Re: [gentoo-user] OT: Openmoko Freerunner as USB client

[Stroller]

On 18 Oct 2009, at 00:09, Alex Schuster wrote:
>> ...
>> The hack that springs to mind is to see if you can pick up an
>> Openmoko
>> Freerunner with a broken screen. I'd guess you might be able to pick
>> one up for as little as $50 or so. It needs no SIM - you just connect
>> it to your office wifi instead, configure it to act as a mass storage
>> device and share the appropriate directory by Samba or NFS or
>> whatever.
> ...
> Well, even $200 might be okay. I need this for a commercial project
> anyway,
> and I guess the customer would be happy not to have to move around USB
> sticks.

Honestly, I'm a little staggered the supplier of the ultrasound PC  
doesn't offer a network share. I mean, you can lock things down and  
still offer a network share; if USB memory sticks are permitted then  
there is room to accommodate this.

> But even better, I guess already have such a thing! My girl-friend
> got one a
> year ago, but was not happy with it. I just uses too much energy,
> has to be
> recharged every day. And there is some bug, when the battery is
> completely
> dead, it cannot be recharged - the moko needs another battery to
> start, then
> it can be exchanged with the dead one and recharged.

I believe that it was discovered you can start off USB power if you  
hold down the AUX button at the same time as the main power. I believe  
this works for 99% of Freerunners, so you remove the battery and test  
switching it on this way, connected to USB. If it works you don't need  
to worry about carrying a spare battery.

> Maybe there is s newer software, she hasn't looked for that for a
> while. And
> I thought the project is about dead anyway, but that may also be
> completely
> wrong. Anyway, the device would be already here, so I can play
> around with
> it.

The SHR software seems to be pretty good, I get the impression that it  
has made vast improvements over the last year. I have to admit I  
really haven't used mine much, either, but this is for unrelated  
reasons of disorganisation and laziness.

I would say that, yes, hardware development seems to be pretty much  
dead (although they are still manufacturing the units new), but  
actually the community and software projects are really active. I  
tried the SHR unstable (it's more stable than the stable) and it seems  
pretty useable. I think it'll maybe be great if it continues to  
improve at this rate.

I think what has really killed Openmoko is the inability to get hold  
of 3G chips in the low quantities and licensing terms they required.  
Lack of camera and 3G were the biggest source of "this is lame, i was  
really interested but lacking these i'm not buying a freerunner"  
whinges on the mailing list. I think now, a year or so later, and  
looking to the future this looks really dated. I gather Openmoko have  
pretty dropped development of phones, although this WikiReder was  
announced last week, and apparently something else is in the pipeline.

I would be quite interested if the SHR platform was ported to run on  
Android hardware - I don't see anything else with the Freerunner's  
screen resolution, but aside from that all the Android phones have 3G,  
cameras (not that I care about that) and a decent form-factor. I  
prefer the notion of being able to code in whatever language I want,  
even though I'm (realistically speaking) unlikely to get my ass in  
gear and actually do any, rather than being tied down to some whacky  
Java-esque environment. I started tinkering with my Freerunner again  
recently, installed SHR unstable, and it was really nice being able to  
install from an OSS repository using the command-line.

Stroller.