The Hitchhiker's Guide to the N770 Galaxy

We are three

2008-03-04T23:29:00.002+01:00

My first daughter born last sunday at 8 am GMT+1.
Her name is Bruna, this is the catalan word for brunette.
We are very happy with her arrival and the new vital experience that we are living.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeptorra

Painting walls and soon we will be three...

2008-01-06T12:33:00.001+01:00

Wow, about 9 months without posts on the blog. I've been busy on my job and enjoying on other matters.

The greatest news are that our family will have a new member on March.
We are waiting a daughter and alot of arrangements had to be done on our flat. During last 5 weeks I've been painting a room for her as you can see on the picture.

Now there's a new device and a new version of Internet Tablet OS, so it's time to rebuild my maemo projects.
Tuner tool and nethack are ready for the IT2008, you can find the download links on the sideboard.

Note: to install the tuner tool on the tablet you need to install by hand gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-extra from maemo repository.

Tuner tool on N800

2007-04-10T12:47:00.000+02:00

Hi all,

I don't know when I will find time to finish a new release of the tuner tool. I've some new features partly written.

I tried the current build today in my N800 and seems to work as expected.

Chris Jones noticed me that there's a problem with the audiotestsrc gstreamer element which is not provided by default on N800. To solve this issue you should install the gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-extra package manually.

More improvements on nethack

2007-03-17T14:17:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

Finally I managed to fix the feature related to context menu and the inventory dialog. Now works fine with Nokia 770 (tested on mistral and scirocco) and with Nokia N800 (tested on bora).

Thanks to Tilman Vogel, he sent me a patch with some more features. Mainly sumarized as:

- Toolbar expand/unexpand depending on full screen state
- On toolbar added new commands "What's here?" (:) and "What's there?" (;)
- Fixed endless loop asking for "more details?" when using the central minipad button with the "identify a map symbol" command
- Changed search button icon.

Enjoy with this new release.

Nethack, segfault on N800 fixed.

2007-02-23T14:00:00.000+01:00

Hello all,

I uploaded a new build of the nethack game for Internet Tablet.

Now the segfault on N800 related to inventory+context menu feature should be fixed.

Enjoy again :)

Nethack again :)

2007-01-20T21:28:00.000+01:00

Hello all.

A lot of changes in my life since my last post in this blog.
Now I have a new job, I'm working at Fluendo since September that's the reason why I've been really busy last months. Now I've to drive a pair of hours each day moving me from Igualada to Barcelona, less time for personal projects :(.
The new job is really interesting. Improve gstreamer and codecs for embedded and desktop platforms are mainly my tasks at Fluendo.

My first Nokia 770 is one year old and I want celebrate it with you, a new release of Nethack is an appropriate present. This was my first developing project for that toy.

Some promised features are now in Nethack, but I haven't tested it completely. Who can play games when is more interesting write the code :).

New features (look at the screenshots):

- Finally I finished the pad whit a nice look thanks to Christophe Dumas.
- Context menu for actions on objects at inventory dialog.
- Different flavours of nethack, now you can choose between graphical or ascii views.
- Some minor fixes.

That's all, thanks to everybody that does maemo an amusing experience every day.

On holidays and tuner tool

2006-08-17T12:12:00.000+02:00

Hi friends,

I'm on holidays this days and I've restricted access to my computer, my wife don't let me play on it until September :)

During first week on September I believe that I'll be able to do some improvements on the tuner tool that has been suggested to me on comments and by mail.

This is a summary about the changes that I plan to do:

- Enlarge the text that reports the tone played as Tor-björn asked for.
- Add an autoplay func for guitar notes: "Play the six guitar strings in sequence, allow each string/tone to play for a configurable length of time, then play the next string/tone, ie: e-e-e-e-e a-a-a-a-a d-d-d-d-d g-g-g-g b-b-b-b-b e-e-e-e repeat" as Chris Warren-Smith suggested.
- Add a pair of buttons to let change octaves on the piano func.

