Several months ago I purchased my Nexus One and started goofing with it and installing all manner of applications. Once I finished messing with things like wallpaper and ringtones I decided to go a step further. Last weekend I rooted the phone and installed Ubuntu. The phone now runs a full Ubuntu 9.10 install without the GUI. So far, I have installed NMAP, OpenVAS, and I am working on Metasploit. I also managed to get a packet sniffer installed, but I am quickly running out of space on my Sandisk 4GB MicroSd card. I am ordering a 16GB card and will then perform a reinstall and see what kind of platform I have available. The Android OS is truly amazing and powerful. I have also learned that the Broadcom chip is 802.11 b/g/n compatible and has FM RX and TX. Additionally, the camera is capable of shooting in 720p. I am still working on enabling the functionality in those last two sentences but I am pretty pumped about the phone’s capability.

Bored with the same old stock version of Android on your Nexus One? Are you one of the many other Nexus One users who would like to see a different boot up screen on your phone, well help is here!
Geeky folks (one geeky folk, to be precise) from a rather ominously named blog called nexus one hacks has posted a rather longish video that can potentially help you port Ubuntu on to your highly capable handset without bricking it. Note that in this case, Ubuntu is being offered as a secondary boot option so that you may switch over to Android at the next boot should anything go wrong. Of course, as it is an OS meant for quite a different platform, you d come across a few things that simply won t work. But then that s excusable when you experience the pleasure of running an OS on a device that is not supposed to run it.

By the way, it hasn t been very long since the HD2 also got the Ubuntu treatment. What s with phones being ported to desktop OSes these days?

Ever wondered what would happen if you threw another mobile OS onto your Nexus One? Without removing Android? Contrary to popular belief, the world will in fact not end, and in many cases, lives could very well be improved. One particular modder over at Nexus One Hacks has managed to put together a video how-to demonstrating the installation of Ubuntu as a secondary OS on his rooted N1, and while you’ll obviously find yourself dealing with a few incompatibilities should you follow suit, it’s not like you really have anything better to do tonight than tinker. Right? Right. Jump on past the break and mash play to get going.

Continue reading Ubuntu joins Android on Nexus One, apocalyptic repercussions nowhere to be found

Ubuntu joins Android on Nexus One, apocalyptic repercussions nowhere to be found originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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However, here’s a few ideas I think they ought to mull over. Just keep in mind that I’m throwing around ideas, these aren’t exactly “practical” ideas so much as that they’re just ideas that I think happen to be neat.

1. Buy Out System76

It’s no secret that System76 is one of the biggest supporters of Ubuntu. They install the Ubuntu system on every device they ship, have the rights to place the Ubuntu logo on all of their products, and have a fantastic make quality. They work together with Canonical to provide updates, drivers, codecs, etc. If anything, I think it would be a wise move some time in the future for Canonical to consider buying out System76 and using them to produce Canonical-branded hardware. Mark Shuttleworth even mused over the idea of going into hardware with Canonical in the past, this would be one way to do it. Also, with Ubuntu as the main operating systems on their own hardware, Canonical could look into…oh, I dunno…switching the boards over to Coreboot and looking into using Free Software hardware and drivers.

2. Provide an alternative repository for Free Software Android Applications

Canonical turned a lot of heads by introducing a music store into the Ubuntu One service package. It’s a welcome change of pace, and gives many Linux users the ability to purchase and download music legally (albeit in an MP3 format, more on this later)

The more important question, however: Ubuntu can now download music in a function not unlike iTunes, but…what about mobile apps? As the libraries for Ubuntu’s desktop system have gotten more and more robust for device syncing, I’ve been wondering how this could best be used to kill two birds with one stone.

Why Android, rather than the other half-dozen linux-based smartphones out there? As far as I can tell, Android is rapidly becoming the most-used linux-based smartphone platform around, and sales have surpassed that of the iPhone. This would be a way to get to as many people as possible.

