Handhelds: Difference between revisions
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| gpe-julia, openttd | | gpe-julia, openttd | ||
| gpe-tetris; gpe-lights; gsoko; xdemineur (minesweeper clone); cgoban (needs internet connection to be really fun); 2048-qt; Cave Story (in form of open-source NXEngine) also works fine without any hardware acceleration, and is very fun. | | gpe-tetris; gpe-lights; gsoko; xdemineur (minesweeper clone); cgoban (needs internet connection to be really fun); 2048-qt; Cave Story (in form of open-source NXEngine) also works fine without any hardware acceleration, and is very fun. | ||
|- | |||
! scope="row"| Graphical package-management | |||
| Not working | |||
| | |||
| [https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/1417 #1417]: Add apk backend support to PackageKit. This is a real blocker. We could also bungle some support onto one of the OPKG/IPKG frontends that have been lost to the mists of time (Ångström had such a package management tool). | |||
|- | |||
! scope="row"| Graphical installer/set-up tool | |||
| Not working | |||
| | |||
| These are actually two different issues, but they're related. The former can be solved in pmbootstrap and isn't really essential as it stands. The latter can be partially worked-around by having good defaults. Nonetheless, there is a need for a simple tool to e.g. | |||
# Set up users, | |||
# Set up a wireless network and/or mobile network, | |||
# Teach users the basic layout of the system. | |||
One might also comment that creation of users is a function of pmbootstrap currently, but that it may not be desirable in the future, depending on which direction things go. | |||
|- | |- | ||
! scope="row"| Image gallery | ! scope="row"| Image gallery | ||
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|- | |- | ||
! scope="row"| Wireless networks and mobile broadband | ! scope="row"| Wireless networks and mobile broadband | ||
| | | Partially working | ||
| | | wpa_gui mostly works | ||
| | | wpa_gui works (with minor manual configuration) but is merely a frontend for wpa_supplicant. I'd like to get NetworkManager working properly. | ||
|- | |- | ||
|} | |} |
Revision as of 13:47, 11 May 2018
What is the GPE Palmtop Environment?
The GPE Palmtop Environment is a GTK+-based user interface for PDA devices. It's similar to OPIE (The Open Palmtop Integrated Environment) or QtMoko. GPE is designed to be extremely lightweight and small in size.
However, the last version of Debian that shipped the suite was Wheezy. The project appears to have suffered from a lack of maintainers, a trademark and copyright spat between the handhelds.org website and linuxtogo website, as well as very slow development.
The GPE code is entirely unmaintained and has dependencies which are unmaintained, for instance SQLite versions from around 2005. It also has its main configuration program running as setuid root, which presents quite a large attack surface for a simple program. It also depended on non-standard components such as /etc/timezone (this is not portable to systems not based on Debian, let alone POSIX-compliant Unix-like systems).
Additionally, certain libraries, that the suite depends on, ship with some terrible security issues, for instance old versions of sqlite.
The most immediate problems, however are with compiling the thing. Many of the packages do not link properly or make assumptions about obscure glibc functions (such as the undocumented __isleap macro in glibc's time.h).
Another immediate problem is that the homepage for GPE is now gone. The source code archives that were used came from Debian. They appear to be the latest - they shipped with Debian Wheezy, which came out in May 2013.