About how improve the FFT and add better sensivity under 400 hz frequencies, I'm reallyy novice in this area and mainly I began this project as way to learn about gstreamer and N770 multimedia API. I chosen KISS FFT lib because it's easy to use and fourier transform can be calculated using fixed point integers, that's good for N770 which haven't FPU. If someone has a good idea about which improvements can be done on this area I'm able to write the code and testing it but by now I have a lack of info about what should be done.

Sometimes I'm in IRC channels at freenode, #maemo and #gstreamer, with nick ArthurDentN770 we can talk about if you want.

Tuner tool version 0.0.2

2006-08-02T18:01:00.000+02:00

Hi friends,

This is a new version of my tuner tool project for Nokia 770. As you can see on the screenshoot I added a piano keyboard to generate reference tones.

I want to thanks people on IRC channel #gstreamer who helped me with this project. In particular to ensonic for their ideas about how solve some bugs.

Binary for IT2006
Source

Tuner tool for Nokia 770

2006-08-01T12:26:00.000+02:00

This is a new tool for our versatile Nokia 770. I wrote this artifact mainly as an introductory mini project to GStreamer.

Basically it consists on a GStreamer plugin based on KISS FFT library to perform a fourier transform on a signal and extract fundamental frequency.

On top of the plugin I wrote this small GUI for Nokia 770 that build a GStreamer pipeline between microphone and gstkissfft component.

I'm spending holiday on the beach these days and I couldn't test it with a real instrument, any comment will be appreciated.

Binary for IT2006
Source

Nethack GUADEC 2006 edition

2006-06-25T12:38:00.000+02:00

Hi nethackers,

Another version of my nethack port is available, now I added a minipad widget to main screen. It's functional but a nice artwork needs to be done, probably something like a compass or a wind rose.

Future improvement could be contextual menus for actions on the inventory list, now I have an idea about how to do it.

Good gaming

New nethack packages

2006-06-22T00:24:00.000+02:00

New packages for nethack, follow links on the sidebar.

Solved on IT2006 version:

- Menu key issue
- Install with maemo-select-menu-location

On code:

- Some source cleaning
- Automated building and packaging processes
- Automatic maemo version detection for building and packaging

That's all by now.

Nethack for IT2006

2006-06-20T12:35:00.000+02:00

This is a testing package for IT2006. It works on maemo 2beta devenv but I couldn't test it under the real device.

I'll coninue working on code this week your suggestions will be appreciated.

Nethack binary package for IT2006

Good nethacking.

Graduate project RC1

2006-06-16T15:10:00.000+02:00

Hi people,

Next Monday is deadline for my graduate project. I uploaded my work at http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/n770galaxy/TFC2.tar.gz.

It's a 10Mb package with docs, source code patches and a build.sh script.

Docs are in Catalan my mother tongue and it will be interesting only for a reduced group of people.

I don't upload any binary by now because I want move to IT2006 next week.

My plans are move nethack port to IT2006 and present it at GUADEC contest.

Learn about packaging in IT2006 with nethack port miniproject.

After this I will try to move VLC port experiment to IT2006 and solve some problems related to the hildonized PDA GUI and SDL video render module.

I wish post more frequenly next weeks and work again with nethack port.

VLC work in progress

2006-03-16T10:53:00.000+01:00

Last weeks had been some changes in my life, now I'm unemployed and I had to reorganize myself.

This circumstances will benefit VLC porting project, my primary goal is play a 720x576 4 : 3 25 fps TS-mpeg2 stream obtained from a Dreambox 7000S receiver.

In order to achieve this target I've been working with the following software parts:

- VLC 7.2: By now using console interface, in a future hildonize GTK/PDA interface

- libdvbpsi4-0.1.5: Last version of this component for demuxing video and audio streams from a TS stream

- libmpeg2: last versiÃ³n from cvs, I've done some work on IDCT routine writing a new implementation in ARM assembly using MUL and MAC dsp extensions.

- libmad 0.15.1b: Last version of this mpeg audio codec

I'm looking for an alternative to libmad, I found that there is an mpeg2 audio codec implemented on C55x DSP integrated in TI OMAP 1710 of Nokia 770.

