First A15 Device

The new Samsung Chromebook seems to be the first available device with a A15 ARM processor. See here and here

That’ll be the Exynos 5 then, good luck Surface!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exynos

edit: they’ve just updated the page, said “OS: Windows 8” at first – which did seem a bit odd for a Chromebook ;-)

I have to admit that my first thought when I saw that device was “how long before some enterprising soul gets RISC OS working on it?”.

My second thought was “why is the battery life so poor?”. :-(

My thought was we really need wifi in RISC OS.
But at least there is an A15 device for testing risc os on.

My thought was we really need wifi in RISC OS. But at least there is an A15 device for testing risc os on.

Well we’ve got 3G support (ComCentre) as well as ethernet over USB so that’s not too bad. More often than not 3G turns out to be more useful than WiFi anyways. As for having something to run RISC OS on: wouldn’t hold my breath! I really doubt Samsung is going to give us access to their documentation. And of course “someone” would have to port RISC OS and that’s not going to happen anytime soon. The Chromebook itself probably won’t be as hackable as you’re thinking.

The great thing however is: the Genie’s out of the bottle – Samsung did it and others will follow.
Not that ChromeOS is going to be a great success though.

Well we’ve got 3G support (ComCentre) as well as ethernet over USB so that’s not too bad. More often than not 3G turns out to be more useful than WiFi anyways.

Your Mileage May Vary

I would kill for WiFi support. I am averse to using wired Ethernet after this and if I want 3G I gotta go stand in the middle of a field. At this exact moment in time my mobile is receiving exactly NO network signal. And its on the windowsill. Rain attenuates the already-poor signal. It’s great when I’m buying stuff online and the bank sends me a code by SMS. I walk up the lane a little to get reception, the code arrives, I walk back, the transaction has timed out. Rinse and repeat…
Both of my smartphones work off WiFi. My netbook works off WiFi. Mom’s laptop works off WiFi. It would be cool if I could plug this little dongle-thingy into the Beagle’s USB and get online that way. I won’t hold my breath (I know the hell some people went through to get patchy WiFi support on the Neuros OSD), but I just wanted to point out that not everybody would prefer 3G to WiFi.

BTW, Patric, where do you live? Here in France, my monthly data allocation (on a contract) is 500Mb. The cost of pay-as-you-go 3G is scary. I wonder if they still measure it in 10Kb units? A few years back, I took my Nokia 6230i (IIRC) to the bbc.co.uk homepage. It loaded about half of it. And burned through €5 of credit in a few seconds. Prices have come down since then, but if France finds itself in the hardshoulder when it comes to 3G – they’ll only have themselves to blame!

BTW, Patric, where do you live?

Google seems to think I’m currently here (which isn’t too far off the mark):

I used to be on WiFi but it was terrible, usually cutting out at the worst possible moments (cheers KingstonCom!) and felt like a rip off too.
My other place was probably built with WWIII in mind hence the Beagle having to use PowerLan just as my Linux box. TBH I don’t really mind not having WiFi available as the Beagle is very much a desktop machine.
Yeah:

The fox who longed for grapes, beholds with pain
The tempting clusters were too high to gain;
Grieved in his heart he forced a careless smile,
And cried ,“They’re sharp and hardly worth my while.”

OTOH when on the move I hardly ever get a chance to log into free WiFi (apparently Berlin is planning an “open citizen LAN” though, giving you 30min free use in certain districts. Probably not anywhere near my flat in Charlottenburg I reckon). Of course you could use a gaming dongle thingy if you really really had to.
While in Germany I had one of these 25 EUR per month “flatrates” (O2), which worked surprisingly well. Three tends to be slightly more expensive, charging me 15 quid a month for 10GB (compared to KC’s 19.99/2GB). Means I’ve got to keep an eye on my data usage and limit my watching Let’s play Riven to ten episodes per night (okay to watch five more if it’s about reading journals as I don’t feel the need to have them in HD).

tl;dr: for a portable device I found 3G to be far more versatile, desktop machines(1) (currently all capable of running RISC OS falling into this category) working ok cable(2).

(1) Not when living in rural France
(2) How about some lightning protection (not the cheapo crap from Maplin)?

I used to be on WiFi but it was terrible, usually cutting out at the worst possible moments (cheers KingstonCom!) and felt like a rip off too.

Was this in the city? I have seen some startling results while scanning WiFi in towns with my mobile phone (WiFi analyser app for Android). Namely, while there are 12-13 designated channels, it seems only three are actually used by the majority of routers; and with those three, EVERYBODY piles in on top of each other. I’m surprised anybody can receive anything.

How about some lightning protection (not the cheapo crap from Maplin)?