Status of GPE and associated programs in PostmarketOS (WIP branch)
Component name | Status | Package name in PMOS | Package version in PMOS | Description | Comments | Priority |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
audiofile | Ported | audiofile | 0.3.6 | Audio package which supports a large number of codecs and media types. | Possibly not maintained; no update since 2016. | High - keep it maintained or look for alternative |
esd | Ported | esound | 0.2.41 | Enlightened sound daemon. Once the sound daemon for Enlightenment and GNOME. | Not maintained upstream. Switch to PulseAudio may be desirable. | High - switch to PulseAudio |
gpe-aerial | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Wireless connectivity tool | Low - not worth porting this. | |
gpe-announce | Ported | gpe-announce | 0.14 | Provides alarm support | High - key part of suite | |
gpe-appmgr | Ported | gpe-appmgr | 2.8 | Application manager for GPE | Application launcher for GPE | High |
gpe-autostarter | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Autostarts applications | It is fairly niche and could be easily rewritten to be generic; alternatives probably already exist. | Low - not worth porting this |
gpe-beam | Not ported | N/A | N/A | IrDa file transfer tool | This is very niche and there are very few devices currently in PMOS that support IR transfer (the only one that comes to mind is the LG G3 which had an IR blaster, but it is unknown if this would work). | Low - not worth porting this yet |
gpe-bluetooth | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Bluetooth connectivity tool | Modern programs exist for bluetooth transfer. It is unknown as to whether this program would still work. | Low - not maintained; find alternatives |
gpe-bootsplash | Not ported | N/A | N/A | A boot splash screen. | Not suitable for PMOS, as we already have a boot splash screen which offers more functionality. | Low - defunct |
gpe-calculator/gpe-calculator2 | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Calculator program for GPE | This would perhaps be useful to have, but e.g. galculator is already packaged, which is at least as fully-featured. | Low - near identical alternatives i.e. galculator |
gpe-calendar | Ported | gpe-calendar | 0.92 | Calendar application for GPE | A useful and lightweight calendar application. However, gpe-contacts does not currently work, so it may be missing any associated functionality. | High - key part of suite |
gpe-clock | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Clock application for GPE | It does work currently due to not using /etc/timezone like Debian. We can work around this using a script to populate /etc/timezone, or it may be necessary to rewrite the timezone functionality altogether. | High - desktop clock key part of suite |
gpe-conf | Ported | gpe-conf | 0.2.9 | Configuration toolset for GPE | Not working very well. It segfaults in a few places due to components it is communicating with not working (gpe-clock is the culprit). It also depends on gpe-confd which doesn't yet exist. It also doesn't allow a user to enter and authenticate with the root password, possibly because the infrastructure it uses to do this is making incorrect assumptions about what is available to an unprivileged user (despite it being setuid root). A rewrite may be fruitful and useful. | High |
gpe-confd | Ported | gpe-confd | 0.16 | Persistent XSettings storage daemon for GPE | Key dependency of gpe-conf | High - gpe-conf can't apply settings without it. |
gpe-dm | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Desktop manager for GPE | There is not a lot of information about this program. It probably refers to a display manager. However, there are alternative display managers to use for now. | Low - unknown about status or what it did |
gpe-edit | Ported | gpe-edit | 0.41 | Text editor for GPE | Works really well. | High - really useful |
gpe-expenses | Partially ported | gpe-expenses | N/A | Expenses application for GPE | The program depends on libraries that weren't all ported yet. | High - useful part of suite |
gpe-filemanager | Not ported | N/A | N/A | An extremely lightweight file manager. | Users can stick with file managers like PCManFM in the meantime. | High - integrates with the suite nicely |
gpe-gallery | Ported | gpe-gallery | 0.97 | Image gallery application for GPE | This works really well and stands on its own fine. | High - integrates well |
gpe-go | Not ported | N/A | N/A | A go game for GPE | Should work on its own. But it is probably more valuable to port the CGoBan game, as this is an online Go game (as well as offline) and is more fully featured | Medium - it is just a game |
gpe-icons | Ported | gpe-icons | 0.25 | Basic icon set for GPE | Depended on by almost every GPE program. It is a fairly inoffensive icon set. GPE does allow one to theme its programs, it should be noted. | High - key part of suite |
gpe-julia | Ported | gpe-julia | 0.0.6 | Julia set manipulation game for GPE | Cute little game that lets users manipulate Julia sets | Medium - it is just a game |
gpe-lights | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Lights-out game for GPE | Low priority. Not particularly fun. | Medium - it is just a game |
gpe-login | Ported | gpe-login | 0.95 | Login screen for GPE | It also provides a lock screen which can lock on suspend, which is useful. However, given the program is not maintained, it seems questionable whether to rely on it to actually secure a given device. | Medium - not necessarily needed |
gpe-mini-browser | Not ported | N/A | N/A | A tiny web browser for GPE | Not maintained (and this is bad for a web browser). Use Dillo, Netsurf, text-only web browsers instead on low-end devices. Midori also works reasonably well | Low - |