$ cat /sys/devices/platform/dsp/dsptask11/devname
mp2dec

Do you know where I could find doc about this codec and how to use it ?

Zooming issues on nethack

2006-03-03T13:00:00.000+01:00

Last week I've been very busy and I couldn't work on nethack. Today I uploaded a new build.

Now zooming steps are fine grained and a problem related to scroll bars has been corrected.

Next weeks I've been working on VLC, my first attempt on hardware doesn't work. I believe that I will have to learn about c55x DSP in order to optimize ffmpeg for Nokia 770 and this will be a hard task.

Good nethacking :)

Yet another nethack release

2006-02-23T22:21:00.000+01:00

Good night, new release uploaded.

Now I packaged two tilesets, 32x32 selected as default.
I add a symlink to ~/.nethackdir/saves at ~/MyDocs/.documents/.games/ . Using N770's file manager it's easy backup your save games to memory card.

TODO:
- #twoweapons menu entry
- multiselection item dialogs
- bind one or two new toolbar buttons to interesting actions according to role
- discover how to put "direction dialog" in lower left corner directly

I only played wizards an valkiries, I don't know what actions are wished in relation to role, comments on that will be appreciated.

This weekend I will work on VLC port. I only could test it on laptop and I don't know how package everything to be installed on N770.

That's all for now, good nethacking.

Nethack, back to the past

2006-02-23T00:52:00.000+01:00

I uploaded a new release of my nethack port. Now you can set your preferred tileset.

I don't packaged any alternate tileset to keep it small but is easy find some tilesets on google.

To add a tileset you need download it and copy to /user/.nethackdir using xterm.

Edit /user/.nethackrc setting tile_file, tile_width and tile_height values.

I would like receive some feedback about the game in order to improve it.

New nethack build

2006-02-20T23:09:00.000+01:00

This is a new build of my nethack port. I believe that my last upload was wrong sorry for inconveniences.

I made some interesting changes, almost some according my preferences.
- Added a new button on toolbar for cast action(spell book icon)
- Left margins as I announced last week
- Now only role and race is needed to start a game, random choices will be done when are set

I would like receive some feedback about the port. What would you like to see in next build? Ideas to improve playability and interface, etc.

I wish you good luck in the dungeons of doom.

P.S. I added permanent links to binary and source packages on blog sidebar

VLC capturing stream of dreambox 7000S

2006-02-19T17:09:00.000+01:00

I've been working on VLC port this weekend, this is the result on my laptop.

Build script.

Nethack and some minor issues

2006-02-16T00:42:00.000+01:00

I uploaded a new version, with some changes on maximized view that some people asked me.

During next weekend I will work on player dialog issues.

Here you can download new binary and source packages.

Porting VideoLanClient

2006-02-13T23:14:00.000+01:00

That's my first atempt of porting VideoLanClient to Nokia 770. I will work on it the following months. Porting VLC to maemo platform will be my graduate project on computer science at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

By now I followed guidelines of "Cross compile VLC for ARM-based platforms".

That's my build script:

mkdir src
cd src
rm -rf *

echo Uncompress
tar -jxvf ../paquets/ffmpeg-20040520.tar.bz2
tar -zxvf ../paquets/libmad-0.15.0b.tar.gz
tar -zxvf ../paquets/libogg-1.1.tar.gz
tar -zxvf ../paquets/flac-1.1.0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf ../paquets/libdvbpsi3-0.1.4.tar.gz
tar -zxvf ../paquets/a52dec-0.7.4.tar.gz
tar -jxvf ../paquets/vlc-0.7.2.tar.bz2

echo Building ffmpeg
cd ffmpeg-20040520
./configure --prefix=/usr --cpu=armv4l \
--disable-mmx \
--enable-shared \
--enable-pp \
--enable-gpl

gcc -O3 -g -Wall -I. -I/home/jep/vlc/src/ffmpeg-20040520 \
-I/home/jep/vlc/src/ffmpeg-20040520/libavcodec \
-I/home/jep/vlc/src/ffmpeg-20040520/libavformat \
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_GNU_SOURCE \
-I/usr/include/SDL \
-I/usr/X11R6/include \
-D_REENTRANT -c -o ffplay.o ffplay.c
make
make install
cd ..