See, there’s a bit of a jam going on with Android: You can get paid apps, and you can get free (as in gratis) apps, but it’s not always the easiest to find Free Software applications. Oh, they’re out there, don’t get me wrong. But finding them is less than obvious, and if you have a custom Android ROM such as CyanogenMOD, you can’t even use Google’s regular app store. The need for an alternative to step around these issues is obvious. This would stimulate FOSS development on apps for Android, and in turn would also provide a free repository for anyone using an Android device.

3. Make Ogg Available for the UbuntuOne Music Store


This has been one of the biggest complaints about the U1MS. It would be really, really nice to be able to download music in a Free Software format. While it isn’t exactly a requirement per se, it would be a nice way to begin circumventing the need to install MPEG-based patented codecs. I started a petition a while ago here, feel free to sign it and present it to Canonical. As of this writing, there’s about 245 signatures of users that would be willing to use U1MS if it switched over to OGG.


4. Switch to “Feature-Based” Releases


I’ve wondered for a while why they haven’t done this already. I suppose doing the “100 Papercuts” is at least a start for the sake of usability, but in my mind something a little bit more needs to be done. I think Ubuntu developers ought to consider the possibility of splitting up development to focus on specific system features for each release. What do I mean by this?

Let’s assume that, under this model, their next main focus for the next release will specifically be business applications. Rather than just touching base with upstream, they could focus a whole bunch of usability bugs, features, etc, into strictly the business and office apps in the Ubuntu repositories. They could package and refine some of the really nifty office applications you don’t normally hear much about. Then, for the next release they could focus specifically on multimedia creation, and look at ways to iron out PulseAudio, possible multimedia frameworks they could integrate into applications, different workflows they could put together, etc. They could focus on areas that they’re currently a bit lacking in, and as such they could find ways to strengthen the user experience across the board.

There is no doubt that Linux will be the dominant player in the mobile market by the end of 2010. This is namely thanks to Google’s Android OS, which has been appearing on more handsets than I can count the past few months. Android however is not the only mobile Linux operating system (however it is easily the most popular) that exists. I have done more than a few posts about my Nokia N900, which is another mobile device that runs a variation of Linux known as Maemo.

I recently came into possession of an Android powered device of my own and as I such I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. For the last week I have retired my N900 to the back seat and had my SIM card inserted in my Android powered Kaiser just to see how Google’s mobile operating system handles itself in comparison to Maemo. I am going to compare and contrast the two on the following key points:

1. Hardware Selection – What of hardware do you have for running the operating system on?
2. Computing – Does the OS function as you would expect a computer in 2010 to?
3. Phone – Both operating systems dial out, but which functions as a phone more efficiently?
4. Applications – Apps, apps, apps! How is the application selection on the OS?
5. Internet Usage – Our mobile devices are our connection to the WWW, which OS shines when surfing the web?

Hardware Selection -

There is no argument about this one, one of the most powerful things about Android is it’s ability to run on multitude of hand-helds (even hand-helds it wasn’t initially intended for!). Big and small. Capacitive screen and resistive screen. Slide out keyboard, stationary keyboard, flipping keyboard, – heck even no keyboard at all! There is an Android device out there to suit just about everyone’s needs.

Hardware Selection 10/10 – Android Total 10/10

Maemo on the other hand currently only resides on the N900. While the N900 is powerful, unique, and well made hardware there is not much choice in the matter if you would like a Maemo based hand-held. The N900 is it.

Hardware Selection 6/10 – Maemo Total 6/10

Computing -

Our hand-helds are getting more and more powerful. With each new release they become closer and close to being full blown computers – as such they require full blown operating systems. Since Android runs on a wide array of devices I do not think it would be fair to compare performance between the two operating systems (as your mileage will vary with your hardware), instead I am going to focus on the aspects of the GUI and how the operating system handles itself.

