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Opie GUI/PIM Project Reaches 1.0
An anonymous reader writes "The Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (Opie) project has announced its first 1.0 release. Having been forked from TrollTech's Qtopia environment, Opie has evolved into the most sophisticated free and open graphical user interface for Linux based embedded devices and PDAs.
Opie features a sophisticated personal information (PIM) framework as well as several other productivity apps, extended multimedia capabilities and document model, networking and communication tools as well as multi language support for more than a dozen languages. Based on common industry standards like XML, Obex, IrDa et. al. Opie is capable of interacting with lots of devices ranging from cell phones to server backends. Opie is highly optimzed for mobile devices and tries to support the user with shortcuts and ease of use."
One day they will be announcing their second 1.0 release?
Cool thing about Qtopia was that it could be used with Python. Developing GUIs in python is easy and fun
Slashdot didn't link to it, and neither did linuxdevices.com, so I just thought I'd say that the Opie homepage is here.
Will Opie interact with this cell phone?
Why is this forked? Doesn't that lead to double efforts? Is it political or is there a technical reason?
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
"My anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns hon." --Sir Mixalot, circa 1992
Since this is a qt portable related anouncement, I figure people would be interested in it's gtk equivalent.
GPE or the "GPE Palmtop Environment" aims to provide a Free Software GUI environment for palmtop/handheld computers running the GNU/Linux(TM) operating system. GPE uses the X Window System, and the GTK+-2.2 widget toolkit.
They have their own nifty screenshots.
Take Care
A1miras
I think the current state of GUIs for Python is that there is no best choice for GUIs. The major decisions are:
:)
Which OS?
only unix == wxPython or GTK
only MS Windows (eg, needing ActiveX support) == wxPython or MFC
MS Windows or unix == wxPython or Tkinter
MS Windows or unix or MacOS == Tkinter
MacOS and anything else == Tkinter
How much native look and feel for different platforms? If a lot, then wxPython is a better choice for X and MS Windows along with Tkinter.
Do you need a good canvas object? Tkinter is the best solution there.
How stable should the API be? I understand wxWindows' API changes quite a bit between versions. I know one place who developed their own API on top of wxPython's to insulate themselves better. Tkinter's is rock solid. I think GTK's is pretty well established.
How much interaction do you want with the local environment? I want to take a serious look at what can be done with GNOME components for bio&chem, so gtk is the best solution - but maybe wxPython allows access to the gtk parts of things? For MS Windows, wxPython is pretty good at working with other MS Windows codes (eg, you can embed ActiveX inside
a wxWindows display). On the other hand, Visual Basic is very good at that, so a pure Windows solution could use VB for the interface and Python for backend COM components. (That's best if the GUI is mostly menus, forms, etc. For 3D GUIs, like structure visualization, I would use Python.)
How much documentation do you want? Tkinter has a lot. Gtk's is growing (eg, there's a book out now, or at least soon), but in Dr.
Dobb's a couple of months ago, the said that a lot of the more complicated or interesting stuff is still missing. wxPython's is okay, but again it isn't fully documented.
There are other choices, like Qt. Don't know about that toolkit and don't know of anyone using the Python bindings for it. FLTK runs on MS Windows and X, but doesn't provide native feel for either system and doesn't have a very fancy widget set (but still good enough for VMD, a molecular viz. program I helped develop).
Bioreason uses GTK for Unix. I mentioned another site using wxPython and they developed GUIs for MS Windows.
Neither distribute their prorgrams so they don't need to worry about multiple platforms. Both were happy about it the GUI toolkit. Guido uses Tkinter and is worried about multiple platform support.
If I were doing biopython for commercial reasons, I would most likely choose wxPython because it does have good MS Windows support (where the money is) and does run well under Unix (where my heart is). If I were doing it for the cool technology factor, I would choose gtk because of the GNOME support. If I were doing it for widest possible use, I
would use Tkinter. As it is, I'm not doing GUIs, so I don't have to decide
Not much help, was I? Okay, then my final statement is that I've found that the GUI is not that large a part of applications I've worked on, and can be written in such a way that different GUIs can be used with only minimal change to the internals. So it doesn't matter much what you choose.