gpe-mininet | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Network connectivity monitor for GPE | Probably not worth porting. Modern alternatives exist that are more fully-featured. | Low |
gpe-mixer | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Audio mixer frontend for GPE | If we switch GPE to use PulseAudio instead, this becomes defunct (PulseAudio volume control program has plugins for panels and is very usable). As such, unlikely to port this. | Low - move to PulseAudio |
gpe-othello | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Othello board game for GPE | Not particularly fun. May be useful to some. | Medium - it is just a game |
gpe-ownerinfo | Ported | gpe-ownerinfo | 0.28 | Owner details program | This is probably not worth using without gpe-login. And gpe-login doesn't really compile, nor is it really worth porting. | Low |
gpe-question | Ported | gpe-question | 0.04 | GPE interface for asking questions from shell scripts | High | |
gpe-screenshot | Ported | gpe-screenshot | 0.4 | Screenshot program for GPE | High | |
gpe-shield | Not ported | N/A | N/A | GPE firewall configuration tool | Not ported. Similarly to gpe-mininet, there are modern equivalents which are more fully-featured, e.g. gufw. | Medium |
gpe-sketchbook | Ported | gpe-sketchbook | 0.2.9 | Sketchbook program for GPE | A useful and fun application for PDAs. Well worth porting as it is not as complicated and heavy as, say, GIMP or InkScape. There are slightly larger programs such as mtpaint that are also useful. | High |
gpe-soundbite | Not ported | N/A | N/A | GPE tool to record sounds | Probably worth porting. | High |
gpe-su | Ported | gpe-su | GKSU equivalent for GPE. | Potentially dangerous program. May still be useful. | Medium | |
gpe-taskmanager | Ported | gpe-taskmanager | 0.20 | A task manager program for GPE | Presents a simple list of running programs (excluding Xorg and the like) and offers the user an opportunity to kill/stop (etc) the programs in question. | High |
gpe-terminal | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Terminal program for GPE | Not worth porting. Just use an existing X terminal program. | Low - generic |
gpe-tetris | Not ported | N/A | N/A | A Tetris game for GPE | It is Tetris. It is not particularly unique. | Medium - it is just a game |
gpe-timesheet | Not ported | N/A | N/A | A timesheet application for GPE | A useful PIM application. Reasonably high priority. | High - useful part of suite |
gpe-today | Not ported | N/A | N/A | A daily summary. | Back in 2007 it was marked as "not really maintained". Not a high priority. | Low |
gpe-todo | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Record a todo list. | High | |
gpe-watch | Not ported | N/A | N/A | A program for GPE that performs the functionality of a watch for a small screen. | Maybe useful. Especially for smartwatches. | High |
gpe-syncd | Not ported | N/A | N/A | PIM data syncronisation daemon. | Not a lot of information about what this thing did. It appears to be related to GPE's functionality as a PalmOS replacement. | Low |
gsoko | Not ported | N/A | N/A | Sokoban game for GPE | Rather fun. Worth porting. | Medium |
libcontactsdb | Ported | libcontactsdb | 0.5 | Library to interface with gpe-contacts' database of contacts | Uses sqlite2. Required for gpe-contacts. | |
libdisplaymigration | Ported | libdisplaymigration | 0.28 | Display migration support library for GTK+ | Not clear if this is at all maintained. It seems to derive from an upstream GNOME library that was abandoned. | |
libeventdb | Ported | libeventdb | 0.90 | Library that provides access to data from gpe-calendar | Depends on sqlite2. | |
libgpelaunch | Ported | libgpelaunch | 0.14 | Helper library for launching programs in GPE | Not clear why this is needed when the window manager will launch programs. | |
libgpepimc | Ported | libgpepimc | 0.9 | Category management for GPE applications | Depends on sqlite2 | |
libgpevtype | Ported | libgpevtype | 0.50 | Data interchange library for GPE | ||
libgpewidget | Ported | libgpewidget | 0.117 | Main widget library for GPE | ||
libmimedir | Ported | libmimedir | 0.4.2 | Library that implements MIME directory profiles | This library seems defunct | |
libhandoff | Ported | libhandoff | 0.1 | Handoff library for GPE | ||
libsoundgen | Ported | libsoundgen | 0.6 | GPE sound generator library | There are probably modern alternatives | |
libtododb | Ported | libtododb | 0.11 | Library that provides access to gpe-todo's database | ||
libxsettings-client | Ported | libxsettings-client | 0.17 | Utility functions for Xsettings protocol | Due to conflicts with libxsettings, there is no -dev package; the package builds a library that libxsettings also builds, which Alpine automatically brings in to its dev package. This should be trivial to fix. | |
libxsettings | Ported | libxsettings | 0.11 | Xsettings protocol library fro GPE | ||
matchbox-window-manager | Ported | X environment for resource-limited systems | Matchbox is useful for PDAs as it only displays one window at a time, and the panel is stylus-friendly. Similarly it scales well for small displays. So it is worth porting it (at the time of writing, matchbox-keyboard is already packaged) either as a single package or as each separate component packaged. | High | ||
sqlite2 | Ported | sqlite2 | 2.8.17 | Legacy Sqlite version | Not maintained at all. The existence of this package is a bug. | |
xsd | Ported | xsd | 0.15 | XSettings daemon | Required for gpe-conf |
Next steps
- Move from SQLite version 2 to modern SQLite version 3
- Move from gconf and xsettings to gsettings and dconf. O-hand made xsettings-daemon, a bridge between xsettings and gconf. This can be useful for GPE, as it makes heavy use of xsettings.
