Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone
On Sat, 24 Aug 2013 15:31:19 +0200 "Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller" wrote: > Hm. That sounds quite different from the situation about 1 year ago when > you did the first releases of QtMoko and I always thought that the > 3.7 kernel is working well enough, so that I started to add new features. > > Has it become worse since then? I like drawing graphs. So I did - see attachment. For the last year or so my GTA04 has been logging the power usage during suspend for every suspend cycle longer than a few seconds. I do this by reading the "charge_now" value from the bq27000 in the battery, comparing the "before" and "after" values, and dividing by the number of seconds. I currently have my phone configured to wake from suspend every 5 minutes, check that the modem is still working, and go back to suspend. This has helped collect quite a lot of values. To get the graphs I collected all those values, discarded negative numbers (when the battery was charging) and a few numbers that were clearly ridiculous (numbers more than 1 amp), and sorted the remainder. So we get a cumulative frequency graph of different current levels. The red line ('/tmp/uamp') is for the last couple of days since last reboot. This is running 3.7 with offmode disabled. The green line ('tmp/uamp2') is for the last year, running a variety of different kernels. Obviously there is a very different number of samples in each. 342 in uamp 10031 in uamp2. So I normalised the X values so the graphs are comparable. They are much the same shape which suggests the pattern is fairly robust. The Y axis is microamps. The green values below 2 (20mA) are with offmode enabled I assume. The red values are all greater because I have offmode turned off to improve reliability. The steps are a bit of a surprise. They are all about 2mA. I don't think this is an artefact of the precision with which measurements are taken as the charge value read from the battery has a much higher precision. I think it must be an actual 2mA difference in (average) current usage. This could be 2mA more for the whole time, or 4mA more with a 50% duty cycle etc. So if we can make off-mode really usable (which possibly means find and fix some bug in the omap usb code) and if we can find out what is causing these 2mA steps and resolve that, then might might be a little closer to acceptable power usage. I might try running for a while with the modem turned off and see what result I get. NeilBrown <> signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
I would say, maemo fremantle is great. if we could manage to make it free, i. e. rewrite it's non-free parts, and make it available on more platforms, like nexus, it'll be great. having free hardware in n900 case it good too. but first of all let's get working free, indeed free maemo. not the proprietary one that could be flashed from nokia images. but the one which is possible to port to different devices. so may be someone does not like n900 and want to use it on n9 or nexus. or whatever phone he has. I like SHR for that reason - there are at least a couple of platforms supported. 08/27/13 12:57 -???, joerg Reisenweber-? ?: > On Mon 26 August 2013 14:35:50 Sebastian Krzyszkowiak wrote: > [...] >> Joerg's idea includes full port of Maemo 5 (Fremantle) to allow N900 >> users to have drop-in upgrade - just like now GTA04 is for GTA01/02 >> owners. I think that can increase interest a lot! > Indeed I consider maemo fremantle compatibility a key feature of this > project, > since fremantle is proven on OMAP3 platform, both for power management and > general every day usability. And userbase at maemo mostly expects > compatibility. > We (would) need to adapt GTA04 to mach resp resemble N900 enough so that all > remaining differences can get handled on kernel/driver level. > On an encouraging sidenote, we have already at least 2 volunteers for doing > that kernel morphing, one of them even a ex-nokian kernel maintainer \o/ > > There are still some _severe_ issues that need to get evaluated/tackled ASAP: > *) instabilities/issues reported for GTA04, with power management and modem > **) USB / musb core in OMAP which is a greedy hog as long as powered. > *) camera (N900 has 5MP with autofocus) > *) N900 has 32GB eMMC > *) interfacing the flex circuit board (aka ribbon cable) connection to to > screen half, that also has ALS, secondary (VGA?) camera, proxy sensor, 3color > LED > *) component sourcing for speakers, antennae, et al > *) completely different charging (N900 uses bq24150) > *) AV-connector with auto-detection of headphones, headset, AV (maybe simply > replace that in userland by a requester to pick type of cable/connection > *) audio at large, N900 