--
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Can I
Should at least 2 answers be positive (100%), I'd consider installing it.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I can't help wondering if Linux is too much for smaller devices like these. It has a brilliant place in larger systems, and small basic webservers (PII machines of only a few hundred MiHz) but isn't it a bit much for a system the size of embedded machines, devices and PDAs?. I can't help thinking that a more focused coding effort could be spent not on unixifying the entire world, but directing effort more appropriately.
Something the size of the Amiga exec kernel is under 40kb and provides the essentials and runs blindingly fast on single-digit-MiHz machines. How much performance is really being lost in having bigger more complex base kernels?
Question I can't get out of my head is this. All of this equipment already ships with an OS that works and that was custom designed for that piece of hardware...so why rebuild it with linux?
I like linux, I run linux...and it helps me avoid the evil empire that would like to tax me. But palm/etc does not charge me extra for the use of their palm os. I can buy niftly little game packs and everything to fit in a palm that holds all the games of my youth on it...
I just don't understand the need. Except maybe to force layoffs in big companies like palm...when they switch over to this newly made free OS. Thats what the /. community needs...more out of work software engineers.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
anyone else remember the other OPIE? What ever happened to that?
home page
Who says we need income from this ?
There is not much choice if you fork a GPL based project regarding licensing issues.
Oliver Fels
Team Opie
The only real crossplatform need I see is for developers themselves...so that they can easily put mozilla or something on a machine. Whether or not that little doodad needed mozilla doesn't matter...whether or not you even have a keyboard that you can type on(without using a pencil erasor) to type in urls doesn't matter...because at least it migrated well to the new platform right?
gee whiz...
I can tell how badly I am going to get burned by this...even the comments replying to my nasty post are annonymous. :)
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
So this means we have Linux on the Zaurus, PalmOS, WindowsCE, PocketPC, Smartphone, Symbian and now yet another to be added to the list of interesting ideas that will not challenge the market.
Sorry to be cynical, and it does look nice BUT, are PDAs really going to survive more than another year or so ? Already PDA sales are outstripped by about 10 to 1 by Smartphones, and that ratio will only increase in favour of the Smartphone.
So if there was a real desire to create a new OS, why not pick a new platform and aim to create the smallest, most portable and most function rich environment for smartphone development, now that would actually be aiming at a future market that could exist. Of course this is more complex as you'd need to understand the GSM/GPRS/3G stacks and lots of other nasty telecoms elements. BUT at least there is a chance of a large company taking it on.... because in a Hardware driven market the only way to get acceptance is if it is installed on a device upfront.
Its nice to play with this stuff, but wouldn't it be better to go for the future than install it on kit that is obsolete ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Anyone tried running QNX on the IPAQ? Available here There used to be some nice screenshots as well but they seem to have disappeared.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
Yes, you're a troll. Trolltech makes their money by licensing the DEVELOPER, not the end user. Sharp paid Trolltech a license fee for every copy of Qtopia that it shipped on the Zaurus. This where they make their money. The GPL solves 2 problems for them. The first is the acceptance of their products in Open Source distributions. KDE wasn't included in many distros because the licensing was "non-commercial", they re-licensed everything into the GPL/QPL for this reason. The other advantage is that the QPL permits them to roll any modifications back into their codebase. This prevents competitors from stealing their code.
thanks for Opie btw
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
How much performance is really being lost in having bigger more complex base kernels?
It is not a issue with just embedded devices, you might ask as similar question of the Linux Kernel in general.
200+ system calls is getting a wee bit high
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
One of the nice things about Opie is that I'm a contributer to it ;-)
I'm one of those anonymous coders that pops out of nowhere, submits a patch, and it gets accepted. I can't tell you how cool it is to go to a store and see a row of these, and know that it's partly *my* code powering it. I tell ya, it's like e-penis++
...it's difficult to use it in conjunction with mobile phones for dial up without script hacking.
