New applications for your moko

Starting a new blog with the announcement of three new applications for the openmoko platform. All are free, all are GPL, automoko, thunder, and ringer.

automoko: This is a shell script for compiling an autotools projects for the openmoko platform. It is a very simple one and requires a locally compiled openmoko/openembedded distribution. You can use MokoMakefile to fetch and compile your own.

There is a similar project called toolchain. The purpose is the same, cross compile applications for the openmoko platform but the method is different. Toolchain is a huge tarball, which contains cross compilation tools and various scripts to simplify the compilation process. I have two problems with toolchain. First, like most of the openmoko people out there, I am compiling the whole source code of openmoko on my own machine and flashing the generated image to my neo 1973 (once in a week or couple weeks) so I already have the cross compile tools on my laptop and I would not prefer to download them again. The second one is that I have to compile all the libraries the application which I'm porting requires. The first one actually is not a big deal but the second one is a problem. MokoMakefile does the compilations for me, generates a stage directory containing all the cross compiled libraries and there is no reason for me to go through all those steps again. So, if you have openembedded/openmoko development distribution downloaded on your computer use automoko, if not use toolchain.

As a last comment about toolchain, obviously that's the way to go when openmoko platform gets stabilized, however for now I think automoko will be a useful tool for many.

thunder: This is a specific application for the FIC Neo 1973 to assist overcoming the battery problem of the device. The only way to charge the Neo is it's USB port and the device consumes power so fast it does not even go for 24 hours. It's OK if you are sleeping with your laptop, hugging it, otherwise you need an AC to USB adapter.

I've done the second and bought a USB wall charger. Here starts the problem, Neo does pull only 100 mA from the device, not 500 mA, which is not enough even to keep it's power state stable. As far as I understand the reason is that the USB protocol says “pull current with 100 mA unless the current source acknowledges that it can provide more”. However, the wall charger is dumb and cannot answer the queries made by the openmoko, even if it can handle with 500 mA (the one I bought has capability to drive 650 mA output). So it continues to draw power with 100 mA current.

The good thing is, you can force openmoko to draw 500 mA manually. Well, this is what thunder does, it is a graphical interface for this feature. Before using it, ensure that your wall charger can drive 500 mA otherwise high probably using thunder will damage your wall charger. There is no guarantee and use with your own risk.

ringer: This is not as complicated as thunder. It is an alarm clock for the openmoko. It plays an mp3 playlist repeatedly until you press the big, wide “Stop” button. For now, the configuration is done by editing text files and you need to restart the neo (if you know a way to restart the matchbox-panel, that works, too) to apply your changes.

With thunder and ringer, I can finally use my Neo as an alarm clock. Wel, still wondering if it will work tomorrow morning.

Grab them, use them, bug report, and fix them if you can. Have fun.