[ from the giant-pandas dept. ]
Bluetooth on my Powerbook G4 talking to a Nokia 6310i mobile phone
Hussein bought me a Bluetooth adapter for my birthday and so I stayed up late configuring that and doing an upgrade to sync up my version of the Debian Testing ppc tree. After inserting the USB adapter and figuring out that rfcomm required a single module which was not in the original kernel compile, I upgraded to 2.4.22-ben2 (remember to patch the two lines in mm/mmap.c in do_brk so that the recent security exploit does not bite – mail me if you read this and have trouble patching this file on powerpc or even on another platform.) and applied the necessary direct render module source updates to produce a working radeon driver for my card (as is the case each time I upgrade but hopefully this will be fixed in 2.6.).
Bluetooth support works using the BlueZ official Linux Bluetooth protocol stack and connects to my 6310i which with the aid of a script and an icon now makes connecting on the move reasonable. The Zaurus has similar scripts which I use to maintain connectivity on the go and I now need to work on data sync of my email as well as anything else I want to keep on the go. Perhaps something based upon CVS might be a good idea. Anyway the gnokii CVS archive available from the gnokii site supports the libbluetooth userspace access to my adapter and subsequently to the Nokia 6310i I have on Vodaphone.
I have to admit I even played with tones but only to see what was possible as I prefer the idea that phones ring or preferably chirp quietly whilst discretely vibrating or otherwise informing the user of a call. This is far better than having the latest pop tune played over and over on a busy train or bus (yes I did once have the Free Software song as a ring tone but I have learned through using silent mode that doing so is more polite.). Actually what happens is that people are pressured in to purchasing the latest mobile phone accessories and ring tones so as to keep up with everyone else in a sort of designer clothes kind of way. Still gnokii does seem to be very useful and I especially like the signal and battery meters it provides and which might be some time in a panel applet.
Nottingham trip is today
I am going to Nottingham later on today and am going to be around until Saturday at some point when I should return and do some cleaning up. Please do contact me if you are around and think we should meet up for coffee – I will probably be in town at some point during the afternoon.
I opened the Panda adaption kit [oops that should read Panda adoption kit - thanks trj ] I got from my parents as a birthday present. This is a good practical present offered by the WWF.
Jon.