I have an SL5500 and I keep swapping between the Sharp rom image and OpenZaurus. The rom version that came with my PDA was fine but a little out dated. Sharp, in their wisdom, have changed the format for the PIM apps in the new rom which means I can't sync with Qtopia desktop on my Linux box any more. And OpenZaurus/Opie seems to be more suited to those using WiFi/permanently on-line connections rather than dial-up. The e-mail client either supports only IMap or is crap. PPP is a pain to set up. I like the way it works on the earlier sharp rom. Why wasn't that kept? Ideal I would want a combination of all three.
I have to say I haven't tried Opie 1.0 as I'm still running pre0.99. It does seem to be heading in the right direction but it seems unfinished in some areas. I suspect this is because apps are developed by people who want that functionality. I have the source and have looked at updating the bits I need but I don't have the time. I'm afraid I spend all my day at work designing and developing embedded systems and just want to use my PDA without having to develop for it.
Agreed; what the hell else will make sure people have enough time to post here?
Why complain? Go buy a smartphone, and leave those that want an open source PDA environment to develop it for themselves. Honestly, what's the point in saying "What's the point?"? The whole ethos of open source is, if you have an itch, you scratch it, and share your scratch code with the world. Someone obviously wanted this, so they developed it. More fool them if they are heading down a technological dead-end, which I don't think they are, but that's up to them. In any case, I guess a lot of this code can be used on a smartphone, which I guess is what the Tuxphone is.
If only they could have made the phone useful by adding bluetooth or WiFi but their marketing department choose to have it designed as a basic phone. Yes, it has a few features (calc, datebook) but all new phones have those features these days.
I'm guessing they figured it would sell just because it was featured in the movie.
Mabye their right....
The story says it's forked from QTopia. But how is the API in comparison to QT ? I really like developing Programs in QT because it's quite easy and straightforward. One day i might code for PDAs too , but not quite yet (they are too expensive) ;-)
I own a Zaurus C-760. You know, 64 Meg RAM with a 400 MHz Arm processor and a keyboard. It can look like a PDA but I actually don't want a PDA. I use it like a sub-sub-notebook: its VGA screen is good enough for it and the whole machine is small enough to not bother me when travelling.
When you buy it, you have an impressive japanese PDA. I just want something else and I can have it, thanks to OPIE. Dev applications, wired or wireless connection is nicely managed, decent support for non japanese character sets, good processing power, and correct battery autonomy. I would have requested me much more efforts to get all this without OPIE. A great work has been done, thanks to the OPIE/Openzaurus teams I can use my Zaurus the way I want it!
That's one of the strength of libre software when applied to a great piece of engineering...
Qtopia also had licensing problems because the Zaurus uses an SD card, which, like DVD technology, is heavily patented. This prevented Qtopia from making that code available. Somehow the OPIE folks found a way around this. Definite Kudos in order here.
This is just another example of the need for vigilent against those nasty closed hardware specifications like DVD and SD. They're technologies intended to control the user rather than give us new capabilities. That's why I recoomend that people try to support MMC rather than SD when we have a choice. Incidentally, the Zaurus is one of those rare devices that supports both, so when you buy your cards, buy an MMC rather than an SD if you can.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
most people dont ralize, but a whole generation of hand helds gas gone by.. will it run on those. I use a compaq aero with pocket pc 2000 it has a MIPS processor and MS has abandoned that . Cant get upgrades and from the look of things, cant use this either
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I use OPIE on an old P200 laptop with 64 Meg of ram. It makes a real nice desktop PDA/rolodex. It's pretty decent running from a shell using the frame buffer, and makes good use of an otherwise obsolete laptop. It may not be exactly the most portable solution, but at least I have a workable text editor, mail client, and PDA I can take with me on trips. Id thought about offering that to the others in the office, but since its not exactly a Palmtop solution and they wouldn't know what to do with Linux outside the PDA environment, I thought better of it. But for me its nice to have the PDA, and be able to drop to a shell to use basic tools like VI when needed, or play Doom or Quake on the plane.