EDF is actually pretty good about handling lightning. So long as it isn’t our 230V “final kilometre” that gets hit¹, the power usually browns out on a strike as it is automatically dissipated to ground.
However, what fried the Livebox (and everything connected to it) was either a direct strike on the phone lines, or a direct strike on the other (not ours) electricity line that runs parallel (induction). Either way, it caused parts inside the Livebox to actually blow up (things rattled when you shook it). The Livephone and walkie-radio-phone were both toast. The powerpacks of both were dead (the Livephone power pack actually bulging). Oh, and the “disjoncteur” (think, master trip switch) tripped out. I am not sure any little lightning protector jobbie for phone lines would have made a damn bit of difference in this case – it’d just have ended up being something else that got fried. ;-)

Was this in the city? I have seen some startling results while scanning WiFi in towns with my mobile phone (WiFi analyser app for Android). Namely, while there are 12-13 designated channels, it seems only three are actually used by the majority of routers; and with those three, EVERYBODY piles in on top of each other. I’m surprised anybody can receive anything.

Well I don’t do a lot of wardriving these days but in this case I unfortunately had no control over the router. Trying to get some help from the company responsible for the equipment during christmas was an experience that I’m not keen on having to repeat. And their call centre was somewhere in Spain :-(
While the free WiFi worked fine in the library most RISC OS sites where blocked, even private ones being flagged as “adult content”. Same on campus.

Sorry to hear about your livebox. Thought it had been more of an isolated event, tough.

Of course you could use a gaming dongle thingy if you really really had to.

I do on my Pi/Lapdock

At this time the only reason I use the Pandora with Linux is WIFI. At home, at work …
In Berlin are any free HOT Spots.
For my UMTS Stick I have a Vodafone flat. 2GB per month with full speed, the rest with slow speed. 9,99€. I don’t need more then 2GB per month in the last year. The unlimited flat cost 19.99€.

I do on my Pi/Lapdock

Makes sense when you’ve got reliable access to the WiFis ;-)
Reconfiguring it however can be difficult as you discovered yourself. Why not use FF btw or isn’t that available on the Pi?
3G dongles come in a significantly smaller size though.

Let’s get this straigth: I’d be the first to welcome WiFi on RISC OS. Just trying to be realistic about it and point out that it’s far from being a show stopper when it comes to portable devices.

Just trying to be realistic about it and point out that it’s far from being a show stopper when it comes to portable devices.

…in my opinion.

There. Fixed it for you.

(^_^)

Seriously, the problem with portable devices is that everybody has a slightly different idea of the sorts of things they want to do with them. What applies to one may not apply to another – you and I are at opposites regarding WiFi vs 3G.

Trying to get some help from the company responsible for the equipment during christmas was an experience that I’m not keen on having to repeat.

Hehe… This is why I am with Orange which is “notoriously expensive”. I pay €40/month for my internet [*], other cheaper services run in to €32-35/month for equivalent. This decision is based upon the fact that we do not have an analogue phone line (it is a VoIP-phone) and we are at the end of 4470 metres of cable, so if something went wrong I doubt we’d be a priority if Orange were only the people in charge of the wire. I personally knew of a woman in a nearby town whose Internet was out for almost seven months and a loud screeching on the phone every 30 seconds. She paid for both the entire time, and could pretty much use neither. The companies spent half a year blaming each other. Finally Orange sent out a guy who replaced the €4 ADSL filter and charged her a large call-out fee (as the filter was supplied by the internet provider, not Orange). [the sad thing is, I told her right at the beginning that it sounded like the filter was duff; but some people only want to hear information like that from a guy wearing a serviceman’s uniform… <sigh>]
Anyway, I don’t fancy getting stuck in a slanging match between providers, so I have opted to go with Orange for the whole kit and caboodle. If something goes wrong, they ought to get it fixed instead of passing the buck.

While the free WiFi worked fine in the library most RISC OS sites where blocked, even private ones being flagged as “adult content”. Same on campus.

This is what worries me about nannying blocker software. It seems it is worryingly easy for sites to be added to these lists, and remarkably difficult to get them removed, especially when the lists are not public, are treated as trade secrets, and attempts to do anything about examining the lists would result in scary DMCA nonsense.

That said, educational campus services these days often tend to operate on a “whitelist” principle that things are blocked unless permitted. Saves the campus a pile of trouble about “twelve year old gets hardcore porn at school” – you can imagine what the Daily Mail might do with that!

Sorry to hear about your livebox. Thought it had been more of an isolated event, tough.

Well, it was a one-off and I think only my Livebox got fried, so you possibly could call it an isolated event. ;-) Hopefully it will be a true “one off” event.

I’m quite depressed about the loss of the Livephone. I mean, I picked it up in a boot sale for €3 so it isn’t that, it is that it was a good quality signal – it had a rather impressive range, it sounded good, and it had a nice seagull ringtone. The phone itself (and the charger base) still works. The little USB communicator thingy was destroyed. I can’t find spares or parts. Might see if I can get one off eBay next Spring.

Aside: Took the things apart to look at damage (communicator, extensive!). Both parts contain ARMs. (^_^)

There. Fixed it for you.

Eh, no. Not having native support for WiFi isn’t a show stopper per se.
You’ve still got options:

- get a gaming adapter, enjoy the wifis (modest initial cost)
- stick to 3G (initial plus ongoing costs)
- use cable at no extra cost (carry an acoustic coupler when on the move) :P

Reminds me how excited I was when I bought a Netgear SPH101 wireless SkypePhone (yeah, Skype is the AOL of VOIPs I know) just to find out it didn’t really work for me.
At home I have unlimited landline calls whereas public hotspots required you to log on via browser (which the phone was not capable of) instead of providing you with a WEP/WPA key (which the phone of course would have supported). Meh.
That’s what you get for being such a lamer and buying proprietary crap.