In general Android looks and feels like a (smart) phone. Which isn’t bad depending on what you are looking for. Personally I find multitasking on Android counter intuitive when compared to multitasking on a full size computer. I say this because when you press your “home” button to get back to your Android desktop the application you had open has to be reopened from it’s launcher icon – not from a task bar/list of open applications like most operating systems have.

Android provides four desktop spaces on which you can place widgets/application launchers to your hearts content. Which is a good thing if you have a lot of applications on your Android device – because once you start to get a whole lot installed they all get lumped together in your application selector making it hard to navigate for the one you want. My only complaint about Android’s work spaces is that you cannot loop from the desktop on the rightmost to the desktop on the leftmost, really a small thing but worth mentioning.

Speaking of widgets – I highly suggest you find one for toggling your device’s wifi on and off. If you do not have one of these you have to dig through three layers of settings menus to toggle it. Want to connect to a new access point? Three layers of menus again. I think something used as often as a wifi connection should be more readily available for usage. Toggling your data connection on Android is just as annoying and you cannot even disable your data fully with a single switch. When you uncheck the “data connection” in the settings manager you are informed of the fact that some applications might still use background data – meaning to fully disable your 2g/3g to save battery you need to crawl through each of your individual applications that might use background data and be sure they are off – inconvenient to say the least (I am sure there is an application out there to fully toggle it off it with one button – but it is not included by default as it should be).

The last few things about Android that really keep it from having that full computer feeling is that you have to “root” your device in order to have full control/access to the system. Secondly of all the Android devices you can choose from – none of them have even a full gigabyte of internal storage. They all rely on MicroSD cards for storing media/files upon. Lastly, I have yet to find a terminal application I like. Namely because – and this may just be the key mappings on my device – but I cannot recall past terminal command with the up/down arrows or move back over to make an edit to a line with the left/right arrows.

Computing 7/10 – Android Total 8.5/10

Using Maemo on the other hand feels like you are holding a full computer in your hand. It is easy to keep track of multiple applications you have open on Maemo because you can tap a single button to view/switch between all open applications at any given time. Similar to Android, Maemo also has four work spaces on which you can place widgets, application launchers, and contacts for quick access. Like a full Linux distro however Maemo’s desktops allow you to flow one into the next, continuously in a loop. Maemo also allows you to easily edit the number of workspaces available to you in case four is too many for your needs.

Maemo also handles connecting to wif and data just like a desktop operating system would. Select from your system tray “Internet Connection” and it scans for nearby wifi networks and whether or not a data connection is available. It readily gives the user full control over whether or not a connection is active – something I appreciate.

While Maemo is not perfect it is easily the closest experience you will have to a full blown operating system on a hand-held device.

Computing 9/10 – Maemo Total 7.5/10

Phone -

No matter how much these devices do and what software we cram into them – they are at their core still suppose to be “phones”.

The Android platform makes a great phone. It automatically syncs with all of your Google services to suck down your contacts, calender, and email from your gmail account first thing. While this is nice – one annoying thing you will have to deal with right off the bat is organizing your gmail contacts. If you are anything like myself most of them where un-named and just emails (no phone numbers) before you got your Android device. While it takes some time to enter all your information, it is not quite as painful as other phones because you can enter all the information on your computer and then in moments it will sync to your Android device.

The default text messaging application in Android is functional, but leaves some to be desired. Thankfully there is a free application in the marketplace called “Handcent” that provides a wonderful SMS experience on Android. It has both a sleek GUI and a “quick reply” feature that make it a wonderful application. Android makes for a great phone, but there is definitely room for improvement.

Phone 8/10 – Android Total 8.3/10

The first thing you will notice about Maemo is that other than the dialler application none of the other “phone” feature applications have a portrait mode. Personally, I prefer this – but it may be a deal breaker for some. In contrast to Android, Maemo’s default SMS program works well and looks great. Incoming SMSs are displayed as a short preview over what ever application you currently have open (without interrupting your work), a handy feature when you are in the middle of something. Notably lacking by default on Maemo however is MMS functionality. There is a community written application called “fMMS” that allows for the sending and receiving of pictures that works perfectly fine, it does not support media clips currently though.

