Hi, a question that comes up from time to time is how to operate the modem/phone function of the Pyra.
There is a solution in Debian which I learned today:
https://packages.debian.org/de/sid/phoneui-apps
It was packaged in Wheezy and is in Sid, but not in Jessie. So I never got aware of it because I currently use Jessie.
What I don't know is if the Gemalto modems are already supported completely (beyond the standard GSM07.07 AT commands).
I would suggest to check/try (and submit bugs).
BTW it was developed by the Opnemoko/SHR community where one contributor is still in my team. This means bug fixes are not very far away.
http://www.shr-project.org/trac
BR, Nikolaus
On 2016-09-07, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
Hi, a question that comes up from time to time is how to operate the modem/phone function of the Pyra.
There is a solution in Debian which I learned today:
https://packages.debian.org/de/sid/phoneui-apps
It was packaged in Wheezy and is in Sid, but not in Jessie. So I never got aware of it because I currently use Jessie.
Hasn't seen uploads in several years, and what's currently blocking it From testing is:
"phoneuid: doesn't start or crashes during startup - probably due to problem in phonefsod" https://bugs.debian.org/773586
No comment other than the initial report.
What I don't know is if the Gemalto modems are already supported completely (beyond the standard GSM07.07 AT commands).
I would suggest to check/try (and submit bugs).
BTW it was developed by the Opnemoko/SHR community where one contributor is still in my team. This means bug fixes are not very far away.
If there are newer versions available, try to get those fixed in debian sid/unstable so that they migrate to stretch/testing, and then you could possibly get them into jessie-backports.
live well, vagrant
Hi,
Am 07.09.2016 um 16:57 schrieb Vagrant Cascadian vagrant@debian.org:
On 2016-09-07, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
Hi, a question that comes up from time to time is how to operate the modem/phone function of the Pyra.
There is a solution in Debian which I learned today:
https://packages.debian.org/de/sid/phoneui-apps
It was packaged in Wheezy and is in Sid, but not in Jessie. So I never got aware of it because I currently use Jessie.
Hasn't seen uploads in several years, and what's currently blocking it From testing is:
"phoneuid: doesn't start or crashes during startup - probably due to problem in phonefsod" https://bugs.debian.org/773586
No comment other than the initial report.
Ok, I am not at all a specialist for this package. So I will forward this.
What I don't know is if the Gemalto modems are already supported completely (beyond the standard GSM07.07 AT commands).
I would suggest to check/try (and submit bugs).
BTW it was developed by the Opnemoko/SHR community where one contributor is still in my team. This means bug fixes are not very far away.
If there are newer versions available, try to get those fixed in debian sid/unstable so that they migrate to stretch/testing, and then you could possibly get them into jessie-backports.
Well, I am only the messenger who tells that there might be a solution for what potential Pyra users ask for. If it is buggy it is of course something someone should take care of.
Maybe the Pyra project can give the developers some new motivation to fix issues.
BR, Nikolaus
On 2016-09-07 at 17:18:57 +0200, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
If there are newer versions available, try to get those fixed in debian sid/unstable so that they migrate to stretch/testing, and then you could possibly get them into jessie-backports.
Well, I am only the messenger who tells that there might be a solution for what potential Pyra users ask for. If it is buggy it is of course something someone should take care of.
from a quick glance at https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=773586 it doesn't seem as much "buggy" as "does not work at all"
One thing about Debian developement that maybe not everybody knows: since a few years there is a set of scripts that automatically removes from testing most packages that have had an open Release Critical (RC) bug for more than a few days [1]_ with no activity. This happens quite often, and in most cases packages get fixed and re-enter the testing archive a few days later. Sometimes this autoremoval happens close to the freeze of the next release, so the package won't be availble in stable.
This package, however, has been removed from testing on 2015-02-03, during the jessie (current stable) freeze and hasn't been brought back into stretch (current testing) even after a year and a half. This is usually a very bad sign of a package that has been abandoned either by its maintainer or by its upstream (or both).
In case you are interested to do the same in some other cases, the way I found out about it is by looking at the Debian Package Tracker: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/phoneui-apps https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/phoneuid (there are also links from the BTS, at the top of the page for each package)
Going on from that page, I've noticed that there was an action needed "Problems while searching for a new upstream version" but it ended up being a red herring: I followed the link to the VCS in the left panel (which points to the VCS used for *debian package* developement, not upstream) and checked the file ``debian/watch``. In there, I expected to find the location of upstream releases in a format that allows for automatical checks for new versions, but it was empty with a note that upstream only uses git, with no releases.