echo Building libmad
cd libmad-0.15.0b
./configure --enable-release --prefix=/usr --host=arm-linux --target=arm-linux \
--x-includes=/usr/X11R6/include \
--x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib \
--disable-video-opengl
#--enable-fpm=arm
#--enable-fpm=arm
export PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH
make
cd ..

echo Building libogg
cd libogg-1.1
./configure --prefix=/usr --host=arm-linux --target=arm-linux
make
make install
cd ..

echo Building libflac
cd flac-1.1.0
./configure --prefix=/usr --host=arm-linux --target=arm-linux
make
make install
cd ..

echo Building libdvbpsi3-0.1.4
cd libdvbpsi3-0.1.4
./bootstrap
./configure --prefix=/usr --host=arm-linux --target=arm-linux
make
make install
cd ..

cd a52dec-0.7.4
./configure --enable-release --prefix=/usr --host=arm-linux --target=arm-linux
make && make install
cd ..

echo Building vlc
cd vlc-0.7.2
./configure --target=arm-linux --host=arm-linux \
--disable-wxwidgets \
--disable-skins2 \
--enable-release \
--prefix=/usr \
--disable-plugins \
--enable-gtk \
--enable-gtk2 \
--enable-pda \
--enable-ncurses \
--enable-x11 \
--disable-gnome \
--disable-qt \
--disable-kde \
--disable-qte \
--disable-xosd \
--enable-dummy \
--disable-fb \
--disable-sdl \
--disable-oss \
--disable-alsa \
--disable-httpd \
--disable-libcdio \
--disable-xvideo \
--disable-dvd \
--disable-dvdread \
--disable-vcd \
--disable-cdda \
--disable-mkv \
--disable-maxosx \
--disable-xosd \
--disable-freetype \
--disable-flac \
--disable-libmpeg2 \
--enable-mad \
--enable-ffmpeg \
--enable-familiar \
--disable-dvbpsi \
--x-includes=/usr/X11R6/include \
--x-libraries=/usr/X11R6/lib

# --with-gtk-config-path=/usr/bin \
# --with-gtk-prefix=/usr \
# --with-ffmpeg-tree=../ffmpeg-20040520 \
# --with-a52-tree=../a52dec-0.7.4 \
# --with-dvbpsi-tree=../libdvbpsi3-0.1.4

# --with-mad-tree=../libmad-0.15.0b \

make

Screenshoot of my nethack port

2006-02-13T23:07:00.000+01:00

This is my nethack port running on maemo. I've done some customization on GUI acording to my preferences.

Devices powered by Linux

2006-02-13T22:26:00.000+01:00

This is my colection of devices running Linux:
- Dreambox 7000S Sattelite TV receiver
- Laptop DELL Latitude D600
- gp2x portable console
- Nokia 770 Internet tablet

In the beginning was nethack...

2006-02-12T18:03:00.000+01:00

A month ago I received a new linux gadget for my collection, the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. I bought that device because I was looking an affordable ebook reader device and I found on N770 the best choice.

It finally arrived to my hands I had been greatly impressed with its screen, was exactly what I wanted.

I’ve started to install my required software. First I installed xterm that let me investigate internals of that gadget. After I installed fbreader, this was my primary target after all. Now I finished read two books since then. The third piece of software that I’ve installed was nethack and that was my first deception, because I couldn’t execute the game on my device, two days after I discovered on the author’s port page that something was wrong on latest firmware.

That was a perfect introductory challenge to learn about maemo development. I’ve started downloading latest ubuntu and installing it. After I followed maemo’s tutorial steps for install development tools and “hello world sample”. Next step was download nethack port sources from Ralf Engels and started to solve compile and execution problems that I found. When main problems solved and obtained first functionally version I started improve it according my interface preferences.

Here you can download binary and source packages.