedded devices with
  checksumming, signatures, handling libraries,
documentation and so.

  I'll happilly collaborate on the design of this open
firmware format, and
  it would be used on all the open source-based devices to
aim interoperability
  between devices and flashers, providing a more standard
and reliable way of
  flashing devices.

  This will ease the development on new devices, so the
information and the
  code could be revised and enhaced by zillions of eyes.
""""

0xFFFF actually autodetects the piece type automatically, so
no need for specifying
what is what, the 'tarball' support can be done with a
wrapper shellscript.

> A more laudable aim if OS2007on770 starts forking off
from Nokia's IT
> releases would be apt-gettable upgrades (but let's file
that under
> "Long Term Goals" ).

hehehe an apt-like upgrades would be really nice! Another
thing that I really miss
from each nokia firmware release is the lack of commandline
tools like ping, telnet(or nc),
gunzip...

I was thinking on the possibility of writing a simple
program packaged into a
maemo-deb to allow backups from/to the device using the
0xFFFF graphical frontend,
rsync and ssh can be used.


  --pancake
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On Fri, 2007-04-13 at 11:59 +0300, Eero Tamminen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> ext pancake wrote:
> > hehehe an apt-like upgrades would be really nice!
Another thing that I really miss
> > from each nokia firmware release is the lack of
commandline tools like ping, telnet(or nc),
> > gunzip...
> 
> Isn't gunzip already available from busybox?

It is, see below.

I opened a report so that the default busybox
comes with a few more tools:

https:
//maemo.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=989

ext pancake, You should register your requests here
if you see useful missing tools.

Laurent

~ $ /bin/busybox 
BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 3:1.1.3-3.osso17) multi-call binary

Usage: busybox [function] [arguments]...
   or: [function] [arguments]...

        BusyBox is a multi-call binary that combines many
common Unix
        utilities into a single executable.  Most people
will create a
        link to busybox for each function they wish to use
and BusyBox
        will act like whatever it was invoked as!

Currently defined functions:
        [, [[, ash, awk, basename, busybox, cat, chgrp,
chmod, chown,
chroot, chvt, clear, cmp, cp, cut, date, dd, df, dirname,
dmesg, du,
echo, egrep, env, expr, false, fgrep, find, free, fuser,
getty,
        grep, gunzip, gzip, head, hostname, id, ifconfig,
ifdown, ifup,
insmod, kill, killall, last, ln, logger, login, ls, lsmod,
mkdir,
mkfifo, mknod, mkswap, mktemp, modprobe, more, mount, mv,
netstat,
        nslookup, pivot_root, printf, ps, pwd, readlink,
realpath,
renice, reset, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, run-parts, sed, seq,
sh, sleep,
sort, stty, su, swapoff, swapon, sync, sysctl, tail, tar,
        tee, test, time, top, touch, tr, true, tty, umount,
uname, uniq,
uptime, vi, wc, which, who, whoami, xargs, yes, zcat






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Hi,

ext Laurent GUERBY wrote:
>>> hehehe an apt-like upgrades would be really
nice! Another thing that I really miss
>>> from each nokia firmware release is the lack of
commandline tools like ping, telnet(or nc),
>>> gunzip...
>> Isn't gunzip already available from busybox?
> 
> It is, see below.
> 
> I opened a report so that the default busybox
> comes with a few more tools:
> 
> https:
//maemo.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=989

I actually think it's better to have these tools separate
from
Busybox, available from Maemo repositories.  That way:
- They don't "bloat" the Bysybox version in the
product
- They can be the full versions


> ext pancake, You should register your requests here
> if you see useful missing tools.

I think it would be better to have the Busybox additions
(i.e. things that would go to the product) in a separate
bug from utilities that should be easily
installable/available
from Maemo repositories.


	- Eero

> 
> Laurent
> 
> ~ $ /bin/busybox 
> BusyBox v1.1.3 (Debian 3:1.1.3-3.osso17) multi-call
binary
> 
> Usage: busybox [function] [arguments]...
>    or: [function] [arguments]...
> 
>         BusyBox is a multi-call binary that combines
many common Unix
>         utilities into a single executable.  Most
people will create a
>         link to busybox for each function they wish to
use and BusyBox
>         will act like whatever it was invoked as!
> 
> Currently defined functions:
>         [, [[, ash, awk, basename, busybox, cat, chgrp,
chmod, chown,
> chroot, chvt, clear, cmp, cp, cut, date, dd, df,
dirname, dmesg, du,
> echo, egrep, env, expr, false, fgrep, find, free,
fuser, getty,
>         grep, gunzip, gzip, head, hostname, id,
ifconfig, ifdown, ifup,
> insmod, kill, killall, last, ln, logger, login, ls,
lsmod, mkdir,
> mkfifo, mknod, mkswap, mktemp, modprobe, more, mount,
mv, netstat,
>         nslookup, pivot_root, printf, ps, pwd,
readlink, realpath,
> renice, reset, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, run-parts, sed,
seq, sh, sleep,
> sort, stty, su, swapoff, swapon, sync, sysctl, tail,
tar,
>         tee, test, time, top, touch, tr, true, tty,
umount, uname, uniq,
> uptime, vi, wc, which, who, whoami, xargs, yes, zcat
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