has a quite different circuitry for whole audio, and > fremantle has some nasty PA modules, some of them even closed blobs (XPROT > speaker protection, some limiter/compressor/EQ/overtemp-cutout) > > *)... I'm afraid there's more to come, that I don't see right now > > Anyway, the general mood is best described by "extremely excited" and it > seems > it's maybe worth following this idea some further, even with the above points > pending to get solved. > > See http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91142 > > I hope I didn't state anything that Nikolaus will bash me for when tomorrow > he > reads all the stuff that happened. > > The poll I added on that ^^^ thread on tmo however shows that 7/8 of users > are > expecting us to compete with Samsung for the price range. Well, that been > expected. The resulting discussion is maybe helpful nevertheless. > > > cheers > jOERG > > > ___ > Openmoko community mailing list > community@lists.openmoko.org > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
On Mon 26 August 2013 14:35:50 Sebastian Krzyszkowiak wrote: [...] > Joerg's idea includes full port of Maemo 5 (Fremantle) to allow N900 > users to have drop-in upgrade - just like now GTA04 is for GTA01/02 > owners. I think that can increase interest a lot! Indeed I consider maemo fremantle compatibility a key feature of this project, since fremantle is proven on OMAP3 platform, both for power management and general every day usability. And userbase at maemo mostly expects compatibility. We (would) need to adapt GTA04 to mach resp resemble N900 enough so that all remaining differences can get handled on kernel/driver level. On an encouraging sidenote, we have already at least 2 volunteers for doing that kernel morphing, one of them even a ex-nokian kernel maintainer \o/ There are still some _severe_ issues that need to get evaluated/tackled ASAP: *) instabilities/issues reported for GTA04, with power management and modem **) USB / musb core in OMAP which is a greedy hog as long as powered. *) camera (N900 has 5MP with autofocus) *) N900 has 32GB eMMC *) interfacing the flex circuit board (aka ribbon cable) connection to to screen half, that also has ALS, secondary (VGA?) camera, proxy sensor, 3color LED *) component sourcing for speakers, antennae, et al *) completely different charging (N900 uses bq24150) *) AV-connector with auto-detection of headphones, headset, AV (maybe simply replace that in userland by a requester to pick type of cable/connection *) audio at large, N900 has a quite different circuitry for whole audio, and fremantle has some nasty PA modules, some of them even closed blobs (XPROT speaker protection, some limiter/compressor/EQ/overtemp-cutout) *)... I'm afraid there's more to come, that I don't see right now Anyway, the general mood is best described by "extremely excited" and it seems it's maybe worth following this idea some further, even with the above points pending to get solved. See http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91142 I hope I didn't state anything that Nikolaus will bash me for when tomorrow he reads all the stuff that happened. The poll I added on that ^^^ thread on tmo however shows that 7/8 of users are expecting us to compete with Samsung for the price range. Well, that been expected. The resulting discussion is maybe helpful nevertheless. cheers jOERG -- () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments (alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some supplementary links:) http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml http://www.gerstbach.at/2004/ascii/ (German) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
On Mon, 26 Aug 2013 22:25:06 +0200, joerg Reisenweber wrote: On Mon 26 August 2013 21:47:08 arne anka wrote: the most striking part of jörg's n900 idea seems not to attract any comments -- he said, he'd know at least one company who would be interested. Oh? where did I say this? Been a communication error. Or a complete storage dropout ;-) Sorry both happens to me sometimes, so I'd really be interested in a pointer or citation. cheers jOERG "know for sure there's a (comparatively) huge community" but when c&p'ing it i discovered that i had read "company" instead of "community". darn ... -- -- ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
On Mon 26 August 2013 21:47:08 arne anka wrote: > the most striking part of jörg's n900 idea seems not to attract any > comments -- he said, he'd know at least one company who would be > interested. Oh? where did I say this? Been a communication error. Or a complete storage dropout ;-) Sorry both happens to me sometimes, so I'd really be interested in a pointer or citation. cheers jOERG -- () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments (alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some supplementary links:) http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml http://www.gerstbach.at/2004/ascii/ (German) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