- Proper GTK theme support.
- Move to GTK+3. Reworking libgpewidget should do the trick. Getting rid of it altogether may be desirable.
- Move from the Enlightened sound daemon (esound) to PulseAudio or similar. In fact, esdcompat is part of pulseaudio-utils. So, we can build against esd development libraries, but not actually install esd itself.
- Fix dependencies on non-standard system infrastructure such as /etc/timezone.
- Investigate modern replacement for the audiofile program.
- Modern configuration program for wireless networking with privilege separation.
- GTK programs that don't use xsettings aren't able to be configured by its theme support (as far as it appears). Enhance gpe-conf to be able to do this (or get rid of the xsettings-based theme system and just use GTK+.)
Active issues
- Sound does not appear to work. This may be device-specific.
- Rewrite gpe-conf's passwd.c interface, as it seems to make assumptions that are incorrect about standard systems.
- Disk space isn't reported, just system memory usage (which arguably isn't very useful anyway)
- Battery status is not shown in gpe-conf. This appears to be because some parts of GPE are built around the old apmd system, which is now deprecated in favour of acpid.
- gpe-su always looks for the command
x-terminal-emulator
. A really dirty solution is to patch this to sayxterm
or similar. In Alpine, update-alternatives is actually provided by the dpkg package.
Tracking PIM suite and mobile interface components
We should be able build a basic, lightweight system aimed at low-end PDA-like devices from Matchbox, GPE, and a few other components.
Functionality | Status | Packages providing this | Evaluating |
---|---|---|---|
Alarm support | Partially working | gpe-alarm | Apparently gpe-alarm was prone to randomly going off without users being able to stop it. |
Camera | Not working - v4l-utils (Video4Linux) typically needed for camera support e.g. on N900 | GNOME-Cheese | |
Calendar | Working fully | gpe-calendar | Pimlico Dates |
Contacts | Working fully | gpe-contacts | Pimlico Contacts |
Dialer | Not working at all | GPE Mobile Edition's dialer (?) | |
Ebook reader | Partially working - fbreader is not in Alpine [yet] | fbreader | |
Working fully | sylpheed | Thunderbird, Claws-mail | |
Expenses | Partially working | gpe-expenses | gnucash, beancount/plaintext accounting/hledger-web etc - we need a lightweight web browser optimised for mobile that can run scripts |
File manager | Working fully | pcmanfm, gpe-filemanager | |
FM radio | Not working | Gnomeradio is an FM radio tuner for the GNOME desktop and works reasonably well on mobile/handhelds etc; it also supports recording. Video4Linux is required as that has support for certain radio tuners e.g. OMAP4's FM radio tuner. Also see http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wishlist:Digital_Radio. | |
Games | Partially working | gpe-julia, openttd | gpe-tetris; gpe-lights; gsoko; xdemineur (minesweeper clone); cgoban (needs internet connection to be really fun); 2048-qt; Cave Story (in form of open-source NXEngine) also works fine without any hardware acceleration, and is very fun. |
Graphical package-management | Not working | #1417: Add apk backend support to PackageKit. This is a real blocker. We could also bungle some support onto one of the OPKG/IPKG frontends that have been lost to the mists of time (Ångström had such a package management tool). | |
Graphical installer/set-up tool | Not working | These are actually two different issues, but they're related. The former can be solved in pmbootstrap and isn't really essential as it stands. The latter can be partially worked-around by having good defaults. Nonetheless, there is a need for a simple tool to e.g.
