On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 6:53 PM, Wookey <[email protected]> wrote: > +++ Phil Endecott [2011-04-10 23:02 +0000]: >> Dear All, >> >> For a while I have been planning to make some sort of "TV computer" i.e. DVB >> recorder + DVD player + web video device etc. > > Did you make any progress on this Phil? > > There was a session as linaro connect on set-top-boxes with quite a > few interested people, but no-one present who'd actually made it work > usefully.
it's pretty hellish/specialist to get stuff compiled/running: last time i tackled this it required several full-time weeks [for those people familiar with how i work, you know that is one hell of a long time]. about this time last year i was working on a very special type of ARM9 (400mhz) that had 800mhz DDR2 RAM and a 1080p30 video decode engine (turned out to be MIPS-based). the project was "python-tv", and it was for the brazilian govt (indirectly). the reason why python was chosen was because of the high bang-per-buck ratio when downloading python scripts: most people in brazil are still running off of pay-as-you-go GPRS so the last bloody thing they want is to have to download a random pile of crap^H^H^H^Hjavascript _and_ pay for it. the plan was to do something like kde-look.org combined with palm's webos but using python instead. so, we compiled up webkit, and it turned out to be too slow or use far too much RAM or both, for qt4 _and_ gtk2 _and_ enlightenment _and_ qt4 with directfb _and_ gtk2 with directfb... so please don't laugh or look too shocked: we had to get webkit working *directly* with directfb. it turned out that denis had just been sponsored to get webkit working with directfb, so i helped him out. then once that was working, i then added python bindings. then when _that_ was working, i fired up pyjamas-desktop. when _that_ was working it was possible to run, on a 400mhz embedded ARM9 (no, really ARM9 not Cortex A9) an entire python-controlled HTML5 web browser with ffmplayer directly built-in onto a framebuffer, no threads to get in the way and bitch-smack that poor ARM9 between the eyes due to its lack of 1st level cache coherency across thread-switching, and... yeah, it all kinda worked. i used openembedded because nothing else in the free software world comes even _remotely_ close to providing the amount of cross-compilable recipes in order to do the research and testing that was needed. (if you recall, this was around the time that people were deciding that i was trying to tell debian developers how to suck eggs and that it was interpreted that i was telling everyone that they should completely abandon everything that makes up debian and convert entirely to openembedded. i really wish people wouldn't deliberately assume the worst, it's getting really stale. *sigh* anyway....) so added to the list of technology required you could put: * directfb * liblite-directfb (0.8) * webkit-with-directfb * angstrom-linux * openembedded * python * pyjamas-desktop the recipes are on assembla.com. > Anyone interested should say so, or add themselves to that doc. It's > not entirely clear what the most appropriate forum is for discussion > of this subject. Suggestions welcome. yep count me in because i have to keep an eye on this stuff. i've been thinking whilst writing the above: as it's "cross-strategy" i don't believe you'll find an appropriate forum. if you've read "the strategy-focussed organisation" you're mad, but if you've read only the first two chapters you'll appreciate in a very real way that it's simply not the job of any of these projects to understand where and how they fit into the "bigger picture". their job - their role - is to get their heads down into the code in front of them, and "make it work". the person who recommended that book to me said that it's a very very important question to be asking, "why should anybody care?". linaro is focussed on strategy, wookey. you therefore need to be asking yourself "why should anybody care about what it is that you're trying to achieve?" _especially_ because linaro is tasked with cross-distro, cross-platform, cross-pretty-much-everything optimisation. i sympathise if you can't find an answer (or a suitable forum!) - as a strategist myself i get pretty frustrated by not being able to think of a good reason why people should care about cross-project optimisations that i can see damn clearly! why do you think i've been barred from so many free software projects?? people don't _like_ "strangers" wandering in, becoming familar in weeks with code that took them years to understand and coming up with something that expands the reach and horizon of quotes their quotes code, it pisses them off and they accuse _me_ of having a humongous ego. mmmm :) anyway, yes, please: do keep me informed, esp. if you find a suitable forum: i deal with this stuff on an irregular basis. thanks wookey. l. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/capweedzgrochokug-amkheyxcrz0bdfyhxuahyo-1kqgrsz...@mail.gmail.com