the most striking part of jörg's n900 idea seems not to attract any comments -- he said, he'd know at least one company who would be interested. being interested does not necessarily translate into will buy, but at least it would be worth to contemplate ... ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
Hi all! I actually think this is a great idea! I always liked the N900 formfactor. But is it technically possible? I remember somebody mention that the option modem is quite big? And if there will be a redesign the fit the gta04 to the n900 will it possible to update the specs a bit? faster cpu and stuff like that? But to be honest, i will probably not buy this device if it has the same problems the current gta04 has. (power usage and modem enumeration) and also i don't want to pay 600+ for a smartphone. But i hope if this idea takes of and there is enough interest the price will be much lower. greetings, tomas ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
[cut] > What do you think? Hello Dos, I think it is great showcase how open projects can benefit from synergy. However I personally am not interested in HW keyboard and I will wait until my present phone wears off, before I buy next device. -- Patryk "LeadMan" Benderz Linux Registered User #377521 () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
GTA04-N900 vel. Neo900
Hello! Short introduction, as I was rather inactive in this community recently: I'm dos, long time Openmoko supporter, owner of GTA02 and (now broken) Nokia N900. Few years ago I was quite an active developer of FSO (opimd) and SHR. Few days ago I've created website draft for GTA04. As we all know, GTA04 project has few non-technical problems. Poor demand is one of them, poor availability of parts is the second one. Those two problems together are pretty much show stoppers, cause if we fix one, the second one becomes harder. But Joerg Reisenweber came up with brilliant idea of adapting GTA04 board into N900 case. Why? - second source N900 housings are very cheap and available on eBay in big quantities -> problem with very small amount of Openmoko cases solved - there are still new spare parts floating around on free market But using N900 gives us more: - GTA04 with physical keyboard! - screen that doesn't appear to be off in full sunlight - it seems that while some people like Openmoko case (I do), most rather think "it's nice idea, but I wouldn't show up anywhere with such a brick" :( N900 case seems to be more commonly accepted by public ;) Wait, there's even more! - if done right, we can engage Maemo community and increase the demand a lot! There are LOTS of broken N900s in possession of Maemo community members due to problems with faulty USB connector and GSM modem. Many of them (owners ;)) are waiting for proper N900 successor that never came (N9 is not, and Nokia is not interested in platform anymore at all). This might be great time to merge efforts from Openmoko/OpenPhoenux and Maemo communities. Neo900 project can benefit from both of them - there will be QtMoko/SHR/Replicant on the one side (it's just modified GTA04, so running all of them should be very easy), and there will be Maemo, Meego and maybe more porting initiatives on the other side. Joerg's idea includes full port of Maemo 5 (Fremantle) to allow N900 users to have drop-in upgrade - just like now GTA04 is for GTA01/02 owners. I think that can increase interest a lot! For now we named it "Neo900" - making nods to both N900 and Openmoko roots :) I'm super excited about this idea, and it seems that I'm not the only one: Look at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91142 You can also read logs from #maemo from yesterday and today: https://mg.pov.lt/maemo-irclog/%23maemo.2013-08-25.log.html https://mg.pov.lt/maemo-irclog/%23maemo.2013-08-26.log.html It seems there is some interest, and that's just on Maemo side :) What do you think? -- Sebastian Krzyszkowiak, dos http://dosowisko.net/ ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone
