Archive for June 2005

Maemo and Fedora

I refuse to have my Xorg run at 16-bit depth, so, here’s a better way of running Maemo, rather than the prescribed Xnest method. Install vncviewer and vnc-server, then:

  1. Xvnc -geometry 800x480 -dpi 72 -ac :2 -depth 16 -rfbauth ~/.vnc/passwd & – this creates an Xvnc server with size 800×480 (to fit Maemo), with a DPI of 72 (you may want 96, but it seems rather large). This creates it on display :2 with a 16-bit depth, and the password file to be read is in ~/.vnc/passwd.
  2. Create a VNC password, by using vncpasswd
  3. Then, type vncviewer :2, enter the password, and you’ll have a window appear. Now in scratchbox, just type af-sb-init.sh start. Make sure you already ran export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:2 in scratchbox as well.

On Fedora Core 4, remember, you want to echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/vdso as well, to ensure scratchbox will even start. The tutorial is incorrect in terms of telling you where to get maemopad – grab it from http://repository.maemo.org/stable/1.0/applications/maemopad/.

maemo on fedora
Maemo on FC-4; changing the input method

Interesting reading is the interview with Dr. Ari Jaaksi from Nokia. Debian’s packaging format was the only thing chosen, as the kernels come from upstream kernel.org. Last little Maemo tip is that if you don’t want to use the keyboard, better switch input methods to the X input method, and this will allow you to actually type text in (rather than tapping on the online keyboard).

Red Hat, the Catholic Church of all Distributions

  • So m-commerce must’ve really taken off. Today, I made a purchase from a WAP site on my mobile, using my credit card details, and then having an item I ordered delivered. All without a computer, mind you.
  • I started jhbuilding GNOME again. On a fairly standard FC-4 system (workstation install), you need: docbook-utils-pdf, howl-devel. It has a spiffy notification area icon now. audiofile wouldn’t get installed (host not found) – so manual fixing. mozilla wouldn’t build. The jhbuild dependencies is a mighty useful page – if time permits, maybe something like the comprehensive jhbuildonubuntu ought to be written for Fedora.
  • Spent some time with the FUDCon II folk, aka, the FESCO meeting #2. SkypeOut seems to have served well for the three hours, because I got to do these things handsfree. And it didn’t cost a bomb. While sitting on it, I decided we needed to communicate (well, this was a goal from FESCO physical meeting #1), so I present Extras Steering Committee. We have meeting minutes that are public there now. And its been announced. Good talk about how package process works (the arch stuff came up, and more stringent ExclusiveArch goodness and Bugzilla tying ins). What we can package/ship also came up, and I’m sure the minutes and stuff that comes out of it will be interesting.
  • < |Jef|> he clearly doesnt understand that Red Hat is the catholic church of distributions… every year its congregation splinters in yet another reformation – how true. You can splinter, but you can never leave us.

Some mac stuff

  • Hubert, I don’t know where you’ve heard/seen that Apple will ship the Intel C/C++ compiler, but they’re definitely backing XCode and GCC. In fact, they encourage gcc usage, as it will provide smooth transitions, and one of their new Intel Macs already had gcc -arch compiled to handle ppc and i386. This probably quenches the rumors that Intel will build PowerPC processors.
  • Boolean searches in Spotlight enhances it with NOT/OR searches – useful. I haven’t tried Beagle yet, but this shouldn’t be a hidden feature but really pimped up.
  • Wah, Delicious Library is seriously being pimped at WWDC. I think they’d be winning some design awards sometime soon. For those of us using Linux, there’s mCatalog (requires Mono). All this uses the exposed Amazon Web Services API.
  • Popped Mono on OS X. To use gtk#, I need X11? Eh, it isn’t native, but it works right. Well, here’s news, Mono is not cross-platform, either. Mac users hate X11 apps. Why do you think we have NeoOffice/J being more popular than OpenOffice.org/X11? So besides wxWindows, we may never have a true cross-platform GUI out there (and its not even a pretty solution).
  • Been playing with Dashboard widgets a lot. Its highly impressive. CSS, JavaScript, and basic HTML, and you get some really useful features. Also mining Apple’s Web Kit. There’s a lot of potential here, and with some good CSS-fu, lots of cool widgets can happen. XCode is something I’ve used a bit more, and I’m rather impressed – jump around .js file functions too. It even edits HTML! Its very cool.
  • Tried Abiword. Its kinda nice. Lightweight, doesn’t require X11, I’m kind of impressed. I wonder if gnumeric is also available on OS X and if it’s as good (I mean, I keep on reading about abiword at planet gnome…).
  • Quartz Composer is cool. If this is what the programming future is going to be, we’re going to get a lot of cool, high-end apps. The toy RSS screensaver is completely easy to build! However, it performs shitless on my iBook G3 with the Radeon 7500. Looks like I really need to get some power… erps, PowerBook thing at some stage.

Yes, Linux PPC on commonplace Apple hardware is over…

So, the venerable Steve Jobs said Apple is switching to Intel from PowerPC, which he summed up nicely: “Remember, you all develop on this platform not because of the underlying architecture, but because OS X is just so good”. Okay, that might’ve just been a little paraphrased, but the audience in general were all very gusto.

He confirmed that OS X has always been running on x86 without any issue. It was designed to be cross platform from the start (this can more or less be viewed as the case thanks to Darwin x86). But of core importance is that folk need to use XCode if they want to get their OS X working on both PPC and Intel; otherwise this wonderful Universal Binary support will not exist. And then, for apps that still require PPC to run (and are not Universal Binaries), there’s Rosetta, which will translate the PPC instructions to x86, on the fly without performance drop.

Reasoning is units for performance per watt, for the future roadmap. In 2006, Intel is poised to give 70 units/watt, while PowerPC will give only 15 units/watt. Turns out he mentions nothing about cooling, the use of fans, etc. What about Altivec? Or even how the ads and performance benchmarks constantly used to berate similar software running on x86 (Photoshop performance comes to mind – at least 50% faster on a Mac and what not). A lot remain unanswered currently, but I guess more will unfold over the week.

Where does this leave Linux PPC? Besides IBM or Pegasos hardware, Apple wants the transition to happen by 2007; it however should launch its first Intel-based computer by next year. Does this also mean that I can buy the next version of OS X and run it on any run-off-the-mill x86? Mmrm


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