Few days ago I decided to run ipkg update ; ipkg upgrade on my moko, and this didn't end up quite well. For a start, I managed to fill root filesystem, and while I tried to remove almost everything that I didn't use, I ended up with non-working unit.

Since I'm following qemu-neo1973 tree and testing images in emulator, I decided to re-flash with latest image. This proved to be very bad since latest image doesn't have gsm drivers, so moko dies on splash screen making device unusable (ssh isn't started at that point so I couldn't connect to it -- If I only had development board...)

Most interesting (and scary) thing were error messages from jffs2 which led me to beleve that my device has developed additional bad blocks. So, I started reading wiki and dumped my bad-blocks table (dump from u-boot prompt):

GTA01Bv4 # nand bad

Device 0 bad blocks:

  00070000

  00ab0000

  00f00000

  03ff0000

  03ff4000

  03ff8000

  03ffc000

Last four entries are bad-block table itself, but my device really has bad block. I wasn't able to access additional fields which would tell me if they are factory bad of developed in use...

Since I suspected that my device is completely broken (selecting factory default option in u-boot didn't help) I decided to try re-flash with different image. I went to wiki, selected another u-boot/boot/root images and flash them using following commands described in wiki:

dfu-util -a u-boot -R -D u-boot-gta01bv4-r12_0_2632_0.bin
dfu-util -a kernel -R -D uImage-2.6.22.5-moko11+svnr3238-r8-neo1973.bin
dfu-util -a rootfs -R -D OpenMoko-scaredycat-openmoko-devel-image-glibc-ipk-P1-Snapshot-20071118-fic-gta01.rootfs.jffs2

After a looong wait (it's a USB 1.1 device) I must report that I'm actually amazed by amount of progress. New home screen, working browser and media player!

However, I still can't make any calls (this will take a bit more fiddling) and file dialogs are just unusable (too big and with too much options) and I still can't type on any screen orientation.

Google's announcement of Android platform provoked me to think about leaving OpenMoko on the shelf with other toys for which I don't have time any more, but when I saw new software upgrade I have to re-consider this.

1. OpenMoko is here: I have the device, it exists in hardware
2. qemu-neo1973 just got very good GSM emulator (you can select emulated GSM network, send messages and calls to emulated phone) which will probably bring GSM and SMS functionality to good shape real-soon-now(tm)

To replace my aging Nokia I need following:

1. working phone (voice calls) - almost there, but not quite :-)
2. SMS messaging - there is beginning of it in GUI, but no real functionality
3. keyboard on which I can type with my big fingers

This brings me back to my plans: since I can't develop anything for GPS until there is binary (sigh!) driver available I would probably want to write almost full-screen 3*4 keyboard just like the one on regular cell phones. This would allow me to actually use device with my fingers.

I probably won't have time to scratch this itch in current year, so if there is anything similar (T9 implementation or even something similar to xstroke which worked well for me on Zaurus) I would love to hear about it.

What can be nicer than two hour nap and a big cup of coffee? Good music? What is unusual in this situation?

I'm sitting at Frankfurt airport. I had nice two hour nap (after exhorting trip from Boston) and nice cup of coffee. But, real reason for this entry are noise cancellation headphones that I bought in Detroit while coming back. They are powered by one AAA battery, and they really work. Perhaps Bose model for $399 is even better, but this cheap model for $60 is worth every dime also! They actually make transcontinental flight something bearable. I would recommend them to anyone who had to spend more than several hours in airplane. They don't cancel all outside noise, but airplane engines and noise from bar is almost gone. And, to my surprise they also work without any background music.

I met really fun student from Korea on the plane who told me that technology behind this headphones is the same as echo cancellation in analog telephones. The logical question is then: why don't all headphones in airplanes have that? I can't believe that mass-production of such headphones wouldn't drive price down enough so that we have them everywhere. But, than again I am just guessing and I might be wrong.

If you are wondering where is weblog entry with pictures from Boston, I moved it to separate USENIX blog where it belong.
I also had comment that my English suck. Well, I know that I'm not native speaker. But, you will have to bear with me. On the other hand, at least somebody is reading this weblog :-)

So, USENIX Annual Tech is over, and I will be heading back to Croatia. However, I had to take photo opportunity before that, so here am I in front of MIT dome...

Here is also a nice squirrel which I met there (so that you can't say that I have just pictures of myself!).

Pa, sve se jednom mora završiti. Tako je i sa USENIX-om. Dakle, ovo je stvarno zadnji dan. Trenutno je pauza za ručak, i mislim da ste primjetili da su moji zapisi postali kraći: sa jedne strane predavanja su interesantna, ali ne toliko da bih napisao komentar, a sa druge strane umor konferencije me polako sustiže.

Jučerašnji BoF sessioni o Linux-u su bili zgodni (pričao je Miguel de Icaza o Mono projektu (Open Source .Net za one koji neznaju o čemu pričam), čovjek ima jako smješan izgovor).

Danas sam propustio predavanje o Debian-u da bih mogao biti a predavanju o različitim low-latency načinima povezivanja clustera (Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Myrinet, SCI, Quadrics i InfiniBand). Nisam sasvim siguran da ću bilo što od toga vidjeti uskoro kod nas (osim naravno Ethereneta), ali bilo je zanimljivo.