Since I was already browsing the debian source, I opened the file ``debian/copyright`` which has the copyright informations, but also a pointer to where the source has been taken from, and that pointed to http://git.shr-project.org/git/?p=phoneui-apps.git http://git.shr-project.org/git/?p=phoneuid.git
Sadly, it seems that the project has been abandoned upstream, with no non-trivial commits since 2013. (And I'm not surprised at all, since the project comes from the OpenMoko community, which doesn't really have plenty of working hardware, right now.)
Maybe the Pyra project can give the developers some new motivation to fix issues.
Well, I wouldn't assume that this could happen automagically: upstream may not know about the Pyra (or they may do, since the open hardware world isn't that big, but that doesn't mean they are interested into it)
Maybe just telling the upstream authors about Pyra may help, but they may just not be interested in buying an expensive device just to continue developement of something they have lost interest into: in this case it will have to be somebody in Pyra's community who either revives this project or starts a new one to develop a suite of phone software.
.. [1] The original announce was at https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/09/msg00006.html some details may have been changed in the meanwhile, but the procedure is still active.
Hi, I have cross-posted to some developers I know and the shr-devel and the tinkerphones list.
Am 08.09.2016 um 14:29 schrieb Elena ``of Valhalla'' valhalla-l@trueelena.org:
On 2016-09-07 at 17:18:57 +0200, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
If there are newer versions available, try to get those fixed in debian sid/unstable so that they migrate to stretch/testing, and then you could possibly get them into jessie-backports.
Well, I am only the messenger who tells that there might be a solution for what potential Pyra users ask for. If it is buggy it is of course something someone should take care of.
from a quick glance at https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=773586 it doesn't seem as much "buggy" as "does not work at all"
One thing about Debian developement that maybe not everybody knows: since a few years there is a set of scripts that automatically removes from testing most packages that have had an open Release Critical (RC) bug for more than a few days [1]_ with no activity. This happens quite often, and in most cases packages get fixed and re-enter the testing archive a few days later. Sometimes this autoremoval happens close to the freeze of the next release, so the package won't be availble in stable.
This package, however, has been removed from testing on 2015-02-03, during the jessie (current stable) freeze and hasn't been brought back into stretch (current testing) even after a year and a half. This is usually a very bad sign of a package that has been abandoned either by its maintainer or by its upstream (or both).
In case you are interested to do the same in some other cases, the way I found out about it is by looking at the Debian Package Tracker: https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/phoneui-apps https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/phoneuid (there are also links from the BTS, at the top of the page for each package)
Going on from that page, I've noticed that there was an action needed "Problems while searching for a new upstream version" but it ended up being a red herring: I followed the link to the VCS in the left panel (which points to the VCS used for *debian package* developement, not upstream) and checked the file ``debian/watch``. In there, I expected to find the location of upstream releases in a format that allows for automatical checks for new versions, but it was empty with a note that upstream only uses git, with no releases.
Since I was already browsing the debian source, I opened the file ``debian/copyright`` which has the copyright informations, but also a pointer to where the source has been taken from, and that pointed to http://git.shr-project.org/git/?p=phoneui-apps.git http://git.shr-project.org/git/?p=phoneuid.git
Sadly, it seems that the project has been abandoned upstream, with no non-trivial commits since 2013.
Yes, looks like.
(And I'm not surprised at all, since the project comes from the OpenMoko community, which doesn't really have plenty of working hardware, right now.)
Indeed. Seems to be a hen&egg problem. Not enough working hardware results in even less developers and no users. Therefore there are no updates. And because there is no standard PhoneUI, new hardware has to start from scratch... And in the end the Users have nothing.
Maybe the Pyra project can give the developers some new motivation to fix issues.
Well, I wouldn't assume that this could happen automagically: upstream may not know about the Pyra (or they may do, since the open hardware world isn't that big, but that doesn't mean they are interested into it)
Maybe just telling the upstream authors about Pyra may help, but they may just not be interested in buying an expensive device just to continue developement of something they have lost interest into: in this case it will have to be somebody in Pyra's community who either revives this project or starts a new one to develop a suite of phone software.
Indeed this is my main idea: get the Pyra community interested to pick up a project (must not necessarily be PhoneUI if a similar starting point exists) and bring it back into activity, including upstream.
Another options is QtMoko (which is also Debian based) but does not fit well into the Debian build system and PhoneUI is more advanced in that it already is available in one Debian release. QtMoko isn't in any.
So I want to start this process with making the Pyra community aware that a lot of code (potentially bit-rotting) exists for exactly what is needed to use the Pyra as a Phone.
The other option would be to wait until someone from the Pyra community reinvents the wheel from scratch...
BR, Nikolaus
.. [1] The original announce was at https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2013/09/msg00006.html some details may have been changed in the meanwhile, but the procedure is still active.
-- Elena ``of Valhalla'' _______________________________________________ Firmware mailing list Firmware@pyra-handheld.com http://pyra-handheld.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firmware