One feature that truly sets Maemo apart from Android, and every other mobile phone out there currently, is that if you have a Skype account – it will fully integrate with your contacts. Meaning if you have an active internet connection when you want to call someone, you can choose to call them from your Skype account – meaning it does not use your mobile minutes. Also fully integrated in the well designed SMS client is the ability to interface with Skype IM, AIM, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, ect. While Android has separate clients for these chat protocols I like that Maemo has them all in one central location linked in with SMS.

Phone 8/10 – Maemo Total 7.7/10

Applications -

The applications make the device – with out good software an operating system is fairly useless.

Android has a large application market, currently over 30k apps, that is easily accessible from the “market place” link on your device. There are a good number of free applications on the market place, however many of them are ad-supported. If that doesn’t bother you, great! But personally I dislike ads taking up my screen space. Most all of the ad-supported applications however have an identical ad-free version for purchase. If you really like a certain application then just pay the few dollars to enjoy it with out the ads.

There are a lot good applications for Android – however I would really like to see some more quality truly free applications for it.

Applications 8/10 – Android Total 8.2/10

Maemo takes an interesting approach to applications. Accessible via the webrowser is the “ovi store”, an online source for free and paid applications make by developers. The Ovi Store offers easy one click install through the browser and has some good applications both for purchase and free (and none that I have found are ad-supported as of yet). The only problem with the Ovi store is that it currently only has maybe one hundred applications in it, slim picking compared to the Android market place.

The interesting part about Maemo – is that just like Ubuntu or other Linux distros it also has an “application manager” (powered by apt-get). Which as part of it’s managing abilities also contains repositories you can download free software from. Most of the applications found here are ports of open source favourites such as Abiword and Super-Tux, however some of them are new applications designed just for Maemo. The default repositories are sponsored/paid for by Nokia (the backing company for Maemo) and they are maintained by the community.

Once Maemo has a year or two to fully mature to allow application market to expand it will be truly superb – but for now it can leave some to be desired at times.

Applications 7/10 – Maemo Total 7.5/10

Internet Usage -

Our hand-helds are most often times our main connection to the world wide web. As such having a good internet experience on a mobile operating system is a must if it is going to make it.

Android provides an average web surfing experience. The default browser is functional, but nothing spectacular. It renders all pages by default in their “mobile” version if it is offered and for most people it is more than enough. If you need something a little more powerful Opera’s Mobile browser is available in the market place – it renders pages quickly and I have yet to find a website it does not display properly. I find the GUI on Opera to be slightly cluttered however, so if the page loads in the default Android browser I tend to use it instead.

Where Android really shines on the web however is it’s Google Maps integration. Easily one of the best mapping systems on a hand-held device. If your hardware has a GPS it will be quickly detected and used to pin-point your current location. From there you can map your way with ease to your destination.

Internet Usage 8/10 – Android Total 8.2/10

I’m going to go out on a limb here and just say it: Maemo provides the best mobile browsing experience that currently exists. It’s default webrowser is quick and renders pages properly (including support for flash 9.4). Don’t care for the default browser for some reason? Maybe want something more robust or feature rich? Not a problem. Mozilla choose Maemo as the first platform to release their Firefox Mobile on. While it takes a bit longer to load than the default browser, once Firefox is running it works beautifully. It has full tab support, addons, and a download manager just like Firefox on the desktop.

Mapping on Maemo is not quite as flawless as using Google maps on Android, but it is functional. The default “maps” application made by Ovi works well with the GPS in the N900 and the routing feature provides a good number of options depending on what type of trip you are taking. If you do not care for the default mapping application, Google maps does run fairly well in Maemo’s browser. It is not quite as fast as the maps application running on Android however.

I feel Maemo is currently unrivalled as a mobile internet operating system and if it had a slightly better mapping program I would give it a 10 out of 10.