Konferencija se polako pakira (valjda zato što ljudi koji odlaze danas moraju otići iz soba do 12 sati), čak se i wireless mreža uskoro prestati raditi (uh! kako li ću to preživjeti? Pretpostavlja da ću morati platiti $10 za internet u sobi!). Sve u svemu bilo je zanimljivo i neočekivano naporno.

Sutra imam slobodan dan koji namjeravam iskoristiti da vidim barem nešto od Cambridge-a i MIT-a (valjda ću nekako uspjeti stići tamo), a onda radom zorom u nedjelju krećem na svoj 28 satni povratak (+/- 6 sati koje ću dobiti mijenjajući vremenske zone).

Od zadnjeg USENIX-a su napravili 9grid. Plan 9 i dalje radi na clusteringu, ove godine se očekuje port na 64bitnu arhitekturu. Plan je portati Plan 9 na Xen virtualne mašinu da bi plan9 radio na svim mašinama na kojima se vrti i Linux.

Jedan od većih problema (barem za IBM-ere) je što nije pod GPL licencom. Naime, u IBM-u je teško napraviti bilo što pod nekom od licenci koji su slobodne, a kako plan9 nema GPL licencu nego BSD, to im je problem.

Najveći zločinci Plan 9-a je naravno AT&T i poslije toga Lucent koji su htjeli ne ponoviti grešku sa Unix-om koji su dali svima pa su napravili obrnuto: Plan 9 nisu dali nikome.

Nakon jedno sat vremena došli su i Rob Pike i Dave Presotto (i sjeli točno pored mene :-) ali su uspjeli otići prije kraja. Iako sam i prije čitao u Plan 9 ipak je praktična demonstracija sa nekim tko ti može pokazati kako to radi nešto sasvim drugo. Dva sata kasnije (dok ovo pišem) mogu zaključiti samo da je velika šteta što Plan 9 jednostavno nije zamjenio Unix i što danas prevladava Linux a ne Plan 9 (za one koji koriste Windows i čitaju ovo: kročite u 1970! Samo pogledajte Plan 9 -- to je OS transparentan na mrežu! Dobro? Ne moramo više razgovarati o Windowsima, zar ne?)

Update: Shvatio sam da se gornja rečenica može shvatiti kao bashing, pa ću malo pojasniti (jer sam disableao komentare koji i tako i tako ne rade :-)
Dakle, zamislite da je sve file. I TCP stack i procesor. Dakle, imate Plan 9 na svom laptopu i vrtite nešto što vam je sporo. Ništa lakše, na drugoj strani mreže (bilo gdje!) imate prekrasan vrlo brzi CPU server X. Importate CPU sa njega i puf! Vaš program se vrti tamo. Potpuno transparentno. Imate firewall na Plan 9 i želite izaći negdje van. Importate TCP stack sa firewall-a i vaše konekcije idu sa njega. VPN? Importate TCP stack sa mašine koja je na drugom kraju mreže! Da, sve je enkriptirano i sigurno!! Želite pročitati mail sa mašine koja je u hrvatskoj? Importate svoj /lib/mail na laptop koji je bilo gdje. OK? Na to sam mislio!!

Priznajem, postao sam malo lijen. Predavanja su super, ali nema pretjeranog smisla da vam ih prepričavam, pa ću vam samo dati link na adrese koje se spominju u njima, a članke i tako imam u materijalima konferencije.

...je bila malo razočaravajuća. Mislim da netko u USENIX-u jako voli Meksičku hranu (za razliku od mene). Sa druge strane, natjerao sam wireless da radi (zapravo jednostano) što možete i zaključiti po tome što zapravo možete čitati postove :-)

Ovo je sve što se tiče konferencije za danas. Možda danas odem ranije spavati...

Usput rečeno, datumi su zapravo lokalni za Hrvatsku, tako da bi dobili moje vrijeme morate oduzeti šest sati od ovoga koje piše ovdije.

For a start, I must say that entries in this "visit u USENIX" blog will be written in Croatian. That's because they are mostly for friends who know this language anyway :-)

Jučerasnji dan je prošao kao i svaki drugi kada se avionom leti preko atlantika (hvala bogu, to zapravo nije svaki dan): desetak sati u avionu, a onda nekoliko sati čekanja. To što sam izgubio cijelu polovicu dana (tj. vrijeme kao da je stalo :-) također nije pomoglo mojoj odmornosti jutros.

Savjet kada birate hotel: Ako postoji nekoliko hotela koji se zovu Couply place, sigurno će vas odvesti u krivi. To što su svi na walking distance prestaje biti neka prednost nakon što propješačite između tri od njih (naravno pravi je bio četvrti).

Međutim, jutros sve izgleda o.k. (osim činjenice da trenutno ne mogu natjerati wireless da proradi) i upravo čekam da počne workhshop Network Security Protocols: Theory and Current Standards. Više o tome u slijedećem zapisu...

I'm going to USENIX 2004
Annual Technical Conference and I have created separate
blog space for
that. For next week or so, I will post just there (and much more than
usual).

I'm still not preparing for the trip, but I will real soon because I'm going
tomorrow morning.. Next entry will probably be from Boston.