I’m currently compiling Minimo for the iLiad. It’s a pretty long process, been going for an hour so far. With any luck, I’ll have a web browser that will work with the modern web.

More updates to follow.

Edit: An update

I was unable to successfully run minimo on my iLiad. I believe it kept segfaulting on me. I’ve put this project to the wayside, and I’m working on another project. More details to follow.

I haven’t posted here in a while.  It’s been pretty quiet as of late.  Right now, I’ve come to a stopping point waiting for iRex to make another move.  There are a few apps I’d like to release as installation packages, but they work with the root file system.  I’d also like to start compiling a group of libraries and other ipkg’s so that the iLiad can start tracking dependences for user created programs.  Also, it will be nice once iRex adds package support into the contentlister.  Once unbricking support is added (I don’t imagine it’ll be too long now), I’ll start posting more updates and some of the teasers I’ve only posted pictures of.  I’ll also post the calibration tool installer I’ve created.

If you have any specific applications or ideas for one that you would like ported, let me know.  

Over at the iRex forum, I’m trying to use my iLiad as a wacom tablet for my PC.

http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?p=6898

I’ve made some progress. However, I can’t get Ubuntu to work with the tablet either in X or in a program like the Gimp. Either way, it does seem to be possible to use the Wacom tablet across the network.

Imagine, a wireless Wacom input device…. Now that’s functionality. :)

I have gargoyle compiled and working on the iLiad. This looks like a pretty neat program.

I’ll admit, I’ve never gotten into interactive fiction before. I played Zork a little bit when I was a kid, but that’s because it was included in a larger game pack I had bought. Maybe someone who knows more about gargoyle and interactive fiction can help out…

The big problem I see now is that the window will be covered when you open up the keyboard to type. Perhaps I can change the window type so that is is more like mrxvt to solve this. This is the result after 20 minutes of work.

Yesterday, I decided that I really wanted KeePassX on my iLiad. It’s a cross-platform program for keeping track of usernames/passwords for different websites. The problem is that it’s written in QT4, which the iLiad does not include. I’ve never used QT before, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I had some problems compiling both QT and KeePass, but after some workarounds and hacks, I’ve got it working on my iLiad!

Right now, the font is almost too small to be usable, so I’ll have to play with that. Also, packaging may be a pain, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m elated that I’ve been able to get this far. Very, very cool.

I’ve got parts the GPE Suite working on the iLiad. This will provided the much needed ability to use the device for Calendaring, Scheduling, and task management. Pretty soon, you won’t need a PDA if you have an iLiad.

I’ve got a task switcher working on the iLiad. This will help for those who want to use multiple programs at a time. It sort of works. There are two issues with it as far as I can tell with testing.

1. If the panel is at the top, it uses valuable real estate. If it’s added to the bottom panel, it pushes the left most icons off the screen. Perhaps iRex can fix the placement of that panel in order to solve this issue.
2. Sometimes when switching apps, the hardware buttons will not work. I am guessing that the signal is being sent to the wrong program.

Overall, it’s not useful enough for me to use it all the time. But it’s neat nonetheless.

I’ve had a few requests for a “Booster Pack” that contains all of the apps I’ve ported for the iLiad.  This is a good idea, however, packaging is the toughest part.  Since there is still no agreed upon way to package applications for distribution on the iLiad, I’ll just use the most agreed upon ideas and use /usr/local for a path and symlink that to the memory card.

However, in order to associate files with the correct extensions in the contentlister, changes have to be made to er_registry.txt.  This is risky, and coding a script to modify it automatically is difficult.  As it is, I need to repackage all of my applications into ipkg format.  From there, I will start keeping track of dependencies and then setup an ipkg feed on mobileread.  This will be a good amount of work, and something I don’t really want to start until the unbrick package is available from iRex.  I’m pretty care-free when it comes to working with the internals of my own iLiad, but for others, I’m no longer willing to take the risk.  Until iRex releases the unbricking package (hopefully in 2.9.10 in June) I don’t think I’ll be setting up any more 3rd party apps.

My iLiad now does everything I need it to do.  I san simply copy every file from my network drive at work onto my iLiad and read it without reformatting.  That was really my only goal when I started to play with programming on the device.  Doc, XLS, PDF, html, txt, etc all work without a problem. 

I’m running out of ideas for useful applications to port.  Some desktop apps are nice, but really aren’t all that usable on the iLiad because of the e-ink display.  There are a few formats that I’d like to be able to read, cbr/cbz is one of them.  But the one native GTK program I found (cbrpager) has some issues with the toolbar on the iLiad.  Other programs require Perl, which is something I’ve never used before and don’t know if I would be able to make any progress on.

I need some new applications and new functionality for the iLiad.  It’s great yes, but it’s boring without more cool apps.

I’ve decided to tackle the task of building the gnome libraries for the iLiad.  Many (most?) GTK programs require at least libgnomeui in order to run and compile.  Before, we’ve been limited to the programs that only depend on the GTK bindings.  However, with new, and more complicated programs it seems that I have no choice but to setup at least a part of gnome.

The most difficult part of this is the many libraries of Gnome and it’s dependencies.  I need libgnomeui which depends on gconf which depends on orbit, which needs the newest pkg-config.  This is just one of the dependency trees I have to go through.  I’ve attempted to use jhbuild which builds gnome and it dependiencies from CVS, but unfortunately, something is wrong with my automake.  This means I can only use the ./configure, make, make install scripts.

Once this is complete though, it opens the door for quite a few new iLiad applications.