Internet Usage 9/10 – Maemo Total 7.8/10

Final Scores – Android 8.2 & Maemo 7.8

Follow Up -

No operating system is perfect, Maemo and Android included. Which of the two operating systems is right for you? How should I know? Each has it advantages and disadvantages. From the final scores here you may be inclined to believe that I believe Android is the better of the two – this however is not the case. If you review all of the scores the one thing that really brought down Maemo was that it only is available on a single device currently. Meaning if you are like myself and like the N900 hardware Maemo comes on, well then that first score is pointless for you. It is hard to say where either of these operating systems will be a year from now with the rate technology advances (and who knows what is going to happen to Maemo with MeeGo lurking around the bend).

Did I miss any key points about the two operating systems? What is the reason you are swayed from Maemo to Android or vice versa?

~Jeff Hoogland

It is two LEGO Mindstorms robots controlled by one HTC Hero Android phone. The Hero is running an Android application written by Enea Linköping that send motor commands to the LEGO brick. LEGO has been kind enough to put a Bluetooth chip in the Mindstorms NXT controller. By using the built in demonstrational Bluetooth commands the NXT brick provides there is no need for an application to be downloaded into the NXT brick.
There was however one obstacle in the limited Bluetooth support in Android OS version 1.5 (not supporting the Bluetooth serial port profile, SPP). Instead we used the wifi capabilities on the phone to send information to an Ubuntu Linux Laptop with a TCP/IP to Bluetooth tunnel (just a raw tunnel, no logic or programming). HTC has been rumored to be releasing Android OS version 2.1 (with Bluetooth) later in february and we hope to be able to put forth a new version that skip the WiFi laptop step.

Video below:

# dbus-send --system --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.bluez / org.bluez.Manager.DefaultAdaptermethod return sender=:1.2 -> dest=:1.3   object path "/org/bluez/932/hci0"

# dbus-send --system --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.bluez /org/bluez/932/hci0 org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable.Introspect

service bluetoothd /system/bin/bluetoothd -d -n    socket bluetooth stream 660 bluetooth bluetooth    socket dbus_bluetooth stream 660 bluetooth bluetooth    # init.rc does not yet support applying capabilities, so run as root and    # let bluetoothd drop uid to bluetooth with the right linux capabilities    group bluetooth net_bt_admin misc    disabled

android source: git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/external/bluetooth/glib.git

When we build bluez library, it would build glib as a static library.
GLib provides the core application building blocks for libraries and applications written in C. It provides the core object system used in GNOME, the main loop implementation, and a large set of utility functions for strings and common data structures. If you are interested in how bluez use glib, you can trace bluez source code.

new Bluetooth API

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/wireless/bluetooth.html

About Bluetooth, Android website has a very good document. It lists the functions and example code.

Bluetooth    * Turn on/off Bluetooth    * Device and service discovery    * Connect to a remote device using RFCOMM and send/receive data    * Advertise RFCOMM services and listen for incoming RFCOMM connection

Bluetooth Chat application
What I am curious? It’s related to using RFCOMM and send/receive data. In the beginning, I am not quite understand and I thought it’s OBEX. After running Bluetooth Chat application, I know what it means now. I installed 0xlab experimental eclair image in Beagle board and installed Bluetooth chat example from Android. I also run a python script in my ubuntu machine and it’s from pybluez. Then, I can chat between Beagle board and my laptop via Bluetooth. When we start to run Bluetooth Chat application, it would create a RFCOMM socket and set it to listen mode. We can retrieve the information from sdptool. Then other BT devices can connect to Android using RFCOMM protocol and set channel to the same one.

# sdptool browse localBrowsing FF:FF:FF:00:00:00 ...Service Name: BluetoothChatService RecHandle: 0x10005Service Class ID List:  UUID 128: fa87c0d0-afac-11de-8a39-0800200c9a66Protocol Descriptor List:  "L2CAP" (0x0100)  "RFCOMM" (0x0003)    Channel: 30

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