One might also comment that creation of users is a function of pmbootstrap currently, but that it may not be desirable in the future, depending on which direction things go. | |
Image gallery | Working fully | gpe-gallery | gpicview |
Instant messaging | Working partially | nheko, pidgin | A frontend for Signal's API would be very nice, or some Matrix client supporting e2e encryption e.g. Riot.im (Electron app, relatively resource heavy), RocketChat client, Conversations web client etc. |
IR blaster manipulation | Not working | gpe-beam (?), Girda - the GNOME IR Monitor | |
Login / lock screen | Not working | gpe-login | QtLockscreen |
Media player | Working partially | VLC, mpv | Sato Linux's gaku player, which is really nothing more than a GTK+2-based frontend for GStreamer |
Navigation | Not working | gpsd is already packaged in Alpine, components that can use it include: navit, tango-gps, Geocaching tools like SHR's Advanced Geocaching Tool for Linux. | |
Note-taking and text-exiting | Working fully | gpe-todo, gpe-edit, leafpad | |
On-screen keyboard | Working fully | matchbox-keyboard | https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Input_methods, especially Maliit |
Planning ('todo' apps) | Not working | gpe-todo | Pimlico-Tasks |
RFID/NFC | Not working/implemented | There don't seem to be any usage of NFC on desktop Linux. There is an NFC subsystem in the Linux kernel, and libhybris has adaptations for NFC to be made available. All that is needed is for applications to make use of it. | |
SMS | Not working at all | GPE Mobile Edition's SMS messanger (?) | |
Spreadsheets | Working fully | gnumeric | gnumeric is lightweight and on the whole works well, albeit not being optimised for a stylus-based interface, and stands apart from expenses programs. LibreOffice-calc also exists, but it's incredibly heavy and even more unsuitable. |
System panel | Partially working | matchbox-panel | Applets can be added to the panel and the panel sits at the bottom of the display. |
Time and date | Not working - gpe-clock is broken | gpe-clock | |
Terminal | Partially working - gpe-terminal is a bit defunct though | xterm | rxvt, xfce4-terminal, st, gpe-terminal |
Web browsing | Partially working | dillo | Dillo works for low-end devices, but the modern web wants to run scripts, and accessing the web on handhelds and PDAs is one of their main attractions. One option, Midori, will run reasonably quickly but it is not well-optimized for handhelds or touch screens. |
Windowing system | Partially working | matchbox | Window manager, and graphical desktop builds, but not yet working with PNG themes |
Wireless networks and mobile broadband | Partially working | wpa_gui mostly works | wpa_gui works (with minor manual configuration) but is merely a frontend for wpa_supplicant. I'd like to get NetworkManager working properly. |
Pimlico Project, Sync, and miscellaneous PIM applications
The Pimlico Project was created by OpenHand as part of their Sato Linux distribution (based on OpenEmbedded-core). Sato seems primarily based on OE-core, Matchbox, and Gnome components (this is related to the Gnome embedded initiative in ~2007).
- Sato release announcement
- Pimlico project archive
- GNOME on Mobile and Embedded
- Forum post about the Pimlico suite
- Sync support discussion page
It is composed of the following four components:
- Dates - a calendar application
- Tasks - plan tasks etc
- Contacts - make a record of contact information
- Unfortunately, the last release, 0.9, appears to be lost forever. The file is not available on the internet archive, nor is it available on any mirror I could find. 0.8 is available on the internet archive, however.
- Sync - synchronise the applications with external sources
- Unfortunately, OpenHand's website is now defunct, so Sync's source code appears to be inaccessible there. However, Sync appears to have been mirrored at https://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/sync/. That being said, it's not clear if they're the same program.
- Sync is based on the (seemingly) now-defunct OpenSync project, so it is probably not worth porting. Other mobile synchronisation programs such as KDEConnect are probably worth looking at.
Thoughts:
- It should be possible to make the programs use the modern Evolution data server.
- The programs may fit in nicely with existing GNOME components e.g. Evolution mail itself.
GPE phone edition
There was also a now-defunct GPE phone edition. It provided Email, SMS, voicemail, and calling components. This could be useful.
What about OPIE and others?
OPIE
OPIE is an alternative to GPE. It's similarly targeted at embedded systems and is similar in function. However, it uses QT Extended (QTE), which is no longer under active development, and does not compile on more recent systems, let alone under Musl.
QTMoko
Another alternative is QTMoko. QTMoko is similar to OPIE but they forked QTE and now use a custom patched version of QT (Itself unmaintained). QTMoko is the fork of QTE for OpenMoko handsets. They are looking into moving away from this in the future, though, so this is probably a viable alternative.
- Main conversation about QTMoko for GTA04 owners
- Message about QTMoko potentially moving away from QTE
- Maintained QTMoko (now at version 2)
SHR
SHR is an OpenEmbedded-based system which combines Enlightenment with the freesmartphone stack, among other things. They use the illume2 Enlightenment module to make Enlightenment fit handhelds' form factor more easily, and provide an on-screen keyboard.
A thought: It would be useful to port Enlightenment to Alpine at any rate. It can work as an X11 window manager or as a Wayland compositor, and it is used for instance by Tizen. However, it's codebase is "interesting", particularly the EFL libraries.
Relevant links
- Debian GPE Packaging homepage
- Tracking status of GPE packages in Debian
- Archived documentation for GPE
- Archive of GPE development website
- WIP branch
- OpenMoko's list of distributions
- elinux.org page on user interfaces for embedded systems
- IpkgFind search results for GPE
- Information about Debian on mobile
- GPE phone edition announcement
- OpenMoko's list of applications
- 'Building consumer products with open source' - Insightful essay by Ari Jaaksi, Nokia's director of open source