[jago]

Hello D source people!

I was going to post this under my old user name, but it would seem that it has disappeared. Pruning happen recently Brad? Oh well.

Anyways, what I'd love to see as a project are D interfaces to the upcoming OpenMoko mobile phone platform. http://www.openmoko.com/ There isn't much available on the page yet except mailing lists and some images on the press release page. I'm hoping that will change when the release date nears.

My thoughts on this:

The first time I came across this I immediately took an interest. A totally open Linux mobile phone is a dream come true! (If done right.) I was debating on what languages to use on a few apps I had in mind. The first thing I always think of is the C# and the Mono project. While C# is immensely powerful, the footprint of the base class library is a bit more then I want to have on a mobile device with 128mb ram and 64mb flash storage, even though it has a micro-SD slot.

My next logical choice, not to mention perfectly suited for the job, was D. Since Walter's original compiler is targeted for Linux and Win32, I thought it would integrate well with OpenMoko since it was Linux. My only concern is that the processor is a RISC ARM 266mhz processor. Now, I've only developed for x86 based platforms, and do not know any of the caveats (besides byte-ordering) associated with writing software on those other CPUs.

If this project does succeed, I'd love to be the maintainer. My free time is more limited then I'd like, but this is definitely something I want to be a part of. Also, since I'd most likely develop bindings for the platform anyway, why not post it where everyone could benefit?

On a final note, would Walter's D compiler be able to generate non x86 images? Or would the GDC compiler be the best bet since it is retargetable?

thanks all, and I look forward to hearing your responses.
j

[PsychoBrat]

Hi jago

I know very little about the topic, but there's a recent thread in the newsgroup (news://news.digitalmars.com:119/pan.2007.01.13.20.28.15.798088@nokia.com I think) about Michael Dominic Kostrzewa's efforts to compile for certain arm-based Nokia phones that may be of some interest.

OpenMoko looks very exciting!

Cheers
Jeff

[jago]

In related news, it would seem that the OpenMoko GUI is based on GTK. Looks like this project just got a boost even before it started. Thanks DUI.

j

[brad]

[JJR]

Jago,

GDC is the best bet for any such project. In fact there have been several (read 2 or 3) successful attempts to port GDC to ARM based platforms. I do not know of any project that's been officially announced for ARM processors, though. Most of the GDC on ARM attempts have just been done by individuals who posted their results on the digitalmars.gnu newsgroup. You might like to chat with Gregor Richards (Username: Gregor on dsource.org). I believe he has successfully built and installed a GDC compiler for an ARM linux platform (OpenZaurus, I believe). He will likely be very familiar with any similar process.

OpenMoko... I'm not familiar with that project; it appears to be in it's very early stages. It sounds promising, but looks like it needs some content before anything can progress here on dsource.org. It would be a good project to keep an eye on. I imagine that they will likely develop from a branch of OpenEmbedded (from which OpenZaurus springs). Since that is now a fairly mature linux on the ARM platform.

It's especially exciting to hear that a group of people at Nokia are managing there own "closed" project. It's a start, at least, and especially good to hear that a larger company might have something to contribute to D in the future, including perhaps GDC fixes.

As for your user name being deleted, there used to be a huge number of spammers signing up on these forums. And a couple of us admins had our hands full deleting large numbers of them every single day. For quite a few months now, Brad has installed a new system that has pretty much eradicated all chances of spam usernames. But I may have inadverdantly deleted a valid name back then even though I was pretty careful to delete only those with bad links, inappropriate content, or rude names. But that was ages ago now . I don't think any names have been removed for quite awhile.

-JJR

[jcc7]