On Mon 26 August 2013 13:17:09 Radek Polak wrote: > On Saturday, August 24, 2013 03:20:10 PM joerg Reisenweber wrote: > > On Sat 24 August 2013 14:22:55 Radek Polak wrote: > > > 1/ poor power management > > > > [...] > > > > > something. But i always worked in userspace. I barely understand kernel > > > and i have no EE skills and equipment to contribute. I can contribute > > > only as a tester. I thought that i will deliver working userspace and > > > IMO QtMoko is very good at it. But without working kernel and HW there > > > is not much point to improve it. > > > > many thanks for this contribution, it's already a better help than much > > of the discussion about what's wrong with our community and the GTA04 > > project at large. > > > > However one remark about it: it's not that simple to blame kernel for > > poor power management. What we learned from last maybe 6 years of > > different OM distros and from maemo and mer and nitdroid etc is: poor > > power management is way too often caused by userland, like sensorfw and > > WLAN connection manager and X11/windowmanager and audio (alsa/PA) and > > whatnot else. > > Yup, after playing with alsa settings i could save a few mAmps on GTA04 > too. > > > Often it's even rogue apps that do silly stuff like updating their system > > status icon 25 times per second or constantly chatting with internet or > > even just polling files when you should use inotify instead. > > Kernel power saving measures are relatively simple to test and fix, and > > usually it's not kernel to blame for abysmal standby time and/or > > operation time. > > > > To give you a simple example: on N900 maemo you have "scanning period" in > > settings-internet, which makes device scan for WLAN APs only every 5, 10, > > ... even 30 min. This is needed since the WLAN chip cuts thru the battery > > in less than 3 hours when you constantly scan for APs. Clearly a userland > > issue where kernel can't do much. Now you can start to blame kernel WLAN > > driver for not doing proper powersaving but that won't help establish a > > decently working usable OS on N900. > > I think in case of QtMoko on GTA04 we can blame kernel/HW a little bit > more, since we are using suspend to RAM whereas N900 is always on (which > really cool btw). So while GTA04 is in standby there should be idealy just > PMU+RAM+modem turned on, everything else should be off. But something is > wrong and noone has yet figured what it is. At best there is ~16mA with > omap enable_off_mode - but then we hit "imprecise external abort" bug so > currently we have ~22mA at best. If you compare this with GTA02 or N900 > it's really bad. GTA02 is 12mA and i'd say N900 is even better. Together > with reenumerating modem it makes GTA04 barely usable even for a few > hardcore supporters but unusable for normal users. > > Regards > > Radek Yes, absolutely (I can't confirm neither deny your facts). N900 easily goes down to ~10mA in *standby*, see http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_Hardware_Power_Consumption and also http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_software_power_management What I can think of are floating lines making chips eat more than they should - may particularly due to suspend mode. Let's hope we'll iron that out during next few months cheers jOERG -- () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments (alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some supplementary links:) http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml http://www.gerstbach.at/2004/ascii/ (German) signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: [Gta04-owner] Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone
On Monday, August 26, 2013 01:17:09 PM Radek Polak wrote: > > To give you a simple example: on N900 maemo you have "scanning period" in > > settings-internet, which makes device scan for WLAN APs only every 5, 10, > > ... even 30 min. This is needed since the WLAN chip cuts thru the battery > > in less than 3 hours when you constantly scan for APs. Clearly a userland > > issue where kernel can't do much. Now you can start to blame kernel WLAN > > driver for not doing proper powersaving but that won't help establish a > > decently working usable OS on N900. > > I think in case of QtMoko on GTA04 we can blame kernel/HW a little bit > more, since we are using suspend to RAM whereas N900 is always on (which > really cool btw). So while GTA04 is in standby there should be idealy just > PMU+RAM+modem turned on, everything else should be off. But something is > wrong and noone has yet figured what it is. At best there is ~16mA with > omap enable_off_mode - but then we hit "imprecise external abort" bug so > currently we have ~22mA at best. If you compare this with GTA02 or N900 > it's really bad. GTA02 is 12mA and i'd say N900 is even better. Together > with reenumerating modem it makes GTA04 barely usable even for a few > hardcore supporters but unusable for normal users. Btw you can try even with bare rootfs. E.g. Neil Brown is running very bare debian with just some custom made phone app, but the power consumption is the same - and it's quite expected because all the userspace is stopped in suspend. Regards Radek ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone
On Saturday, August 24, 2013 03:20:10 PM joerg Reisenweber wrote: > On Sat 24 August 2013 14:22:55 Radek Polak wrote: > > 1/ poor power management > > [...] > > > something. But i always worked in userspace. I barely understand kernel > > and i have no EE skills and equipment to contribute. I can contribute > > only as a tester. I thought that i will deliver working userspace and > > IMO QtMoko is very good at it. But without working kernel and HW there > > is not much point to improve it. > > many thanks for this contribution, it's already a better help than much of > the discussion about what's wrong with our community and the GTA04 project > at large. > > However one remark about it: it's not that simple to blame kernel for poor > power management. What we learned from last maybe 6 years of different OM > distros and from maemo and mer and nitdroid etc is: poor power management > is way too often caused by userland, like sensorfw and WLAN connection > manager and X11/windowmanager and audio (alsa/PA) and whatnot else. Yup, after playing with alsa settings i could save a few mAmps on GTA04 too. > Often it's even rogue apps that do silly stuff like updating their system > status icon 25 times per second or constantly chatting with internet or > even just polling files when you should use inotify instead. > Kernel power saving measures are relatively simple to test and fix, and > usually it's not kernel to blame for abysmal standby time and/or operation > time. > > To give you a simple example: on N900 maemo you have "scanning period" in > settings-internet, which makes device scan for WLAN APs only every 5, 10, > ... even 30 min. This is needed since the WLAN chip cuts thru the battery > in less than 3 hours when you constantly scan for APs. Clearly a userland > issue where kernel can't do much. Now you can start to blame kernel WLAN > driver for not doing proper powersaving but that won't help establish a > decently working usable OS on N900. I think in case of QtMoko on GTA04 we can blame kernel/HW a little bit more, since we are using suspend to RAM whereas N900 is always on (which really cool btw). So while GTA04 is in standby there should be idealy just PMU+RAM+modem turned on, everything else should be off. But something is wrong and noone has yet figured what it is. At best there is ~16mA with omap enable_off_mode - but then we hit "imprecise external abort" bug so currently we have ~22mA at best. If you compare this with GTA02 or N900 it's really bad. GTA02 is 12mA and i'd say N900 is even better. Together with reenumerating modem it makes GTA04 barely usable even for a few hardcore supporters but unusable for normal users. Regards Radek ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Crowdfunding an Ubuntu smartphone
Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller писал 2013-08-24 17:31: For me GTA04 is not usable as daily phone. It's now collecting dust in shelf. Why? 1/ poor power management 2/ bugged reenumerating modem GTA04 is good enough only in some situations. E.g. ok if i carry it to work where i can anytime charge it. When i am on bike 150km from home i must have reliable phone in case that the bike breaks up or in case that i need map. I took GTA04 with 2 batteries and N900 on my bike trip this summer. I used N900 as a phone with SIM card. GTA04 was switched off - i just used it for GPS. But after 4 hours one battery was empty and second battery was 50% empty during one night in suspend. On the other hand N900 was working whole 4 days. I used it for calls, for wifi in camps and in the end even for GPS. That is something I still don't understand. From a power budget the modem is specified to have 3-10 mA in suspend while registered to a base station. I have even verified this with an ampere-meter. And there is only one potential deviation - if there is some attenuation (e.g. wall) there may be a situation where the modem receives the base station well and tries to answer/register. But since the base station does not receive it at all, it tries with high power. In this case the modem current increases to 50-100 mA. BTW: this is the same with almost all mobile devices. So it must be something in the OMAP system and that is IMHO the same as the N900 has... So pure kernel code. BTW: this would not change by redesigning the GTA04 into a spare N900 case... At that time, as the main developments are in the "care" of the common / production / communication problems, the community should try to implement the microkernel (eg arm port gnu / hurd) on the existing architecture GTA02/04, to see the resources consumption of core servers (to give chance new mobile platform based on open hardware stack). ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community