Anyone got a Revo+ / Mako running this with a window manager yet?
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
To me, Opie just seems pointless. Being based on Qt/Embedded, the Opie environment only runs Qt applications, so most UNIX GUI apps don't work on it. And being a GPL'ed fork of Qt/Embedded, people may not even be able to ever develop commercial software for it even if they were willing to pay Troll Tech's licensing fees.
Now, if Opie were a great self-contained PIM suite, maybe it could survive on that alone. Unfortunately, it isn't: even the cheapest Palm is a much more effective and convenient PIM than the Opie environment.
As far as I'm concerned, GPE is a more interesting project. It may not be as mature as Opie yet, but in the end, it will be more useful. If Linux has a future on handhelds at all, I think it will be based on Gtk+ and X11, not Qt/Embedded.
So does that mean I could buy a Sharp SL-C760 from Dynamism, replace the OS with OpenZaurus, replace the PIM stuff with Opie, and have an SL-C760 in English running completely open source software?
Would there be a hit on storage space from doing this, or could I flash over the Sharp ROM?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
My company is still a major Notes shop and will be for at least a couple of years. Any support for syncing to Notes client or Domino servers?
All in all, I'd say it is definately the Gtk+ equivalent of Qtopia. Maybe GPE will be fine for those sysadmin geek types who like the idea of ssh-ing into their networks on a handheld and who fancy setting up mobile LDAP or MySQL or Apache servers. But looking at the way they have duplicated every major mistake that Qtopia has, I just can't see GPE-based handhelds ever becoming a viable solution for normal people who want the basic PDA functions that Palm has successfully given people for years.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
I'm used to OPIE standing for One-time Passwords In Everything. I'm not sure if I can handle the additional confusion this will create.
I thought the OZ project was maintaining the same kernel that had originally come out for the Z (2.4.6) and that was how they could continue to use the proprietary SD slot driver.
+++ATH0
As i was scrolling past this headline I thought I read the name of something that caught my attention.
Unfortunately the story was not about Southeast Asia drug markets. However, I think this might be a neat, marketable, attention getting name.
Opie gUi/uM
Barney, Andy and Bea?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"optimized", "optimzed", "opie";
it's
"optimized", "optimzed", "optmzd"!
It at least runs on the Dell Axim as well.
+++ATH0
lol
e-penis.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
There are a lot of people with Toshiba Librettos out there, a system like this would be ideal for such machines.
Please if you do something and want to share it don't dismiss it as no useful unless you have checked around!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Opie is capable of interacting with lots of devices ranging from cell phones to server backends. Opie is highly optimzed for mobile devices and tries to support the user with shortcuts and ease of use
That's a lie. I do none of that!
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
I keep checking their webpage to see screenshots of their Calendar and Addressbook applications. Can someone make screenshots available?
Is their Calendar and Address book better than tkcAddressBook and tkcCalendar?
I really wish I could find a Zaurus equivalent of Datebk4 from the Palm IIIxe.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Someone already mentioned it, but as the developer of the Opie sync plugin for MultiSync I just thought I'd plug it again :)
If you want to sync Opie with Evolution, MultiSync is probably your best bet.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/valdes/pilot/pi lOTP/
Even though it refers to the Original USR Palm Pilot, it works on my Handspring Visor Deluxe (PalmOS 3.1H3)
I cant see from your posting who exactly you are accusing of violating the GPL.
Our developers are long time experienced with GPL development and we try to take care of all aspects.
So it would be good practice to give some proof of those accusations.
Regarding your details, I dont have the time to dig around just to find all pieces of information you might have provided somewhere.
So please if you have something to say, say it here.
Oliver
I am not much into that scene, only as the ocassional user, I am sure that if your experiences are pertinent they can put a page with your findings. Or if you have your own website just put it there and Google will do the rest.
;-)
It would be a pity that such effort is not shared thus forcing less proficient people like me to reinvent the wheel
Chhers.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.