SqueakOnLinuxFramebuffer getStatus.

Aaron J Reichow reic0024 at d.umn.edu
Sun Oct 1 05:30:37 UTC 2000


On Sun, 1 Oct 2000, Lalo Martins wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 30, 2000 at 03:02:44PM -0500, Aaron J Reichow wrote:
> > 
> > Well, active isn't quite the correct word.  I was the one working on the
> > fb support, but have never done any VM hacking nor fb support, so it's
> > been kind of slow going.  I wanted for the same reason (among other
> > things)- to get Squeak as an OS on my Helio.  I've been trying to get it
> > going under Virtual PC.  It compiles, but it chokes somewhere.  
> 
> Well, even on the desktop I'd really prefer to run Squeak on
> the framebuffer rather than X. Does this work yet?

Nope, it doesn't work yet.  The great thing is that the Linux fb has a
standard interface across platforms, so the same Squeak/fb version should
work on all platforms which are supported by the Linux fb, PDA,
workstation, or whatever.  The exception may be some of the older
pre-standard Linux fb kernels, but the above should apply for anything
recent.

> (I have an old SparcStation running Linux. X runs with 256
> colors, so I haven't used it in months - I use the box to run
> micq and mutt. But I figure Squeak on the framebuffer could
> live well with 256 colors... worth trying, I think)

I would definately say so.  I've been kicking around the idea of writting
an AIM client in Squeak (using libfaim), which you can use to access ICQ.
And there's always Celeste. ;)

> Is this code anywhere I can see or is it being distributed by
> email on a person-to-person basis? :-) Send it to me... I may
> not have experience with VM hacking or fb support either, but I
> have some voodoo debugging skills.

Within the next day or two, I'll boot up Virtual PC and put it up.  URL
forthcoming.  I'm still using the 2.7 VM, and should try to update it to
the current 2.8.  Hopefully your mad gdb skills will help- the current
situation is that it compiles and links just dandy, upon startup, a
Smalltalk error walkback is spit out and then segfaults.

> > It'd always nice to help- another thing on my to-do list is to make Squeak
> > PDA friendly, and develop some sort of PDA-GUI framework for Squeak.
> 
> Yes, well, the major issues I see are the single "mouse button"
> (the touchscreen), the lack of colors which make the halo of
> questionable usefulness, and the lack of screen real space
> (Morphic windows tend to be *big* for some reason... perhaps
> because they look damn good this way, who knows)

Agreed.  I don't see the lack of colors as a huge issue, as halos also
have little icons representing what they do.  Furthermore, I don't think
halos will be brought up very often on a PDA.  If you want to develop on
the Helio itself and needed the red, blue, and yellow mouse buttons the
normal touch would be regular click, and the page up and page down buttons
on the Helio could be set to be modifiers for yellow and blue buttons.  In
preferences, page up and page down could be mouse modifiers or actual
page up and page down.

Screen real estate...  Aah.  160x160 is an incredibly tiny display.  A
single-app model (with small floating windows) is probably the way to go,
some PDA framework on top of Morphic.

> BTW, just the basic port is more than just porting squeak to
> the framebuffer... there will have to be support for the
> touchpad (/dev/tp? or is it /dev/ts?) - shouldn't be hard,
> perhaps it can even be borrowed from W or Microwindows, but has
> to be done.

The good news is that Tim Rowledge has already ported Squeak to the Linux
fb for the DEC Itsy.  It was a older version, so plugging it in wasn't
instant-magico.  I'm guess that it'd be pretty easy to someone who knew
what they were doing. I stuck this file at 
<http://www.d.umn.edu/~reic0024/sqItsyWindow.c> for your viewing pleasure.  

regards- a





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