Luckily I absolutely hate making calls and go out of my way to avoid them (Reginald Barclay would be proud of me).

Not having native support for WiFi isn’t a show stopper per se.

Since I am posting this from a wifi connected Pi, I have to agree.

For a device with built in hardware (that works on other OSes), then it could be regarded as a show stopper. But for any thing with no built in wifi, then you need additional hardware anyway. So using a gaming adaptor isn’t that big an isue.

I found firefox on packman, and it runs OK and controls the adaptor.

The remaining issue is ip addresses. If I leave the built in DHCP server running, does the device start acting as a NAT router? Or does it disable the server if it finds one on the network? Or does everything go horribly wrong?

I shall have to try.

€40/month for my internet [*]

Sorry, mom wanted to go for a walk, forgot the footnote. It is horribly pricey, but I get… Free unlimited calls to French landlines, plus 1H to mobiles. Free unlimited¹ calls to landlines in many parts of the world² that isn’t a sandpit full of terrorists. Possibly free unlimited calls to mobiles in the US, although given the price otherwise, I don’t plan to try it! Evidently unlimited³ internet up to ~20mbit⁴.

It isn’t a bad package, it’s just typically expensive as comms seems to be in France. :-/

¹ The “limitation” is that the call disconnects after 2 hours. You can call right back. The quoted restriction in the documentation states that you cannot make more than 24 hours of calls in any one day (I don’t know how you would do otherwise!?) and you cannot call more than x different numbers (it’s a large number, like 50 or 100) in any one day.

² Useful to remember if I ever get around to finding this cute Japanese girl I dream of. Calling Tōkyō otherwise could be…costly!

³ My friend in the UK is worried of downloading more than 1Gb/month for fear of the mostly unspecified Fair Use Policy kicking in. Me? I used to transfer a known ~1.5Gb a month, but since I listen to AnimeNFO on Shoutcast (192kbit) we could be looking at 3-4Gb/month. Now with animé and such, it’s potentially 1Gb/week with streaming radio on top. Actually, I have JPopSuki’s streaming TV on in the corner of the screen, and now NHKWorld have fixed their mobile app, I have been watching stuff on that too.

⁴ I am paying for “up to 20” but I actually get 2mbit down, 256kbit up due to the length of the line.
It is quite ironic that if I stand in the middle of the field (hmmm, ankle deep in mud right now…), I can get 2.5mbit in both directions, but I don’t know if 3G is duplex or adaptive.

Patrick: Well there will be soon (1-2months) at least 2 RISC OS users in Hull….

wireless SkypePhone

The only really good VOIP device I have found is the Nokia N8. (and other recent symbian phones.)

For a device with built in hardware (that works on other OSes), then it could be regarded as a show stopper. But for any thing with no built in wifi, then you need additional hardware anyway. So using a gaming adaptor isn’t that big an isue

Now that’s an angle I hadn’t thought of, hmm. Not only would it be slightly embaressing for the hardened zealot having to face RISC OS’s inadequacies while trying to get signal @Starbucks (not that I ever go there, I hasten to add!); it would be a show stopper for everybody else. “Want to get online? Well you’ll have to buy a naff adapter first!”
The SkypePhone wasn’t all that great but that was quite a few years ago when my top of the line mobile did 233Mhz, making VOIP infeasible (and probably illegal too).
Instead of upgrading the phone I went for a decent tablet. So that’s sorted.

Patric: Well there will be soon (1-2months) at least 2 RISC OS users in Hull….

How long are you intending to stay? I’ll leave around the end of next month so just drop me a line: TynHau (at) shared (hyphen) files (dot) de or @TynHau

3G dongles come in a significantly smaller size [than WiFi dongles] though.

I have a teeny little Edimax USB WiFi dongle that protrudes 5mm. It works fine at home with my windows laptop and with Linux on the Pi. I would be delighted to be able to use it from RISC OS. Bounty anyone?

Please donate to this bounty, to update the USB stack ;-)

https://www.riscosopen.org/bounty/polls/5

So, hrm, would wifi support be such a problem?

If the drivers are done right, it’s basically just a user interface for configuring what network is selected (so, have a !WifiPicker or something that can be used to quickly scan for and connect to networks), and then otherwise, it should look to the system just like ethernet. Obviously, the USB stack would need to be working reliably for USB wifi to work reliably, but that also applies to USB ethernet.

The big thing would be, forcing it to get a DHCP lease on connection, and cleanly handling dropped connections (although I was just playing with forcibly dropping connections on the Pi, and it seemed to handle it OK).

I think the bigger problem with wifi is the security protocols which it mandates.

Look here

http://www.stdevel.co.uk/wlan.html

Could this be the basis for further development? I know, the wrong USB stack, but dreaming is still allowed ;-)